Chapter twenty-four #2
“Just doing my job,” he says. “I’ll request you’re kept here until Monday. I’d like to scan the baby again then, to be sure all is okay. Would it be all right if I checked some of your vitals?”
“Sure.” He walks over and places his stethoscope on my chest, then my stomach. He smiles then checks my pulse. I glance at Samantha who is watching him with her jaw almost on the floor. She signals to his back and mouths the words hot fucking doctor. When I look at Harry, he’s glowering at her.
“All good, as I said,” Dr. Jones advises. “Now get plenty of rest, and I’ll see you on Monday.” He turns and leaves.
“Fucking sex god doctor,” Samantha announces. “I wonder if he’s married. I’d call him daddy any day.” Harrison groans in disgust.
“He was wearing a wedding ring,” I tell her, and she pouts.
“Shame,” she mutters with a shrug.
“Why would you notice if he had a wedding ring on?” Harrison interjects.
“Jealous much?” Samantha jibes. “Anyway, I best be off and leave you two lovebirds to it. I have to say that was an extreme way to get together. Have you never heard of dating like normal people?”
“Unfortunately, things are never that straightforward,” I say with a chuckle. She kisses my cheek, rises, then skips out of the door.
“Can you help me sit up?” Harrison stands, then supports me to sit straighter before pressing the button to raise the bed’s back.
He props pillows around me too. As he leans over to my other side, our gazes meet.
We stare at one another, our eyes searching each other’s.
My breathing accelerates with my heart. He touches my face gently, then places a kiss on my forehead.
“I love you,” he whispers. I move my hands to his forearms to hold on. At this moment, I never want him to leave.
“I love you too.”
“Do you want anything?” he asks. “Water? Something to eat?” I shake my head. The thought of food turns my stomach. I retch, but nothing materializes. “Shit, Violet. Are you okay?”
“Pass me that bedpan,” I mumble. He places the gray cardboard basin in front of me, and I promptly spew the contents of my stomach into it. Harrison’s hand moves to my back, gently stroking up and down my spine. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” he says with me curled over the container and him still massaging my back.
“Do you think you’ll be sick again? I’ll get you a fresh one.”
He picks up the disgusting item and disappears out into the hall, returning a few minutes later with more.
Then he walks into the bathroom and appears back with a glass of blue liquid.
He places one basin on my lap and passes me the water.
“Mouthwash, swirl and spit,” he instructs.
I do as I’m told. "Again." After I comply, he removes the basin once more, putting it on the floor.
“What happened?” I ask him.
“What do you remember?”
“The clinic. The car. Then something hit us, and we spun across the road. I banged my head, I think.” He nods. “But after that, nothing.”
“We were lucky,” he says. “The bastards hit us outside the front of the hospital. Dr. Jones saw the accident and came to help within minutes. You were unconscious, and your leg had been injured by glass from the smashed windows. I’m sorry, Violet. I didn’t see the van. You, me, the baby,
we all could have died.”
He visibly tenses. His hand moves to his hair in frustration then he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“But we didn’t, and we’re here. You came to get me, Harry. After everything, you took a risk and came for me.”
I sigh softly. Fuck, I love him more than I realized.
“What is our plan now? Has my father been in touch? My mother? Is she okay?”
The events come back to me at once. My mother took a risk helping us.
I hope she’s not suffering as a consequence.
I pray my father doesn’t suspect she was involved with my escape.
I want to ask Harry a million questions.
“Your mother is fine. The police came to the accident quick enough that your father’s men left. Hunter has people watching the hospital, and Damon is on your door. He wanted to guard you personally.” He smirks. “Didn’t think I was up to the job.”
“Russell and Connor?”
“They’ve been here to visit, but they’re at The Level now. Do you want to see them?”
I shake my head. “The only person I want to be with is here,” I say, and he holds my hands in his.
“I’m so sorry, Violet, for…” he pauses, “for everything. When we had that night in June, I didn’t want you to leave. The way I acted in the morning was ludicrous. I fully expected you to be in my apartment when I got home. Then you were gone, and we couldn’t find you.”
“I shouldn’t have run again. It was immature of me. I should have stayed and spoken to you. Discussed our situation and what we both wanted from it.”
“We both made mistakes.” He swallows. “Back when we were practically kids and now. That time, your first time, it was special. You and me together like that. I’d adored you since that first Christmas we met, when you sat across from me at the table and I had to pretend not to look at you.”
