At my touch, he softened.
“Please…” I whispered. “Please don’t.”
All the anger drained out of him as he stared into my eyes.
“Go back to bed,” I pleaded with him. “Please… go back to bed.”
He looked up at his parents, his eyes flashing – and then he looked back down at me and nodded.
“…for you,” he said grimly. Then he turned to Johnny. “…get them… out of here.”
He shut the door on the circus outside, and let me help him hobble to the bed.
Outside, the voices continued to shout, but it sounded like someone was corralling them down the hall – and then they faded away.
12
Two things struck me immediately.
The first one was he was wearing a loosely tied hospital gown, so his naked backside was on full display.
I was about to make a joke about how much I liked seeing his ass when the second thing made me gasp.
I saw the bruising on his side, black and dark red and vicious. It was like something out of a horror movie.
He looked back and saw me staring, tears forming in my eyes.
“Oh… is it that bad…?” he asked with amused interest.
I closed my mouth, gulped, and forced myself to shake my head. “No.”
“Liar,” he grinned, and hobbled over to the bed. “…and don’t make any jokes… about the hospital gown…”
To cheer him up, I let my right hand drift down and cup his bare ass cheek as I helped him to the bed. “No complaints from me.”
“Ooooh,” he chuckled. “Do that again.”
“Maybe once you lie down,” I said, and helped him settle back gingerly in the bed.
As I did, I noticed with a degree of shock that the front of his cloth robe was slowly rising up like a tent.
“Are you getting a hard-on?!” I whispered, my face blushing furiously.
“…hey… a beautiful woman just grabbed my ass,” he grinned, then winced as he settled back into the bed.
“Oh my God,” I muttered, and hurriedly arranged the bed sheet over his lap. When the tent kept rising despite the extra weight, I reached underneath, grabbed it, and repositioned it flat against his belly.
“…you’re not exactly defusing the situation,” he teased.
“Shush,” I ordered him as I placed the sheet back over his lap, which seemed to adequately camouflage things.
“…do that again…”
“No,” I whispered, my face fire-engine red. “You behave.”
“…say it… like Austin Powers…”
“Shut up,” I hissed as the door opened and Dr. Sarpara and Mr. Burke came in the room.
“Mr. and Mrs. Templeton are gone,” Mr. Burke said, in a tone of voice that suggested Connor was a terrible, terrible person for putting him in that position.
“Did you throw out… my brother, too?” Connor scowled.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he replied, and finally laid back his head and relaxed.
“Your personal assistant, or whatever he is – the tall one – ”
“Vice President of Operations.”
“Sebastian’s the ‘Vice President of Operations’?” I asked, stunned.
Connor smiled and rolled his eyes. “…he insisted on a better title than assistant.”
“We had to remove him as well,” Mr. Burke said in a prim, don’t mess with me and eat your vegetables kind of voice.
“He’s going to loooove you for that,” Connor said sarcastically. “Be sure to watch your back.”
Mr. Burke brought himself up as tall as he could. “Was that a threat?”
Connor flopped his head over and looked at him like, Dude. PLEASE. “No, it was a joke.” Then he turned and looked at me and whispered, “Kind of.”
“The bodyguard can stay outside in the hall, but she has to go,” Mr. Burke said as he pointed at me.
I nodded meekly. “Okay – ”
“NO.”
Connor was back to looking like he had when he was yelling at his mother – except this time it was directed at the pretentious bald administrator.
“California law dictates – ”
“FUCK California law.”
“Mr. Templeton – ”
Connor raised himself to a seated position and stared darkly at Mr. Burke, who stopped speaking and actually took a step backwards. Even sitting in a hospital bed, buck naked under a flimsy gown, he was pretty damn imposing. Especially when he looked like that.
“Connor, lie back down,” I pleaded with him, to no avail.
“If you try to remove her from this room, I’m going to make two phone calls tomorrow morning,” Connor said in a dangerous voice. “The first phone call is going to be to whatever company owns this hospital, and I’m going to buy it from them. Since you were kissing my mother’s ass so thoroughly out there, I’m pretty sure you know who I am, which means you know that I can do it. Easily. The second phone call is going to be to you, whereupon I will fire your sorry ass.”
“But California state law – ” Burke whimpered.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me: FUCK CALIFORNIA STATE LAW.”
Burke just stood there in abject terror, unsure of what to do.
Dr. Sarpara came in like Solomon and gave the perfect compromise. “Perhaps we could just move Mr. Templeton out of the trauma center and into a regular room – immediately – in which case anyone can visit with him.”
