Chapter 55
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Gaines
I stroll through the ED after meeting with Eloise’s parents and her brother. Draco took the news that his sister was brought in by ambulance hard. I sensed that he’s the type of brother who would move heaven and earth to put a smile on her face.
I shook his hand, told him I loved her, and vowed to do right by her.
She hasn’t woken yet, but I won’t break that promise.
I need to figure out what I’ll say to her when she opens her beautiful eyes.
I glance up as I get closer to trauma room one.
Eloise hasn’t been moved to CCU yet because we’re waiting on a bed.
A man in his early twenties is staring at the door to her room. I approach him cautiously, convinced he’s looking for a relative or friend who is in the ED.
It’s not uncommon for people to lose their way in the corridors of this department.
When he glances my way, I stop in place.
I’ve seen him before.
“Will she be okay?” He rubs his chin. “Her name is Eloise Rehn. I’ve been trying to get in to see her, but no one will let me.”
I won’t either because the guy in front of me is the same guy that was in the framed photograph with Eloise that I saw in the drawer of her nightstand.
He had a hand on her when she was wearing a bikini.
“You are?” I ask, ignoring what he just said to me.
“Lynton Zale.” He swallows hard.
“How do you know her, Lynton Zale?”
He drops his head. When he looks up again, tears are clouding his eyes. “I’m her best friend. I’ve always been her best friend, but we… I never should have left the way I did.”
“Lynton!”
I turn to see Draco sprinting toward us. He rounds me to get closer to the guy claiming to be Eloise’s best friend. “They said we can’t see her right now.”
I look to Draco for more information but I don’t need to hear him speak a word. He wraps an arm around Lynton’s shoulder and tugs him closer. He presses his lips to Lynton’s forehead. “She’ll be okay, babe. This is her boyfriend. Dr. Morgan.”
“She’ll be all right?” Lynton looks at me, his eyes pleading for an answer. “I never got a chance to tell her I was sorry I left New York the way I did, but my heart was broken.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Draco cradles him in his arms. “That was all my fault.”
“I didn’t know how to apologize to her,” Lynton confesses. “When I was here visiting Eloise, Draco and I hooked up. I wanted a relationship. Draco didn’t. I couldn’t take it, so I just left without a word.”
“He doesn’t need to know about all our bullshit.” Draco comforts him with a pat on the back. “We found our way back to each other. That’s all that matters. That’s all she’s going to care about.”
“I’ll be able to tell her I’m sorry?” Lynton asks me. “That’ll happen.”
I glance through the glass to where Eloise is. She’s hooked up to monitors and oxygen but she’s improving by the minute. “You’ll need to get in line behind me, but yeah, it’ll happen.”
“Is she in love?” He looks to Draco to answer that.
I do it for him. “I believe she is. I know I’m in love with her, and I’ll love her until I die.”
I catch sight of someone else heading this way, so I excuse myself. “I need to take care of something.”
Both men nod as I walk away.
“How is she?” Daxton tries to look past me.
“You should be in the waiting room with Penny.”
“I can’t.” He drops his gaze to the floor. “Els entire family is here, aren’t they?”
I nod. “They came as soon as they heard what happened to her.”
He takes a step to avoid a nurse running right into him. She apologizes for staring at her tablet screen, but I hurry her along by asking her to check on one of my patients in CCU.
“What should I do, Dr. Morgan?”
“Do what’s right,” I tell him. “When Eloise is strong enough, and her heart can handle it, you need to talk to her.”
“I should talk to her brother and her dad first.”
I nod. “That’s a good start.”
“Or I guess my brother and my dad,” he whispers.
His confession at Atlas 22 may see the light of day, after all, even though he vowed it never would.
When he told me he suspected that his father wasn’t his biological dad, I had no clue where he was headed with that. But a DNA sample submitted to an ancestry site offered him some of the answers he was searching for.
As he sipped the champagne meant for Berk, Daxton explained that his DNA was a familial match to Draco Rehn, who had also submitted a sample years ago.
He tried to contact Draco through the site, but when he got no response, he dove deeper.
That led him to New York, and before he could summon up the courage to go to Buffalo to introduce himself to Draco and his father, he collapsed at the restaurant.
When he woke up, his half-sister was suddenly a part of his life.
“I told my mom earlier.” He shuffles from one foot to another. “She never knew the guy’s name she slept with. It was at a hotel in Vegas. She was there for work. He was at a conference and I was conceived.”
The details don’t matter. The people involved do.
“Tread carefully,” I warn him. “This impacts a hell of a lot of people, including Eloise.”
“I will,” he promises. “She has CPVT, doesn’t she? She has what I have.”
I can’t answer that yet, so I don’t. “She’s undergoing tests.”
“If I had told you weeks ago that she was my sister, you could have checked her out, right?” He sobs. “This wouldn’t have happened to her.”
“Don’t go there,” I tell him because it’s what I’ve had to tell myself to get through the past twenty-four hours.
I’m a goddamn cardiologist.
She felt faint. She experienced chest pain and increased heart rates. I’m second-guessing if that fall she took when the devil was on her heel was caused by the wet pavement or if she passed out because her heart short-circuited.
There’s a damn good chance she raced out of the club the night we were together because her irregular heartbeat was too much to bear.
“I’ll make this right for her,” he says. “For all of us.”