I chuckle. “The feeling was mutual.” One hand lets go of mine, then traces my shoulder and down my arm.
“When I came back from university, you were eighteen, all grown up.”
He flashes me a panty-wetting grin. “Well, you thought you were.”
I slap his arm. “You’d gone from the girl I crushed on every weekend when I visited to a woman I wanted to be with. It unnerved me. Then the lake happened…”
I laugh out loud remembering the incident.
“Poor Brandon,” I say, shaking my head. “The boy got one hell of a shock when you threw him and his bike into the lake. All he did was say hello and ask me out for ice cream.”
“That’s the right day but the wrong incident you’re remembering.”
“You mean behind the ice cream shop?” He nods. “You all took me for a cone after throwing my date in the lake.” His gaze runs over my face. I cock my head to the side as I remember. “When you tried to kiss me, and I rejected you? That incident?”
“You didn’t reject me,” he argues. “I told you no.”
“Nonsense,” I mutter, and he laughs. He’s beautiful when he’s happy. I want to be the reason he smiles. “You could barely keep your hands off me. If Russell hadn’t walked around the corner, I may have had my first sexual experience there, pinned up against the wall next to the recycling bin.”
He bristles at my comment. “Your first time shouldn’t have happened the way it did. A stolen moment in your bedroom with no conversation afterward. It was incredibly selfish of me. You should hate me.” He drops his eyes from mine.
“Look at me, Harry,” I tell him, and he peeks up through beautiful dark lashes.
The man in front of me isn’t the strong in-control lawyer with all his ducks in a row.
He’s vulnerable sitting here, having this conversation.
“Perhaps how it happened wasn’t the ideal way, but it was with the right person. I wouldn’t change it.”
His lips crash into mine, and he kisses me deeply, — strong hands cupping my head, holding me to him. I pull back, breathless, my chest visibly rising and falling.
“Fuck, I want to take you home,” he whispers against my lips. “But I can’t.”
“Not for a few days,” I tell him.
“No, Violet, you’re not moving in with me,” he says firmly.
“Why?” I snap, pulling away. “Is this you withdrawing again? You haven’t even got my panties off. It must be a fucking record for you running.”
“I'm not running. Listen to what I have to say.”
He stands then walks over and makes sure the door is closed tight.
“Your father will look for you at my house,” he says, turning back to me.
“I need you to be somewhere safe with someone who can support you through the remaining months of your pregnancy.”
“You could do that if you wanted to. That apartment is like a fucking fortress.”
“Listen,” he repeats, walking back to my side. “Mrs. D. lives in the same building. She has a spare room. I’ve arranged for you to stay there.”
“But I don’t want…” He raises a hand to stop me from speaking.
“Violet, I want this to work between us. It’s you I want to be with for the rest of my life. But.” He widens his eyes. “You only came back to London in June. You’ve been in a long-term relationship with a man who lied to you. Do you think jumping into one with me is a good idea?”
“You’re not Aiden,” I argue. “You love me.”
“I do, and that’s why I’m doing this. At Mrs. D.’s you’ll be safe, and I can see you every day, but you’ll have your own space more than two doors away. If you stayed in my apartment, I doubt I’d keep my hands off you.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.”
He smiles sexily and my heart beats harder.
“You’re six months pregnant. You’ve been through hell. I want you to take some time for yourself. I need you to figure out if it’s me you really want, because I can’t lose you. I’d rather not start this at all if that’s what happens.”
“So, you want to be friends?” I splutter, my thoughts completely in disarray with our conversation. He saves me, then rejects me.
“No, I want to be a lot more than friends,” he says, sitting down on the bed beside me.
It sags slightly under his weight. “I want to take you to bed every night. I want to get down on one knee and ask you to be my forever. I want to have a home with you.”
He stops speaking and places a hand on my swollen belly.
“I want to call this amazing little human you’re growing mine.”
“I don’t understand, Harry,” I whisper as tears fill my eyes. They escape down my cheeks.
“Know this,” he says. “I want you forever. All I’m asking is you take some time to be sure that’s what you want too. In the meantime, you stay with Mrs. D. I’ll see you every day. We can talk. We can kiss. We can pretend to be teenagers.”
He pecks my cheek. “This is me giving you time. This is me wanting you to have a choice. Enjoy being in control of your destiny.”
He lays his forehead against mine. “But I pray you choose me.”