Burke was such an asshole that he wasn’t even grateful for the save. “Get him into a room upstairs STAT,” he barked at Sarpara. Then he looked at Connor fearfully before he slipped out of the room.
Douchebag.
Dr. Sarpara looked grumpily back at Connor. “Don’t get out of bed again.”
Connor settled back against his pillow and winced. “If you let her stay, I won’t get out of bed.”
The doctor sighed. “She can stay. Don’t get out of bed.”
Then he left the room and closed the door behind him.
“You really have a way with people,” I said.
“I also have a way of getting what I want,” he grinned. “Give me your hand.”
“Why?”
“I want to hold it.”
I smiled. I reached out and folded my tiny hand into his larger one as he lay there in the bed, clearly exhausted from his outbursts.
After a second of lying there, he grinned mischievously, though he kept his eyes closed.
“You know, you could hold something else, if you wanted to.”
“Oh – YOU,” I snapped, and smacked him lightly on the arm.
13
They moved him shortly thereafter. A couple of orderlies came and clicked up all the kickstops on the bed, then wheeled him out into the hall and into the elevator. We picked up Johnny on the way, and he accompanied us to the 8th floor where they put Connor in some kind of fancy-shmancy VIP room. At least, it looked almost twice as large as the other rooms we passed on the way, and had a beautiful view of Los Angeles’s nighttime lights.
Whatever painkillers they’d given Connor wore off, and he began gritting his teeth and perspiring – though he didn’t complain. Johnny rang the nurse, and they gave him an extra dose of morphine in his IV. Soon after that he drifted off.
I checked my cell phone and found I could only get one bar of reception.
“I need to go call my roommate,” I told Johnny. “Can you hold the fort?”
“Yeah. I don’t think Lenora and company will try again tonight. Hey, call Sebastian while you’re down there and tell him what room, will you?”
“Sure,” I agreed, and made my way out into the hall.
Down near the elevators was a lounge made of glass. The room was deserted and the lights were off, which made the grid of streetlights and buildings that much prettier, so I just left everything dark as I walked inside.
My phone got three bars right by the window. I knew I should call Sebastian, but I felt guiltier about
Anh, so I dialed her first.
She was freaking out as soon as she picked up.
“Oh my GOD, Lily, have you been listening to the news?!”
My stomach clenched. I was expecting some horrible new development, like maybe a bomb had gone off at the Dubai.
“No, what?”
“Oh… uh… I don’t know how to tell you this… but…”
“Just tell me!”
“Connor got shot.”
I stared out into the darkness, my mind blank for the first several seconds. I kind of wondered if she was pranking me.
But she wasn’t. She was on the verge of tears. “He was at a fundraiser at that fancy hotel, and somebody shot him – ”
“Anh,” I said matter-of-factly. “I know.”
“You… you know?! How?!”
“I was there.”
“WHAT?!”
I realized I had never called her after I left work. As far as she knew, I had just met Sebastian briefly back at the apartment, not gotten a full Cinderella makeover. I explained everything as quickly as I could.
“HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME?!” she yelled into the phone.
“I’m sorry,” I winced. “I was just… it was crazy, I was so worried he was going to cold-shoulder me – I’m sorry, I should have called.”
“Yeah, you SHOULD have!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fine,” she said grumpily, then switched back to worried. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. He was wearing a bulletproof vest, he just cracked some ribs.”
“Are YOU okay?”
“I’m fine, Johnny shot the guy before he could get to me.”
“OH MY GOD, LILY!”
Yeah, I guess when I phrased it like that, it was kind of dramatic.
“I’m fine, I promise,” I said.
We talked a bit more. I told her that I was going to spend the night at the hospital and not to worry about me. After a bit more grumping about my not calling her about the ball – and then teasing me about how well Sebastian’s plan had gone – Anh made me promise to say ‘hi’ and ‘get well’ to Connor.
As soon as I hung up with Anh, I called Sebastian. I got his voicemail – apparently he was someplace where reception sucked, too – and left a message. To be doubly sure, I texted him the room number and told him to come on up.
I put my cell back in my clutch and was about to turn around when I sensed that I wasn’t alone in the dark room anymore.
14
I didn’t have to turn around, though, to tell who it was. I could see his towering height and imposing outline reflected in the glass, his body silhouetted against the white glow of the hallway.
“How is he?” Mr. Templeton asked in a weary voice.
