Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
“I’m bringing you home,” Lyam finally says. “You’ll rest better there.”
They ask if he wants a wheelchair, but he declines. He’d rather carry me. I close my heavy eyes and hear him mutter an apology to the nurses for scaring them. It isn’t enough, but it’s something.
Ah. So Dr. Martin did get through, at least a little.
He nestles me back in the passenger seat of his car, and this time, the ride home is less frantic. He doesn’t want to jostle me. I close my eyes, half in and half out of sleep, until we get back to Le Marquise and he leads me upstairs.
I fall asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow.
When I wake, sunlight streams through the windows and Lyam’s on his phone, his back to me.
“I know,” he says in a hushed whisper. “Motherfucker. We’ll do what we have to.”
I see his shoulders slump, and then he pinches the bridge of his nose. Nausea rolls through my belly. I need food.
When he turns to me, my heart squeezes. He looks haggard and tired, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused.
“Come here,” I say softly. “Lie down.”
He turns his back to me and speaks in a low voice into the phone.
“I gotta go. Cosette’s up.”
He hangs up the phone, tosses it aside, then walks over to me.
“You didn’t sleep last night?” I ask. I reach my hand to him and gently touch his face.
When he reaches over to cradle my head, I close my eyes. Inhale. Exhale.
We’ve been through a lot.
“How are you feeling?” His voice is raspy from lack of sleep.
“Nauseous,” I whisper. “Shaken, but better. You?”
“Yeah. I got you food.”
He helps me sit up and arranges a tray with breakfast on it.
“Don’t you want to lay down? You look so tired. I only want a little to hold me over.” I nibble a croissant, then lay back down on the bed, exhausted.
Wordlessly, he climbs into bed next to me. Takes the croissant from my hand. Feeds me little bits.
“So. You said something about me being your wife last night? Would you care to elaborate on that, Mr. Gerard?”
He looks at me as if I just sprouted a second head. “Of course you’ll marry me,” he says sternly. “You’re having my baby and I love you. Why wouldn’t you marry me?”
He loves me.
“I love you, too,” I say, my voice trembling. “But you didn’t ask me.”
“I need to ask?”
I throw my hands up in the air. “Yes!”
When he shoots me that boyish smirk, my heart turns in my chest. “Cosette. I love you. The best way I know to protect you and care for you and our baby is to marry you. Will you marry me, or do I have to steal you away to Vegas and find an Elvis?”
I smile back. “Yes,” I say tremulously. “No need to pull out the Vegas threat.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a little while until I ask him, “Who was on the phone?” Could be anyone after everything we’ve been through the past few days.
“Thayer.”
“Ah. Did you tell him what happened?”
“Yeah. I did. He and Savannah are still in Paris. She’ll be by to see you soon.”
He’s still distracted. He isn’t really here. Something’s troubling him.
Silence reigns for a minute while he works his jaw. “But that’s not why he called.”
I sip the juice he hands me.
“Why did he call?”
I watch him draw in a deep breath.
Something is wrong. I stare at him.
“Rousseau is dead.”
Rousseau… his informant… is dead.
Yesterday she was alive and breathing and now…
“Dead?” I repeat in a shocked whisper. “How?”
“Suicide, allegedly. Only there was no note, she had plans to go out to dinner with her fiancé that night, and also had plans to meet up again with me. There was a gun placed in her right hand, but she always used her left.”
“My God,” I whisper. The lives they lead, the people they know—they’re dangerous and deadly and walk a razor’s edge between death and life.
And when Lyam knows the truth… when he knows my father is the very politician after his family with the intent to bring them down… what will stop him from leaving me, just like my father did?
He has access to money and people and places I can only dream of.
But he loves me.
Does he, though? Or does he love the idea of a wife and baby?
Do I love him?
I close my eyes as a wave of grief washes over me.
I have to tell him about my father. He has to know. I have to tell him everything and pick up the pieces of where that leaves us.
I told him about my mother. How she did her best but was detached and overwhelmed much of the time. How I’ve never even celebrated my own birthday. How we bought my clothes secondhand and the kids at school made fun of me. The memories I have of visits to the food pantry and the church ladies bringing us Christmas dinner.