29. Emily
Beep…beep…beep…
It took me a moment to recognize the sound of a heart monitor as I slowly returned from sleep to the sound of a heart monitor. I blinked, then squinted as bright light stung my eyes.
Where am I…?
It took me several seconds to adjust to the light in the room, and for my eyes to focus properly on the ceiling tiles above my bed. I was in a hospital room.
“Hey, welcome back.” I turned my head slowly and saw Travis sitting in a chair beside my bed. A smile dawned on his face when his eyes met mine. “How do you feel?”
The concern in his voice made my heart ache. I opened my mouth to reply, but found that my mouth was as dry as old leather. “Water,” I managed to say.
Travis reached out and poured a glass from a jug beside the bed. “Here you go,” he said as he put the cup between my clumsy fingers and helped me sit up straighter.
I drank slowly, feeling the water slide down my throat. My memory was fuzzy and I was confused. I didn’t quite remember how I’d gotten here, but for some reason I wasn’t shocked to find Travis Ross beside me. I had a feeling I could remember what had happened to me, but the more I grasped after it, the more the memory eluded me. My mind felt like a child chasing a butterfly that bobbed through the air.
“What happened?” I whispered to Travis.
“You don’t remember?”
“Not enough.”
“We were kidnapped by Bryce Blackwell, you saved me and we got away, thanks to you. Do you remember that much?”
Now that he reminded me, I did. I remembered the escape from captivity and the car chase in the middle of the night. The memory brought back intense feelings and I took a deep, painful breath to steady my mind against the flashbacks. I nodded slowly. “Yeah,” I rasped. “I thought we were dead for sure when the car crashed.”
“Same here,” Travis murmured. “I was terrified for you. We have your friend, Michael, to thank, for our lives. He got your message and went to my brothers for help. He was able to give them our location, and he called the police as well. They arrived just before Kurt could finish the job. It was that close.”
“And Blackwell?” I asked expectantly, although I knew what the answer would be. “Did they catch him?”
Jackson Ross, Travis’s brother, poked his head into the hospital room door. I hadn’t been able to see them so up close before, and I’d been too distracted by Travis anyway.
He was just as handsome as the tabloids made him out to be. It was like another Travis, except in a different flavor… A military flavor? He looked like he could break a man’s ribs just by bumping into him. I shook my head when his broad chest came into view. Can a bullet even pierce through that?
I was still thinking this when yet another flavor of Travis stepped in. A grumpy, glasses-wearing version holding a tablet. This must be Brendan.
How are all the Ross boys so attractive?
I turned back to Travis only to see that his expression was bad. “What? They didn’t catch him?”
Travis looked frustrated. “Unfortunately not. By the time the police got there, Bryce Blackwell had miraculously escaped. He and his son both.”
I gritted my teeth, remembering what they had planned to do to Travis.
“All the cops found were a bunch of thugs,” Jackson agreed bitterly, “who had probably been ordered to stay back to destroy evidence. They ‘confessed’ — he made air quotes with his middle and index fingers— “that they had only kidnapped Travis for a ransom, and that no one else was involved.”
Travis cracked a grim smile. “You, it turns out, were taken erroneously because you were with me. The police had no choice but to arrest the men who had already admitted to the crime. “
He sighed. “Sadly, there’s nothing tying Bryce Blackwell to the crime or the scene. We’ve been trying to get the men to flip on Blackwell, but their mouths are shut pretty tight. They’re willing to go to prison for Blackwell. Maybe they’re afraid of what will happen if they don’t.”
I remembered Jonathan threatening my family and shuddered.
“That’s bullshit,” I whispered. My voice felt better already, and the ache in my head when I woke up had reduced to a dull throb. I looked around the room and realized who I’d been subconsciously expecting to see. “Where’s Michael?”
Brendan raised a brow and frowned in confusion. “Who’s Michael? Are you talking about your friend? Well, he’s outside. We didn’t know the depth of your relationship and we weren’t sure you’d want him by your side.” Brendan shot Travis a glance and Travis nodded, giving the go-ahead for Michael to be let into the room.
“Hey, you’re awake…” Michael was all smiles when he saw me and I smiled back, increasing the throbbing in my temple a notch.
“You got my SOS. Thank you. And thank you for tracking my damn phone.”
“I did. I knew something had gone wrong as soon as the burner phone lit up. I didn’t even go to your house first: I went straight to the Ross brothers when you said you were both in danger.”
“You didn’t need to hack into the house security system to do that,” Brendan Jackson murmured as the third Ross brother, Brendan, appeared behind him.
“I apologize.” Michael raised his hands in apology. “I needed something that could get your immediate attention.
“Well, you managed that,” Brendan murmured, looking amused.
“Thank you so much, Michael.” I took his hand. “What could I ever do without you?”
He raised a brow. “Not a lot, unfortunately. Your tab is starting to run rather high.”
Brendan cleared his throat loudly, interrupting the banter between me and Michael. He glanced from me to Travis, then back to me again. “I really, really wanted to pursue charges against you, Emily. It seems unnecessary to do so now, though, given the situation.”
I smiled weakly.
“We also got our data back,” Brendan continued, “and it doesn’t seem like it was used to do anything malicious. Still, this is not something that we can just sweep casually under the rug. We still need to do a ton of investigations, plug any security risks.”
“We should hire him to help with that,” Jackson interrupted Brendan, pointing at Michael. Michael’s eyes grew huge.
“Yes, sure,” Brendan waved a hand dismissively as though he weren’t offering Michael the chance of a lifetime. “But, Emily…you clearly mean the world to Travis. That’s what swung the decision.”
Joy flooded through me as I remembered how he had come to me, how he had given me a chance to explain my side of the story. How he had proven me wonderfully, gloriously wrong about him in every way.
How he had almost died because he trusted me. I shut my eyes.
The fact that such a good man believed in me meant more to me than anything else in the world. But he had almost died because of it. I pried my eyes open and glanced at him. He was watching me with love clear as daylight in his eyes.
Brendan must have noticed us looking at each other. “Alright then, come on guys. Let’s give the two survivors a private moment. Everyone out.” He shut the door quietly behind him, leaving Travis and I alone in the room.
Travis smiled and shook his head, then slid into the bed beside me. “Nothing has ever terrified me more than when you got shot,” he murmured. “I was so afraid you were going to die.”
A dark, distant look overtook his eyes and I reached out, wrapping his fingers in mine. “Oh, Travis. I was never going to die. I couldn’t die. I had something very important to live for, and even when it got dark, I held on. I could feel your love for me, and I couldn’t die knowing what it would do to you.”
“I love you, Emily,” Travis said in a soft voice. “I tried so hard to fight it. I denied it, I ran away from it. It didn’t matter. I can’t run away from it anymore. I am absolutely and completely in love with you.”
“I’m in love with you too, Travis,” I whispered, surprised to feel tears filling my eyes. “You’re not the only person who lived in denial. Even while I hunted through your files for dirt on you, even while I investigated you. Even as I looked for reasons not to be so helplessly in love with you. All I found were reasons to love you even more. I loved you then, and I love you now.”
Travis’ eyes shimmered and I wondered if he was about to cry too. Before I could find out, he leaned forward and planted the softest kiss on my lips.
In that moment, the world shrank to just us, I forgot all about my injuries and pulled him closer into me, my lips melting sweetly against his.