Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
ROSE
It was several minutes before I realized Linda had pulled me off Natasha. My hands throbbed, and I stared at them in disbelief.
Natasha was on the ground, screaming obscenities. Blood oozed from her busted lip, and both her cheeks were bright red with handprint marks.
What the hell?
I slapped Natasha a few times. As if that weren’t bad enough, I pulled her hair and scratched her like a wild animal.
As the reality of what I had done sank in, the door swung open, and Caden marched inside. He looked at the scene, his eyes immediately locking with mine.
Without a second thought, I ran to him, the adrenaline overpowering the pain in my hands. Similar intuition had him pulling me to his chest, his hand sliding around my waist protectively. My fingers clung to his shirt in perfect synchrony.
The comfort of his warm embrace slowed my racing heart. His body was tense under my touch, a subtle shift in his posture as he processed my mood. He checked my pulse, and I realized he intentionally put off demanding answers until I had calmed down.
Linda stood next to Natasha, unsure whether she should help the poor woman. She seemed to be awaiting Caden’s orders.
“What the hell’s going on?” he finally asked, barely holding back his anger.
I peeked over my shoulder to see Natasha’s face twist. “Oh my god, Dr. Maxwell,” she cried. “She’s crazy. She—she went insane and attacked me. She should be committed. Linda saw everything. Tell him,” she implored Linda, who had nothing to say.
I felt Caden’s hand reach my back, pulling me closer until I was practically glued to his chest. It was difficult to see Natasha with his arms wrapped around me so tightly.
“What did you do?” he asked. I thought he was talking to me before realizing the question was directed at Natasha.
My heart twisted with guilt when she broke down in sobs. In between wiping her tears and the blood, she said, “I didn’t do anything, Dr. Maxwell. She overreacted and started attacking me. She would’ve killed me if Linda hadn’t stopped her.”
“Is this true?” he breathed against my ear.
What was wrong with me?
Before today, I didn’t think I was violent. The world suddenly went black, and I couldn’t snap out of it. Had Linda not stopped me, I would have kept going.
Perhaps Caden wasn’t the monster in the room, maybe it was me. I should be committed and face the consequences of my actions.
“It’s true,” I whispered.
I’d be lying if I said I attacked her for trying to strip me. One slap would’ve sufficed for self-defense. But I attacked her like a rabid dog, and I only did it after she said…
You stupid bitch.
I lost it when she uttered those words. Before I could stop myself, my hands had flown up without my permission. The sharp crack of the slaps had echoed throughout the room, followed by Natasha’s piercing howl when I clawed at her neck and face.
I couldn’t place the source of the trigger, but I knew someone had said those words to me before. They were ingrained in my soul, and I reacted without knowing why.
Natasha lifted her head, her puffy face a mask of indignation. “See? I told you. This whole doe-eyed thing is an act. She’s crazy.”
The taut muscles on Caden’s chest tightened. “Why?” he asked me.
“I-I don’t know,” I replied truthfully.
Caden turned me to face him. Wholly ignoring Natasha, he held open my palm. “Let me see your hands.”
I lifted my head, confused. “My hands?”
Natasha needed medical attention. The scratches on her face and neck were getting worse, and one eye looked swollen shut. He was a doctor. Why wasn’t he patching her up?
He gently opened my palms to examine the reddening skin. “Fuck,” he spat. He turned to Natasha, mouth turned down. The veins in his face pulsated like a roadmap of fury. “Look at what your face did to her hands!” he snarled so loudly that I jumped.
Three jaws dropped simultaneously—mine, Linda’s, and Natasha’s.
Natasha sputtered, “B-but she hit me !”
I was thinking the same thing. I was at fault. Sure, Natasha said horrible things, but my actions were unjustifiable.
Caden was furious at Natasha’s face for hurting my hands, but he was no less angry with me. “Your hands are swollen, Rose. Do you want to spend the rest of this cruise in the medical suite? If you wanted to slap her, why didn’t you have Linda do it?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. I expected him to reprimand me for my unruliness, but he was angry that the viciousness of harming someone else had left me with injuries.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, smoothing a thumb over my palm.
I shook my head, flabbergasted.
His ire landed on Linda next. “Why didn’t you stop her?” he barked.
Linda straightened. “Um?—”
“She tried to stop me, but I was too fast,” I said quickly, not wanting the woman to lose her job on my account.
“I’m docking your pay for the day. It’s your first and only warning.”
Linda glared at Natasha, the woman responsible for her pay cut. She seemed seconds away from pouncing on her, too, but was careful not to direct her wrath at Caden. Instead of protesting, she apologized, “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Caden guided me to the couch, throwing Linda an order over his shoulder. “Grab the ice pack from the fridge.”
She ran to grab a compress. Natasha yowled for someone to help her up as she could barely stand. Linda merely stepped over her to rush the ice back to Caden.
His jaw clenched when I hissed at the impact. Once more, he glanced at Natasha, his anger bubbling like lava. “You’ll pay for this.” He nodded at Linda, who seemed to have been holding back for an unspoken command.“Throw her in the brig.”
Brig.
I must have spent a lot of time on cruises because it took me mere seconds to recall why the word sounded familiar.
A brig was a temporary holding cell for passengers or crew members who committed serious offenses.
Most ships had a small, secure room—much like a jail cell—where they detained people for assault or drug possession until reaching the next port.
There, offenders would either be handed over to local authorities or forced to disembark and find their own way home.
“No. Please, Dr. Maxwell,” Natasha protested in a whisper-yell. “Please, don’t do this.”
Guilt dragged me to the center of the earth.
