Chapter 48
GRACE
White ceiling tiles blur into focus above me. Fluorescent lights buzz, too bright, stabbing through my eyelids, even when I try to close them. Everything hurts. A dull, throbbing ache that pulses through my skull and radiates down my spine.
Confusion swirls through my foggy mind. Where am I? And why am I here?
And then just as quickly, the panic sets in. I jerk up, my body screaming in pain, and the cords attached to me jolt monitors and IVs.
"Wallace!" I screech his name and blink my eyes, trying to bring the room into focus.
But I'm not in the car. My eyes acclimate to the brightness, and I already know based on the needle in my hand and scratchy fabric on my body that I'm in a hospital.
"Hey, take it easy, Sugar." Asher's voice is soothing, the one that comes out after an intense scene when he lulls me back into myself. I respond immediately, my brain and body connected to his.
Confusion still twists inside me, and I clutch at my stomach. I squeeze my eyes closed as I try to recall the events after the gala.
"Where's Wallace?" His name constricts in my throat, and while I'm desperate to know if he's okay, there's a fear that’s rising inside me. Visions of blood dancing in my head.
Asher's head falls, his eyes avoiding mine, and I know without him saying it that Wallace is gone.
I choke on a sob before the tears begin spilling from my eyes.
This is your fault. The words repeat in my head. Asher’s saying something else, but I can't hear it over my own thoughts.
"Sugar." His hands grip my shoulders, not shaking me, but forcing me to look at him, to hear him. "This is not your fault."
I hiccup, and Asher tugs me into his chest, holding me close to him. Breathing in his warm scent, cedar and sea salt, I let myself cry while he rubs circles on my back.
Later, once there are no tears left to cry, Asher finally lets the police interview me.
Apparently, he's been keeping them out to give me space.
I tell them what happened as Asher grips the chair with too much force.
I explain how my former agent jumped into our car and held us at gunpoint.
And I tell them how Wallace caught my eye in the mirror before he crashed the car, a move that ended Richard's life when he flew through the windshield since he never bothered to put on a seat belt.
It also ended Wallace's, as Richard’s finger pressed the trigger, sending a bullet into my driver before his death.
I was fine. Knocked out from the collision. Concussion. Bruised ribs. Some minor lacerations. I'll survive.
I don’t tell them about what else Richard said, that he was bribed to kill me by Asher’s father. I’m not sure if it’s fear of Leonard’s retaliation or that I don’t want to hurt Asher any more than he already is that stops me.
After the police leave, Asher dotes on me, taking care of my every need. But something aches under the service, something he's not telling me. I brush it off. We just went through something traumatic together. But still, that feeling lingers.
It lingers over the next forty-eight hours until I'm discharged from the hospital, only after Asher has the doctors assess every inch of me.
There's a new car waiting for us at the entrance, a sleek black Mercedes, and my gut twists when I see it, knowing it's not going to be Wallace who's driving.
A sob lodges itself in my throat as the sliding glass doors of the hospital open.
I'm so stuck on the car that I don't see the cameras until they flash in my face.
It's not the first time I've had my picture taken while I'm with Asher, but it's the first time I've been in a wheelchair that he's pushing after a car crash that ended the lives of two people.
"Hey!" Asher steps around my chair, blocking the photographer. "Get the fuck away from her." The man doesn't back down, and neither does Asher. A gasp leaves my lips as I watch my husband push the man to the ground as he continues to snap pictures.
Up until this moment, I forgot that our lives were public. That the accident was probably on the news and photos slapped on the papers. People care about the billionaire's wife who almost died.
"Asher…"
He pauses, his darkened eyes looking back at me and softening.
"Let's get out of here, please."
He stops further antagonizing the cameraman and straightens himself before helping me into the car.
We ride in silence, a new driver whose name I don't know in the front seat.
I flinch any time the car hits a bump, gripping onto the handle and wincing, not from pain but from the anxiety that rolls through my chest. I didn't realize being in a car again would be so hard, that my brain would be flooded with memories and visions of blood.
I keep thinking of what Richard said, that this was all a ploy set into motion by Leonard.
I need to tell Asher.
Guilt radiates through me. I want to believe it isn’t true, that maybe I misunderstood him, but deep down, I know what I heard.
Asher helps me up to the penthouse, settling me on the couch as Lisette fetches water and makes me a snack that I said I didn’t need.
“I’m so happy you’re okay,” she tells me, her palm squeezing mine, and I realize that these people Asher employs have become something more to me. A tear drips down my cheek, and I wipe it away as Lisette squeezes my hand again.
“I have to tell you something,” I blurt out once she’s gone.
Asher sits down next to me. “Anything, Sugar.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath before I let the words spill from me. “Richard… he told me it was your father who hired him to… to…”
I trail off, unable to say the words.
Kill me. But I don’t need to. They linger there in the air between us as Asher goes pale.
“I’m sorry,” I say, holding back another sob, causing his steel-gray eyes to pierce me.
“What are you sorry about?” His voice softens, but I can still see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands are flexed on his thighs.
He’s angry. Downright enraged. My brain logically knows I did nothing wrong, but my body shakes, worried that I’ll upset him and that everything happening is all my fault.
“Hey, hey, Sugar.” His calm voice soothes me, and he reaches out, pulling me gently against him. “It’s not your fault, Grace. Please don’t think that. You’re safe here, okay?”
The words put me at ease momentarily, but I have a hard time believing them. “It’s my fault. If I wouldn’t have told you–”
“Stop.” He holds my shoulders and forces me to face him.
“None of this is your fault. That bastard took advantage of you and then when he was to pay the consequences of his crimes, he tried to kill you instead. None of this is because of your actions. It’s because we live in a fucked-up world where fucked-up men think they can get away with whatever they want. Do you understand me?”
I nod, surprised by his words and the emotion held in them.
“This is my fault.” He continues. “I’m the one who tried to take the guy down. I didn’t realize it would set him up for my father to use.” Dropping his head, his voice lowers. “I didn’t realize–” He doesn’t finish, and I’m not sure I want him to.
Instead, I lean in, wrapping my arms around his waist. He hugs me back, and we stay like that for a while, just holding each other.
I used to think Asher was one of those men. Someone who could get anything he wanted with the snap of his fingers. And I guess he still is. He has the money to get whatever he wants. But I saw his face when I told the police what happened, and when I told him what Richard said about his father.
I don’t think he’s a bad person. I think he was raised by one. And maybe that caused him to make some bad choices along the way, but I’m starting to realize that being raised with money doesn’t actually make your life easier. It just makes it harder in different ways.
And I think I would take my middle-class small-town family over his wealthy one any day.
Eventually, I drift off to sleep, and when I wake, Asher is gone.