by Anna Howard
Throats clearing cause us to raise our heads and we look up to find Christian and Keith standing a few feet away. Christian had a small smile on his handsome face, while Keith…He just looked lost. But one emotional scene is all I can face for now. I step back from my bestie.
“I want to go to bed.” I push my tangled blond hair out of my eyes. The area on my scalp that had been shaved had not been as bad as I had first thought and my hair was so long and thick that it covers the bald area easily. “It’s been a really long day.”
Bianca gives me a wobbly smile and nods. “Okay…Call me tomorrow?”
“Yes.” I promise. “I will call you, Bee.”
Chapter 17
A noise wakes me.
I sit up in bed, listening intently, while the clock on my night stand tells me it is just after three in the morning. I am just beginning to relax when I hear it again. My heart catches and I toss back my covers.
I don’t hesitate as I rush from my room and into the one beside of it. Keith. There is something wrong with Keith. That is all I can think as I enter his room and run to his bedside without turning on the light.
He is laying on his stomach and his entire body is shaking. The most heart wrenching noises are coming from him and for a split second I have this feeling that I have heard them before. But I push the thought away as I touch his shoulder.
He jerks and his head snaps up. Tears are pouring down his handsome face and his body his practically dry heaving from his continued sobs. The only light in the room is that of the full moon shining through his open blinds, but I can still see the surprise on his face. “Kari?” He whispers my name brokenly.
With a trembling hand I brush away a few of his tears. “It’s me. I’m here.” I murmur. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve lost you. I will never be okay again.” He turns on his back and tosses an arm over his wet eyes. “I have nothing.”
I sit on the edge of his bed. “Why do you say that?” I whisper.
“I didn’t have enough trust in you and your love for me. I destroyed your feelings for me and made you hate me.” He scrubs at his eyes with his fist. “And I fear that I will never be able to get back what I threw away.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. He was wrong on so many levels. Nothing he ever did could ever destroy what I feel for him. He can shatter me into a million pieces but the truth is that each of those little pieces will always want to be his. But I am still hurting, still scared and confused. There are things that I need to hear him say, and I am not sure he can give that to me. Until he can do that I don’t think we can get back to where we were before the accident.
“Do you want to know the thing that hurt the most?” I murmur as I sit there staring off into the darkness. He doesn’t answer, but I know he is listening. “The whole time you and Bianca were tearing my heart out, telling me how you discovered that you were meant for each other…All I can see was that ring on her finger. When I was helping Christian find the right ring for Bee all I could think about was that ring. I knew you weren’t ready to make that kind of commitment. But it didn’t stop me from hoping and wishing…” I swallow the knot of tears burning my throat. “And then I saw it on her finger.”
“Kari…” He sits up and reaches for my hand. “I’m sorry. So sorry. It was Bianca’s idea. I’m not trying to put all the blame off on her, because I could have said no. But a few days before the Gala she came to my office. She said she knew you were sneaking around with Christian. That his secretary had told her about all the times you had gone to his office. His door man even told her you spent a few evenings in his apartment alone with him. I had suspected that something was going on, but I was so scared of losing you that I didn’t bring it up…”
He grimaces and shrugs. “But then she told me that she had seen you at a jewelry store the evening before and that you had on an engagement ring! Of course the night before you had cancelled our dinner plans and I lost it. I couldn’t see for a few minutes because of the rage and hurt and loss I was feeling.”
Neither of us speaks for a long while. Him because he is lost in thought, and me…Well I am realizing that I was not completely innocent in this thing. I had been sneaking around behind Keith’s back. It might have been innocent enough but that didn’t excuse it. If it had been him doing all of those things I would have left. He has been stronger than I would have ever been!
“Bianca suggested we show you and Christian a little pay back. She said that we should pretend to be engaged. The ring was already in my pocket anyway, so I just gave it to her. And her plan was put in motion.”
