Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
LAILA
“Laila?” Magnus says, appearing at the end of the row of chairs that are lined up outside James’s hospital room. I glance up from my fingers, which are bleeding from where I’ve torn the skin while waiting.
But his eyes are bright, his smile kind. “Did you want to see him?” he asks.
I get to my feet, moving on instinct toward him. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Magnus says, placing a hand on my shoulder and giving it a light squeeze. “Just a bit of hypothermia. They’ll keep him here for a few more hours, but then he’s coming back with us.” He leans in; his dark eyes have a knowing look in them. “Take it easy on the boy, okay?”
Then he strides off toward Einar, who is standing at the end of the hall, the entire wing blocked off for the royal treatment, so to speak.
I pause outside the door, trying to compose my thoughts, trying to get my emotions together. I’m afraid that the moment I see him, the moment I’m alone with him, I’ll lose all my resolve. It’s been like that under the best of circumstances, let alone when he’s been close to death.
I swallow hard, take in a deep breath, and open the door.
James is in the room, the bed raised to a sitting position. He’s wearing no shirt, and the fact that I can see his bare, hard chest and muscles is more distracting than the IV lines going into his arms.
He gives me a lopsided grin, and that alone nearly buckles my knees.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing a shirt?” I manage to ask, coming over to the end of the bed and stopping there, my hands on the railing, afraid to get any closer.
He shrugs lightly. “I’ve been bundled in a variety of things for the last few hours. I guess the nurse just wanted to see what I was made of.”
I give him a shy smile at that. “How are you feeling?”
Another shrug, one shoulder now. “Out of sorts, to say the least.”
I stare at him like he might disappear before me if I don’t. He stares right back at me, pinning me in place, and I can feel a million different things in his eyes, but I don’t know which one is true. He opens his mouth and exhales, his chest sinking. Then he licks his lips and the intensity in his gaze fades, a moment having come and gone. “How is Bjorn?”
“He’s fine,” I tell him. “Thanks to you he was only in the water for a few seconds. Doctors looked him over, and he’s the same as he ever was. Well, almost. That fall struck the fear of god into him. Would you believe me if I said he’s a changed boy?”
He laughs, the sound making my heart bloom in my chest. “I wouldn’t believe you. Bjorn will be Bjorn until, well, until he turns into Magnus, I guess.”
“I’m not sure how my country is going to fare having King Bjorn follow King Magnus,” I admit. “Complete chaos.”
“Ah, but chaos is what makes things fun,” he comments.
“You sound like you’ve been hanging around Magnus for too long.”
“Perhaps,” he muses. Then his gaze darkens. “Laila…I have some things I need to say to you.”
I raise my hand, looking down at the foot of the bed. “You don’t need to say anything to me, James.”
“I do,” he says, his voice strained. “I do. Look at me.”
I obey, lifting my chin so my eyes meet his. He’s staring at me with so much anguish that it causes cracks to form in my heart. “I have everything to say to you. I am so bloody sorry, Laila. So damn sorry for acting the way I did with you. I shouldn’t have gotten so scared again. I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I shouldn’t have let the fear of losing you make me lose you for good.”
“It’s fine,” I say, but I have to drop his gaze.
“It’s not. I know it’s not. You put your trust in me after I worked so hard to earn it again, and I broke it again. You put it in my hands, expecting me to keep it safe, and I fucking broke it.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “You broke it.”
Tears burn and build but never fall, and inside I just feel hollow and tired and sad.
“Forgive me, please,” he says, his voice breaking.
I nod, running my tongue over my teeth, swallowing the pain down. “I forgive you.”
Because I do. I do forgive him. I know he’s being sincere, and I know he knows he fucked up. I had a talk with Magnus and Ella the other day that told me as much. I was furious with Lady Jane for breaking my confidence in her, but I suppose her duty was always to Ella first. What I didn’t expect was for the two of them to know about our relationship ahead of time, about what happened in London.
I also didn’t expect them to fully support it. I thought for sure one of us would get the boot, but instead both Ella and Magnus were thoroughly invested in us as a couple. Unfortunately for them, there’s no way that James and I will come together now. I can forgive him because it’s the right thing to do, because he almost just died saving Bjorn’s life, just as he came close when he saved mine, and I can forgive him because it’s too much to carry that burden with me. I don’t want to work with him and hate him. I don’t want to be in that house avoiding his gaze, letting something hard build inside me, covering everything that was once soft.
“Do you mean it?” James asks, and I look at him to see the desperation on his brow. “Do you forgive me?”
I nod. “Of course I do.”
