CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Hardy
I expect her anger when it comes.
Even as she’s wincing in pain from the jolts in the road—and it feels like I hit every goddamn bump—I anticipate it.
I’m not sure why I know it will be there, but I am.
“I didn’t need you to pay my hospital bill for me,” she says quietly.
Hmm. Assumed I had a bit more time before she figured that out.
“Who said I did?” I lie.
“I’m not a charity case like the newspapers painted me out to be. I don’t want your pity.”
But I saw where you live. I know that only Suri and Martin visited you. I know how hard you work and how little you take for yourself.
Sue me for wanting to take care of it for her.
“No one said you were,” I respond. “And I sure as shit didn’t offer any.”
“And yet you felt the need to overstep your authority and pay when—”
“You’re alive, aren’t you? Would you have rather I didn’t worry when you didn’t show up for work and left you in your place dying from a ruptured appendix because you were too goddamn stubborn to tell me how much pain you were in that night? Or to call 9-1-1 yourself because you were afraid of the cost?”
I don’t know where my own anger comes from, but it’s there and it’s real and I just keep picturing her delirious on her floor. What would have happened had I not come along?
“I’m a lot of things, Whitney—a lot—but when it comes down to it, I’m a good guy. I know you’ve been through a hell of a lot but so have I. You scared the bloody hell out of me, and the reason you know that is because I haven’t stepped foot inside a hospital since my father died. But I did this week. I did for you.”
I pound a fist on the steering wheel, hating that my voice just broke. Fucking hell . What is it with this woman and the emotion she evokes in me?
We drive for a few miles, silence eating up the space in my car.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“I don’t want your thanks. I just ... it’s going to take a long damn time to erase the visual of how I found you. If ever.” I grip the steering wheel with both hands and fight the urge to yank the wheel over to the curb so I can haul her against me and feel with my own hands that she’s okay. I don’t, but I fucking want to. “I care, dammit. I care about you whether you like it or not, so stop apologizing and thinking you aren’t worth it or deserve it or whatever the hell is going through your head because you do. You just fucking do.”
She glances my way and holds my gaze for a split second before I look back to the road. But the look in her eyes and the slight nod tells me she gets it. She understands me.
It’s either that or she’s high on pain meds and won’t remember shit about this conversation.
Maybe that would be better. Who the fuck knows?
We drive a bit more, but I can’t hold back the question I’ve had circling in my head for a few days. It’s inappropriate, it’s uncalled for, but I ask it anyway. “How much money do you take in salary, Whitney?”
“None of your business.”
“How much?” I demand.
“Enough to get by,” she says, barely audible.
“So you pour your heart and soul into the academy and you take nothing in return? Is that right?”
“What’s wrong with preferring to put the money back into the business? Martin deserves a fair wage, and the facility always needs upkeep. The equipment ... kids are hard on equipment,” she says almost as if to justify her making peanuts. “What’s so wrong with doing whatever it takes to keep the doors open in order to save other kids like it saved me?”
“Nothing is wrong with it, but you deserve more. Better. A place—”
“A place? So we’re talking about my apartment now?”
“It’s not safe.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“What’s that?”
“What it’s like to never have anything in your entire life that’s yours. To move from house to house, almost as if you’re renting their clothes, their bed, their food, because nothing ever is really yours except for the small duffle bag you get to bring with you. So that place as you call it might not be up to your standards, Alexander Hardy, but it’s the only thing I’ve ever had to myself, and it’s one hundred percent mine.”
Jesus. Her words hit me hard, and I struggle with finishing my train of thought. How to validate her comment while expressing my fears. “I hear you. I don’t understand because I’ve never been in your shoes, but I hear you. It’s just ... the neighborhood is unsafe. You might have four locks on the front door, but I had the back door kicked in in seconds.”
“You what?” she gasps.
“How do you think I got to you? How do you think the paramedics got in?”
“My door. My stuff. How is—”
“I got Frieda to board it up and schedule a new one to replace it. It’s safe. Your stuff is safe. I have it all under control.”
She looks out the side window, and I’d give anything to know what she’s thinking.
“I didn’t say that to make you embarrassed.” Wrong thing to say, Hardy. “I just ...”
“Please just take me home.” She gasps in pain but grits her teeth to hide it. “I’ll figure out the back door. I’ll—”
“You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m taking you back there. Not while you’re recovering. Not in this heat with no AC. Not with no one to look out for you.” I see her lying on the floor. I hear her incoherent gibberish. I remember the fear snaking down my spine. “Just ...” Let me take care of you.
But the thought dies when I look over to see her eyes closed and her chest rising and falling.
Thank fuck for strong pain meds and for her being asleep.
It’s going to make what I plan to do next a whole lot easier for me.