CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
A UGGIE WAS COMPLETELY SHAKEN . Everything that happened this morning felt jarring and shocking. From them fleeing London, to ending up at this manor house. In the accident...
She had hit her head, but not as badly as he had. The impact had ended up on his side, because he had cranked the wheel sharply and taken her out of harm’s way. The gash on his forehead was severe, but she was more worried about the trauma that the impact might’ve caused.
And now he was looking at her, his dark eyes fixed at a spot just beyond her.
“What?”
“I can’t see,” he said.
“What do you mean you can’t see?” She was so aware that she was stupidly repeating his words like a Muppet, and she couldn’t stop herself.
“Just what I said,” he ground out. “I cannot see anything.”
“We need to call your doctor.”
Panic shot through her. This had to be very bad. And it was entirely possible that there was an injury to his brain.
“You can get into my phone. The doctor’s name is Carlos Valdes.”
She grabbed hold of his phone, which had his blood on it. She grimaced. Then she turned it toward his face and unlocked it, the way that she had done before with his girlfriends. Had that been only a week ago? Had that been the same life even? He didn’t seem like the same man. She didn’t feel like the same woman. She hadn’t even had a moment to try and fully comprehend what had passed between them last night, and now she had to... She just had to save his life.
She called the doctor. “Hello. I am with Matias Balcazar. We are at his country estate in England. I assume you have the address on file.” The receptionist on the other end of the phone confirmed. “He’s been in an accident, and we need a trauma team to come out right away. Fly if you can. He cannot go to a hospital. He needs to be treated here if you can.” He was a billionaire. She knew that he could be treated here. They would bring equipment. “He has a head injury. He cannot see. Please.”
“A team including Dr. Valdes is being dispatched immediately,” the woman said. “Not to worry.”
“How long will they be?”
“Fifteen minutes. They will go by helicopter.”
“Thank you,” she said.
She hung up, looking around the room, trying to avoid looking at him. Because it made her stomach cramp painfully. Then she sat down, looking straight ahead, in the chair next to his. “I’m right here,” she said.
At least the bleeding had stopped on his forehead gash. Though the wound was angry and deep. “They’ll be here soon.”
“I’m being punished,” he said.
“For what?”
“Because I’m not any different than him. And perhaps God is making things right. I blamed my father. I set out to destroy him. Perhaps true justice is understanding that if I am to destroy him for what was done, then I have to destroy myself.”
“Stop. Don’t get nihilistic. You just have to live through this.”
“If I can’t see, I don’t know that I want to live.”
“Stop it. Many people live without their sight. Or various other senses. Do you think that they shouldn’t live?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t. Because you don’t mean that. Which means on some level you must understand that whatever happens, you will learn to live. You will.”
“Perhaps I’m tired. Tired of learning to live in new realities.”
“Don’t get self-pitying. It’s only going to make it worse.”
“You have a bruise on your cheek. Don’t speak to me about self-pity.”
“Matias. You didn’t deserve for this to happen to you. And you will... You will be all right.”
“You don’t know that.”
She didn’t. She was actually just afraid that he was going to suddenly die on her. If something was wrong enough in his brain to take his sight away, who knew what else could suddenly happen. He could have a stroke. Or something. Old anxiety churned through her, along with new.
That she had watched her mother die in spite of all the advancements in modern medicine, grabbed hold of her now. As she looked at the one man she had ever been intimate with, and watched as he seemed mortal for the first time since she had ever met him. Then she heard the sound of rotor blades outside.
“Thank God.”
The next piece of time was a flurry of activity. A stretcher was brought in, and Matias was moved upstairs. There was equipment that came in behind them. And a medical team assembled.
She wanted to follow them, but they kept her sitting downstairs, as they began to examine her.
“You were also in the accident?” the nurse asked, touching Auggie’s cheek. “It looks like you were injured.”
“Yes. But I’m fine.”
She was checked over nonetheless. And given a clean bill of health. Nothing but the contusion on her face.
At that point, Dr. Valdes came back down the stairs.
“Augusta Fremont. You are the one who called for me?”
“Yes. I’m... I’m his fiancée.”
She was. For all intents and purposes. And she was going to use that here.
“We will keep a team here overnight. The concern of course is that the swelling will get worse, and we will have to fly him back to the city to do brain surgery.”
“He doesn’t want to go back. He was... He was bound and determined to leave the city.”
It occurred to her that he probably didn’t want brain surgery either. And she was arguing about medical emergencies that nobody in the room had any control over.
“We will do our best to treat him here. A scan shows that he has swelling in the brain, centered on the optic nerves. Once pressure is relieved, it is highly likely his sight will return.”
“Do you see this often?”
“No. But... It is not unheard of. The concern would be that there’s a possibility for a bleed, or a stroke.”
“Oh.”
“He is very alert. But... His vision.”