I bow my head, ashamed of myself. I should have talked to Keith, should have told him what was going on with Christian. If I had none of this would have ever happened…
My head snaps up and I meet his tormented green gaze. “What do you mean the ring was already in your pocket?” The one and only time I had ever seen it was when my mother had been showing me some of the Winthrop jewelry in the safe.
My heart starts pounding. Why would the ring be in his pocket instead of secure in the safe?
“I had made reservations at La Tessa.” He is playing with my fingers now, not looking at me. “The night you cancelled.”
La Tessa was the first place we had ever had dinner together as a couple. I don’t know what to think about that or where he is going with his explanation about the ring so I sit there, heart pounding so hard in my chest that my it is shaking, and give him the time he needs to tell me.
“You see there was something wrong about what you said a little while ago. You said that you knew I wasn’t ready…But I was. I was so ready. But then you cancelled and I thought okay, I will find another way to ask her. Something just as romantic. And I was just deciding that the Christmas Gala would be perfect when Bianca stormed her way into my office…”
My heart stops. It completely stops beating and I find that I have stopped breathing. But I have to know. “What…What where you going to ask me?” I whisper so quietly I wonder if he even hears me.
He sits there for the longest time, just continuing to play with my fingers. Minutes pass, maybe hours or even days. I have no idea because all I am focused on is this man and what is going to come out of that sinful mouth of his. Finally he blows out a long drawn out breath and raises his eyes to meet mine in the dim light. “I was going to ask you to marry me.”
Tears gather and slip from my eyes without me even realizing it and I reach for him. His kiss is the most tender thing I have ever experienced in my life as his lips brush across mine as if he is afraid to break me. I hold him onto him and tears continue to fall. His lips move to my hair and he starts whispering sweet nothings. The same sweet nothings that I had heard in my dreams at the hospital…
I pull back just a little to look into his still wet eyes. “You were there.” I whisper. “You kept talking to me even when I was in the coma.”
“Of course I was there. I set there for days at a time without ever leaving that room. Your father and Hunter would drag me away long enough to shower and eat from time to time but I couldn’t handle being away for long. I was terrified that you would wake up and I wouldn’t be there.” His thumb wipes away one of my tears and brings it to his lips. “And then when you finally did wake up you didn’t even remember me!”
I kiss his cheek, sipping at his salty tears. “Dr. Hayes explained that. He said that I was in so much emotional pain that my mind shut it down so my body could focus on other things. I went back to a time before I had met you, before I fell in love with you, to hide from it.”
He grimaces. “The doctors wouldn’t let me in to see you at all during the time you couldn’t remember. I hated being in the waiting room, which seemed so far away, when all I wanted was to hold you and tell you how much I loved you.”
For the second time my heart stops. I can’t even blink as I look up at him. This is the first time Keith has ever said those words to me. There had been times in the past when he had tried to sa
y them, but just now they had spilled so easily from him. He brushes another tender kiss across my lips. “I love you, Kari.”
A whimper escapes me and I throw my arms around him. I never wanted this moment to end. Those three little words from his lips are the most amazingly beautiful sound I have ever heard. “I love you too.” I breathe against his ear and his arms tighten around me.
“Oh God! I thought I would never hear you say that again.” He kisses my neck, my ear, my jaw. “I thought I had killed your love for me…!”
“Hush.” I whisper. “You could never do that. I told you, before. The only way you can lose me is if you want to lose me…” And for a little while I had thought he did want to lose me and have Bianca instead. But now I can see the truth.
We hold each other for few minutes in complete silence. I feel at peace for the first time in weeks and it is so restful and perfect being in his arms that I start to drift off. Until I hear him whisper something almost as beautiful as ‘I love you’.
“Will you marry me, Kari?”
I sit up, wanting to see his face. With a seductive smile I reach for him. “Only if you get that ring cleaned. No way am I going to wear it with Bianca stink still all over it.”
“Kari!” He pulls me down on top of him. “Kari, I love you so much.”
Table of Contents
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