I belonged in the brig, not her. What Natasha needed was urgent medical care, not to be thrown into solitary confinement. I couldn’t assault her and let her be punished for my crimes.
Linda stepped forward. Before I could process what was happening, she grabbed Natasha by the arm and pulled her to her feet. The stylist ripped away from her and fell back on the floor, reaching out a hand toward Caden.
“Please, Dr. Maxwell!” she wailed, but was cut off when Linda grabbed her again. This time, she dragged Natasha across the floor and toward the door. Natasha did everything in her power to resist, and it turned into a violent battle of wills.
“Oh my god,” I cried out. “Tell Linda to stop.”
Caden apathetically watched the scene unfold. “This is how security handles people who cause problems. I wouldn’t want to interfere with their protocol.”
He was being deliberately obtuse. He was the law on this boat and could stop the woman’s suffering at the snap of his fingers. Linda was pissed about losing a day’s pay and blamed Natasha for it. She was being unnecessarily rough, and Caden was letting it happen—as a punishment for my injuries.
It was a twilight world where the victim of my assault was being punished for causing me adverse side effects. Whether Natasha was a good or bad person was irrelevant to her current treatment. I couldn’t ignore her heart-wrenching pleas as Linda dragged away her injured and unwilling body.
“Caden, please.” I turned to him, and whispered, “Please ask Linda to stop. She’ll listen to you.”
It was Natasha’s turn to be blindsided. In her enraged emotional state, she forgot her sticky situation. She stopped fighting Linda, and shouted, “Don’t call him by his first name. He goes by Dr. Maxwell.”
My eyes widened as the woman’s obsession with Caden settled like yesterday’s dust. She was deeply in love with him, and he…he was cruel.
Caden looked ready to murder Natasha, eyes radiating with rage I hadn’t seen before. Her suggestion that I shouldn’t use his first name prompted a fury much worse than the deliveryman, Jace, or the assault. “Get her the hell out of my sight,” he thundered.
Natasha protested again, which only made Linda haul her more aggressively for the last stretch to the door.
I shook my head at Caden, but he ignored me.
I begged him to change his mind, yet he remained unmoved.
It seemed his anger wasn’t only directed at Natasha.
He was pissed at me, too, not for hurting Natasha but for putting myself at risk while doing so.
Finally, I placed two hands on his broad shoulders, hoping to make him see reason. “Please, Caden. My hands feel better, and I’m sorry for letting myself get injured. I won’t let it happen again. Please ask Linda to let her go.”
“You promised me this morning that you’d be careful.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
His eyes flashed. “Next time you feel like slapping someone, have one of the guards do it. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes. I understand.”
“What do you understand?”
“If I feel like slapping someone again, I’ll ask the security to do it,” I parroted. “I promise. Please just let her go.”
With a deep inhale, he tilted his head at Linda. It was barely a nod, but the signal was enough—she let Natasha go.
Natasha stood on shaky legs, eagerly fleeing the scene as quickly as her injured body would allow it.
She was in no state to pack up her merchandise.
Not that it mattered. Caden haphazardly informed Linda we were keeping the entire inventory and to settle the bill with Natasha.
He also assigned her an extra shift for tonight, because clearly, I needed more supervision than one guard could provide.
The shift came with overtime pay and an evening rate that superseded her day rate.
Incentivized by the bonus, Linda left to carry out his bidding. Caden continued icing my palm. The palm I used to hit someone. All the while, he warned me that if I pulled a stunt like that again, I wouldn’t leave this suite for the rest of the cruise.
His expression eventually softened, and my apprehension ebbed away.
Though initially unsettled by how he treated his employees, I recognized the fairness in Caden’s approach.
He had deliberately humiliated Natasha so she would never target me again.
Nonetheless, he purchased her entire inventory, rewarding her team’s hard work for setting up this faux shop with a substantial commission.
It also compensated Natasha for my violent attack.
Likewise, he assigned Linda overtime duties, affording her the chance to recoup the wages he had previously docked.
He was ruthless yet somehow just.
“Take these.” He placed two ibuprofens on my tongue and held a glass of water to my lips.
“Thank you,” I whispered, gulping down the cold water.
Once my hands no longer throbbed, he put away the ice pack. He brushed a strand of hair from my face, and I couldn’t help leaning into his touch. When he pulled away, the loss of contact left me feeling oddly bereft.
My mind whirled with conflicting emotions.
I should be alarmed by his actions, but I kept returning to how he took my side, even though I was in the wrong.
He didn’t demand a reason for my irrational behavior, either.
It was somehow endearing that he wasn’t bothered with morals or the right thing where I was concerned. His only bottom line was my welfare.
Someone having your back unreservedly was heady for an unclaimed woman who woke up behind a dumpster. Perhaps I had jumped to conclusions about Caden. How could I suspect him of harming me when he was unconditionally on my side?
Yes, he lied about knowing me. Maybe he had his reasons for concealing our past association. He was a doctor, after all, and he knew better than me about how to deal with traumatized patients. He was probably worried I would go into shock if he revealed too much at once.
Not to mention, my mind had been playing tricks on me, as recently demonstrated.
Who was to say I was right about the things I remembered?
My recollections were unreliable, and it was for the best I didn’t tell him some of my memories had returned.
Instead, I should let him guide my recovery as he saw fit.
There was no reason to be wary of Caden.
Truth be told, I was finding myself less concerned with my previous life while his warm arms were wrapped around me.
All that mattered was this man in my present, not his role in my past. His unwavering support warmed me from the inside out, chipping away at the walls I had built around myself.
Especially when he looked at me like I was the only person on earth.
The way he indulged me made me forget my fears, my doubts, and the nightmare haunting me. In this space between us, I felt safe.