He gives me a sad smile. “You say that as if it’s a given. You don’t owe me anything, Laila, but I’m still asking for it.” He holds out his hand. “And maybe you can give me your hand too.”
That feels like one ask too many. I hesitate, my heart thumping awkwardly in my chest. I can forgive him for being scared and pushing me away, but the idea of him touching me again makes me feel like I’ll do more than forgive him.
“Please,” he says.
And I can’t say no to his request.
I come around the bed and place my hand in his. He grasps it tightly, and my blood fizzes where his skin presses against mine, a lightly calloused and utterly familiar grip.
It feels like he hasn’t touched me like this in so long, and it takes everything in me to keep all of that inside me, to bury the gasp my lungs yearn to make.
“You were a brave man,” I manage to say.
His grip tightens. “You make me brave, Laila.” He takes in a deep breath, his gaze consuming, like it’s taking up all the oxygen in the room. “You made me so fucking scared. And then, only then, did you make me want to be so damn brave. It’s all for you, love. I’m sitting here for you, because of you .” His voice cracks on the last word, his grip on my hand taking my breath away.
“James,” I whisper, trying to find the words, but there are no words that will appease him. They don’t appease me either. That’s what’s so awful about all of this.
“I am so sorry I hurt you,” he goes on hoarsely. “I turned into my worst fears.”
“You did,” I say softly.
“And I had you, didn’t I? I had you and I lost you.”
I close my eyes and exhale a shaking breath. “You did,” I say, and those words cement the truth but, god, how I hate the truth.
His fingers loosen at that, and his hand slips away, and I feel him slip away. I feel us slip away. And I want to just crawl onto that bed and kiss him, hold him, tell him that I love him and I don’t care if he hurt me and I don’t care if my heart isn’t safe in his hands.
But self-preservation is an animal we don’t really think about. It lives within us and rears its head when it thinks we might step straight into harm. Right now, it feels like James is harmful, that he’ll hurt me again, so all the dark and hidden places inside me are putting on the brakes. I’m protecting my own heart from being shattered again, even though I’ve barely begun to put together the pieces.
“I don’t want to hate you, James,” I whisper. I dare to open my eyes, but his head is turned, brows furrowed in pain, staring out the window and at nothing at all. “I want to go back to being friends. I like being around you as a colleague, as a housemate. I know it’s hard, but…”
He nods slowly, rubbing his lips together. “It’s hard, but it’s for the best.”
“I don’t have any hard feelings for you,” I add feebly. It pains me to see him like this, so vulnerable, physically and emotionally. I wish he’d been this vulnerable from the start.
“Do you have any soft feelings?” he asks. He moves his head back to look at me, his expression strangely hopeful.
I give him a weak smile. I can’t lie. “I do. They’re all soft for you, James.” I pause. “But that’s why I need to protect them.”
He gives me an equally weak smile in return. “I think that’s smart,” he says, clearing his throat. “I can protect you from everything but myself.”
Oh. God.
How painfully true that is.
It’s a knife to my stomach.
I straighten my shoulders, taking a step back from the bed. I’m shaking inside, sick and terrified that I might forget everything I just told him.
“They said you can leave soon,” I say, my voice sounding unnaturally loud and high-pitched.
“I heard,” he says. “I was hoping I could turn the hospital stay into a little bit of a vacation, but I guess not.”
“I’m sure Magnus will put you on bed rest for a week,” I tell him.
He laughs. “Bloody hell, I hope not. I can just see Lady Jane trying to force me to eat chicken soup by the spoonful.”
I can’t help but laugh too, even though my heart still burns in my chest and my laugh rings hollow.
“Laila?” Ella’s voice comes from behind us, and I turn to see her standing in the doorway, trepidation on her face, her hands clasped in front of her. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say, walking toward her. “I’m done with him.”
At that I hear James’s sharp inhale, like my words cut him, and I force myself not to turn around and look at his face. Of course I didn’t mean it the way it came out, but if I try to take it back, I’ll just make things worse.
Ella’s looking over my shoulder at James sympathetically, and to my surprise that look doesn’t change when she meets my eyes. “I’m heading back to Skaugum with the boys. Did you want to come now or come with Magnus and James later?”
I feel James behind me, the pull to him, the urge to tell her that I’ll come back with him. But I know that’s not what I’m going to choose.
I’m going to play it safe instead. As safe as I can when I’m going back to the same damn place that James is, where only a thin wall separates his bed from mine.
“I’ll go back with you now,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she says, giving James a smile. “I’ll see you later.”
James doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’s waving his hand goodbye, maybe he’s nodding.
I don’t turn around to see.