Page 6 of Pretend Wife
THREE
Hayden
Everything hurt.It felt like I’d been run over by a truck or maybe struck by lightning.
My eyelids were heavy, and just the idea of moving was exhausting.
I groaned, and a hand squeezed mine.
“It’s okay,” a voice murmured. A female voice. Had I spent the night with someone? Was there alcohol involved—was that why I felt like shit? In my twenty-eight years, I’d never had a hangover that felt like this, but I’d also heard they got worse as you got older.
I forced my eyes open and was instantly blinded by sunlight. I blinked several times, trying to get my vision to adjust to the brightness, and turned toward the woman holding my hand.
For a second I wondered if I’d died and gone to Heaven. Because I was sure this woman was an angel. She was too beautiful to be human—whisky-colored eyesframed by long lashes, waves of long copper-brown hair that fell over her shoulders and around an exotically gorgeous face, plump lips that were practically begging to be kissed.
The soft light pouring through the windows behind her literally created a halo around her head.
I’d dated my share of models and celebrities—I wasn’t a stranger to attractive women. But their beauty was fake, all makeup and glamor. Very few people could pull off natural like this.
“Hayden?”
“Am I dead?” I asked. “Is this Heaven?” I’d thought Heaven would hurt less, to be honest, but if I got to look at her all day, I wasn’t going to complain.
She chuckled. “No, you’re not dead. You’re in the hospital.” That was when my brain registered the scrubs she was wearing. She probably wasn’t an angel then. “How do you feel?”
“Like I lost a fight with a Mack truck.”
“More like a tree,” she said with an amused half smile.
I groaned. “What happened?”
“What do you remember?”
It came back in flashes. The drive home from New York. The rain. Calling Sierra to find me a place to spend the night. My car spinning. Pain.
“I lost control of the car. You said I hit a tree?”
“That’s what I was told. You were brought in by a concerned citizen, and he didn’t give me many details about the accident.”
Her words triggered another memory. Hands pulling me out of the car and a man telling me to stay with him.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“A lot of bruising mostly. You’re going to be sore for a while, but overall you were very lucky.”
I wasn’t sure I felt lucky at the moment, but I’d live. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“We’ll have to see. You need to take it easy for a while. Your brother should be back soon. He just went to grab breakfast.”
Miles was here? “My brother came all this way?”
She frowned. “I think it’s worth braving the Boston traffic when your family ends up in the ER.”
“We’re in Boston?” That didn’t make any sense. I was sure I’d been in the middle of the state when I crashed. I was going to find a place to spend the night and wait out the storm. I looked up at the nurse like she’d have the answers I needed.
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “You’ve just been through a traumatic experience and had a lot of pain meds. It’s normal to not remember everything perfectly.”
If this was a result of drugs, I didn’t ever want to take them again. I hated having gaps in my memory. My own mind was one of the few things I was supposed to be able to trust.
