Page 18 of Inevitable Secrets

“You need to go home and get a good night's sleep.”

“No way,” Taylor stated, completely irritated that she had been scammed herself.

“Taylor, I know for sure that you haven't left this place in days.”

“There is atoo rich to be treated like normal peoplesuite upstairs,” she reminded him. “I go there several times a day.”

“You have been sleeping with your head on my bed for days, and I am certain you only go there to shower.”

“Derrick,” she started.

“Tay, if I am going to perk up and be peppy-holly-jolly man, my condition is that you have to go home tonight and get some rest. Otherwise, I am remaining just as irritating and annoying as I have been.”

Taylor was silent for a moment and looked over her husband. She looked at the monitor wires still attached to him and the intravenous lines that were tunneled under his skin.

“You totally set me up for that,” she said softly and stuck her tongue out.

“Yup,” Derrick said flicking a quick glance at the clock. “It’s five now. Go home and take a shower and then go to sleep.”

“But—”

“Nope, you agreed,” Derrick reminded her.

Taylor wrinkled her nose at her husband. “You know you should go into business, right? You drive a damn hard bargain.”

“Now give me a kiss with tongue so I can have something to distract me from my current predicament.”

“Because I’m such a good kisser?”

“No, because then I’ll have blue balls and won’t be worried about being in the hospital.”

Taylor smiled. “And Marty says you aren’t romantic,” she mused as she leaned over and kissed her husband on the lips and then slowly deepened the kiss until she was just about breathless. “You need to stay here and get better, because, Derrick Fletcher, I cannot live without you.”

Derrick let out a heavy sigh, and tried desperately to hide the pain he had in his chest from it. “Fine, I will stay.”

The door burst open and an ashen-faced nurse entered the room, visibly shaken. “Mr. Fletcher, we need to discharge you right now.”

Derrick and Taylor looked at the nurse and then at each other. “I thought,” Taylor said turning to the nurse, “that the doctor said—”

At that moment, the doctor in question came in the room looking pale and flustered. “Change of plans. You will be discharged immediately,” he said signaling for a wheelchair to be brought in. Staff suddenly appeared in the room holding patient belonging bags and stuffing them with all of Derrick and Taylor’s things. Four Preston security members entered and closed in around Derrick and Taylor, blockading them as they monitored the frantic work of the hospital staff. The hive of activity around them was hypnotizing.

“What the hell is going on?” Taylor asked in her business voice.

The doctor cleared his throat, “There has been an, um, unforeseen circumstance…”

The doctor was cut off as Henry entered, startling him into silence. “My staff and I will handle this from here, sir,” he explained and every hospital staff member looked visibly relieved and left as quickly as they had entered. Henry started pointing at the security team in the room. “Ian, get the bags. Mick, get the wheelchair, and you two,” he said, his gaze landing on Derrick and Taylor, “no questions until we get you the fuck out of here.”

Quickly, the security team got to work and even if Taylor and Derrick had wanted to say anything there was no time. Henry put his hand to Taylor’s back and ushered her from the room as Derrick was helped into a wheelchair, and the two were brought to the hospital helipad. They boarded a Fletcher Enterprises helicopter while police officers stood facing out with guns drawn.

“What the fuck?” was all Taylor could say as she took in the events around her. But her voice was drowned out by the whirring helicopter rotors above.

Henry plopped Taylor into a helicopter seat and buckled her in. Before he could move on, Taylor grabbed tightly onto his coat and she could feel her eyes bugging out of her head. She was pretty sure that was what held Henry in place. “Tell me what the fuck is going on right now!” she shouted over the whir.

Henry reached behind him and grabbed a headset and gave one to Taylor, one to Derrick, put one on himself, and instructed the pilot to change the channel on his headset.

“Well?” Taylor spoke once she saw the pilot change his channel.

“There was an attack at the hospital.”

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