“And what if it doesn’t return?”
“That I would assume that the damage done through the compression of the optic nerve isn’t readily repairable. But we would do surgery to see.”
“I see.”
“If he makes it through the night, then he is undoubtedly stable.”
“If he makes it through the night?”
“Without coding. I will not let him die. Don’t worry. We’ll just see if he needs assistance to continue to live.”
“It’s not fair,” she said. “He hasn’t done anything. He didn’t...he didn’t cause this—the paparazzi were after him. It isn’t fair.”
“Unfortunately, in my line of work, what I have learned is that often the good die and the bad live. Pickled by bitterness and deceit. I do my best to try and even the playing field.”
She didn’t know quite what to do, she wanted to go to him, but there was a team up there. She was his fiancée, publicly, and yet she wasn’t. But she was his lover. She was his lover and... That night didn’t even feel real. Because the fantasy had been shattered in such a cruel way.
Finally, when she was entirely alone downstairs, she called the work wives.
They were still in the office, and each picked up at their desks. “Auggie?” Lynna asked. “Where have you been?”
“In an accident.”
Everyone made loud exclamations, and began asking questions all at once.
“I’m with Matias. He’s been injured.”
“You see the headlines. It’s awful. Stories about his sister’s overdose, and apparently there’s a recording of his final conversation with her. And he told her that if she continued on being an addict that everyone would be better off without her.”
Auggie’s heart clenched. “He feels... He feels responsible,” she said. “And now I know why. But I know that there were other circumstances leading up to her death.”
“His father is playing the victim, painting him as a Machiavellian madman who always planned to put a rift in the family, who was part of his own sister’s destruction, and who then actively worked against his father. Basically, they’re saying that everything he has pretended to be all this time is a lie.”
“Well, it is,” Auggie said. “He’s hurt.”
“Oh, no,” Maude said.
She noticed the other two didn’t react. “He isn’t everything they’re saying,” Auggie said. “I know he’s not. You just have to trust me. His father is a terrible man. And no, Matias isn’t everything that he appears to be. And he does feel like he has some responsibility to take for his sister’s death. But it isn’t like that. His father is the one who manipulated his children. He treated his daughter like trash. And he treated Matias... He made him feel like he didn’t have another choice but to do all of his bidding all the time.”
“Everybody has a choice,” Irinka said.
“But some choices are harder to make depending on where you’re from.”
Irinka looked at her sharply, but didn’t say anything.
“I’ll keep you all posted,” she said.
They all got off the phone, and she breathed out heavily. Then her phone rang again. Just Irinka.
Not on a video call. Auggie picked it up. “Yes?”
“You slept with him, didn’t you?”
“What makes you ask me that?”
“Because you’re so sure of him. And because you’re clearly staying wherever he is.”
And not giving details on his injuries. Because she felt protective. She trusted her friends completely, and yet she found she couldn’t talk about what had happened today.
“I didn’t see why I shouldn’t. Since he was going to be part of my reputation either way.”
“This is a disaster for us, Auggie. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Not if we stick it out,” Auggie said. “Because I don’t believe that he’s a bad person. And I do believe that it will all come together in the end. I do.”
“Why do you believe that?”
“Because I have to. Because...” Because she had already watched her mother die. Because she had built this up from nothing, and she wasn’t foolish enough, or na?ve enough, or even traditional enough to buy into the idea that she could have a happy ending here with him just because the idea was nice. But she did believe that she was a better judge of character than all that. She did believe that the man that she had gone to bed with was a decent one. She believed that he was the good guy, and she just wanted to believe that things were going to be okay. But she knew from experience that they might not be.
That his father was the bad guy. And she wanted to be part of making sure the world knew it too. She didn’t know how to explain all of that to Irinka.
“It isn’t just that I’m attracted to him,” she said softly.
“I hope not.”
“He’s hurt, I can’t leave him now. And if I do, it will be even worse for us.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Trust me. Trust me please. That I can fix this.”
“I will. Because you’re my friend. Because you haven’t been wrong about moves with the business before. But it does kind of seem like every wrong thing has included him.”
“I know. So just let me... Let me see it through.”
“Where will it end? Are you going to marry him? Have his babies?”
The idea made her feel warm.
“No. But let me help him rebuild.”
“Okay, Auggie.”
She hung up the phone, and stood there, staring out the window at the back garden for a very long time. She didn’t want to believe that she had ruined everything with this. But it was possible that she had.
But for now, she was going to do what she could for Matias. Because the truth was, she had thrown her lot in with him, and she had to see it through.
And more than that... She cared about him. Because she knew what it was like to be alone in the world. And she had her friends. He had his money. It wasn’t enough. She knew that it wasn’t.
She took a deep breath and her chest ached.
Then she sat down in that same chair she had been in beside him earlier. And she drifted off to sleep.