Page 8 of The Billionaire's Claim: Redemption
The scent of hospital is the same no matter where I go—impersonal and pungent with antiseptic. The last time I was in one was in Los Angeles. Back then, I felt nothing but puzzlement and resignation, tinged with a bit of sadness. I didn’t understand why a man who never cared for me when he was alive would leave me his construction firm. I didn’t understand why he’d waited so long, or why he felt the need to bribe me to come see him one last time.
A heartfelt “I’m sorry” would’ve been better.
This time, I’m full of desperation and regret. Regret that I may be too late. Regret that she’s hurt. And I’m desperately praying that she’s okay. Anything else is unthinkable.
Three and a half hours go by, and still no update. I bargain with—and threaten—any being up there who’s listening. I’ll do anything you want me to so long as Elizabeth’s fine. She has to be fine. Anything else is…
“Dominic, you need to calm down. If you work yourself up, you won’t be any good when she wakes up,” Antoine says, walking up with a couple of cof
fees.
I sigh heavily. “It’s all my fault.”
“Bullshit,” Antoine says, sitting next to me and offering me a coffee.
I ignore it. My stomach can’t take it right now. “I should’ve listened to Kristen.”
“Why?”
“She said I was misjudging Elizabeth. She said there had to be more. She said—”
“That has nothing to do with what happened to Elizabeth here.”
“But if she hadn’t given me the portrait, maybe she would’ve stayed in L.A. Then this whole thing”—I wave around— “wouldn’t have happened.”
I know with absolute certainty she left the States because of me, just like she gave up the portrait she fought so hard for because of me.
“That’s such crap. I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that so I don’t lose respect for you,” Antoine says.
“Like I care. You can’t respect me less than I do myself at the moment.”
He slowly leans backward until the back of his head hits the wall. Then his eyes tilt up to the ceiling. He sighs.
“Mr. Dominic King?” a female calls out in a brisk, businesslike voice.
I swivel my head, then spot a middle-aged nurse looking around the waiting crowd. She isn’t the same one Antoine lied to.
“Yes, that’s me,” I say.
“The doctor’s ready to speak to you about your fiancée.”
I stand, my motions slow and careful. The corners of the nurse’s mouth are turned downward, and her dark eyes don’t look thrilled. Shit. My legs feel so weak and unsteady that I’m afraid I might lose my balance and fall on my ass.
Antoine slaps my back a couple of times in a show of support. I drag my feet, following the nurse. She hasn’t smiled once. This can’t be good, I think over the panicked buzzing in my head. The nurses attending Granddad didn’t smile either.
The room they put Elizabeth in is private, like I requested, but otherwise pretty generic, with white walls, a bed and a couple of plastic chairs. The air smells strongly of baby powder from a spray can, but it can’t hide the scent of antiseptic, illness and desperate hopes that clings to every inch of the building. A smooth-skinned doctor with a stethoscope around his neck looks at me, his brown eyes somber.
Fear glides its cold fingertips along my spine. Somberness isn’t good.
“Mr. King?” The doctor sounds incredibly young. Maybe he isn’t that experienced. Probably the somberness is due to the fact that he misdiagnosed her and he’s embarrassed, not because her condition is that serious.
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Raydor. We’ve stabilized your fiancée.”
Relief slowly wells in my heart, and I cling to that one word—stabilized. Maybe the good doctor was merely fucking with me with that somber expression. But I won’t hold that against him as long as she’s okay.
“But…”