I looked over my shoulder at him. Truthfully, I was a little scared.
Make that a lot scared.
“He’s doing fine,” I said in a quiet voice, trying to mask my nervousness.
“Is he in much pain?”
How can he even ASK that? I wondered – and then realized that the only image he had of his son was of him yelling at Mrs. Templeton from the hospital doorway.
I wasn’t sure I should tell him – I was pretty sure Connor would be angry with me – but hell, he was a father asking about his son.
“He’s in a lot of pain, but they’ve got him on pain killers. He’s sleeping right now.”
“Good,” Mr. Templeton said, and he sounded like he meant it. Like he was relieved.
He slowly walked over to the glass and stood by me, though he never looked at me once. He just gazed out at the city lights.
I was getting pretty freaked out by all the silence and close proximity, and was about to excuse myself when he began to speak.
“When he came and got me in Mexico… I never told him this, I never could… has he ever talked to you about his and my relationship?”
“He has,” I said softly.
He nodded gravely, like he was expecting that answer. “It’s been strained for years. Many years. It’s both our fault, yes… but in a moment like tonight, I can’t help but feeling… I should have been the bigger man. I should have stopped this stupid, pointless bickering long ago…”
He lapsed into silence. For a second I thought he might be embarrassed at having said too much, but then he continued.
“When he came and got me in Mexico, I couldn’t show him… because of our history… but I wanted to hug him. I wanted to thank him, because I knew… I knew he’d done something Vincent would have never done. I knew he had risked his life to save mine. But, being a foolish and cantankerous old man, I didn’t tell him that. I was, I suppose, something of an ass about the whole thing.
“But I swore that one day, I would make it up to him… that when he needed it most, I would be there for him. I would find some way to show him how much it meant to me, that he had risked so much for me.
“And yet, tonight, I am… terrified… that I might have actually brought the devil himself into my house, and let her…”
He stopped mid-sentence and stared out the window.
At first I thought the lights were playing tricks and reflecting off his cheek. Then I realized that Augustus Templeton was crying. Not much – a tear, maybe two – but still, he was crying silently.
“You have to believe me,” he whispered. “You have to make sure he knows that I never would have done anything like this. His mother, his brother – none of us knew what lengths she might go to…”
What lengths she might go to.
It felt like the Grim Reaper himself was sliding one icy finger from my neck all the way down my back.
Mr. Templeton put his hands to his face and bowed his head in weary despair. He stood like that for a long moment, and then he rubbed his face and pulled away his hands. When they were gone, the tear tracks were, too, wiped away as though they had never existed.
He turned to face me, and while his voice was kinder, the icy reserve and the aristocratic bearing were back. The momentary weakness – the brief glimpse of humanity – was gone.
“Please, tell my son… I’m sorry this happened to him. Tell him none of us had anything to do with it. And tell him…”
The corner of his mouth turned up just the slightest in a bit of bittersweet nostalgia.
“…tell him I remember what he did for me in Mexico. And tell him that I will be thinking of him… and that I wish him well.”
I stared up into his eyes – half in wonder, half in fright – and nodded mutely.
Mr. Templeton bowed his head the tiniest bit to acknowledge my response, and then he walked out of the darkened room and disappeared around the corner.
I stood there alone, not quite sure if it had all been a dream… but then I collected myself, and returned to Connor’s room.
15
When I got back to the room, Connor was still asleep. But Sebastian was there – and so were the police: two detectives with bushy mustaches and rumpled suits.
They’d already spoken to Johnny while I was gone. They took me out of the room to get my statement, but there wasn’t much to tell. They made me repeat the story about the shooting several times and asked a lot of questions, but that was all.
“I just spoke to Connor’s father in the lounge,” I told them, and recounted the strange conversation – especially the part about ‘what lengths she might go to.’
One of the detectives took everything down in a notebook.
“Are you going to arrest her?” I asked.
“If we get anything linking her to the crime,” one of the men said. “But until then, everything’s just hearsay.”
“But you’re going to focus on her, right?”
“We’re looking at everyone, Ms. Ross.”
“What about the guy who shot Connor?”
“What about him?”
“Who was he?”
The detectives looked embarrassed. “We don’t know yet.”
“What do you mean you don’t
know?”
“He didn’t have any I.D. on him, and the serial number on the gun was filed off. We’re running fingerprints, but there’s nothing so far.”
I remembered what Sebastian had said: If Miranda IS behind it, we’ll never find one shred of evidence implicating her.
The detectives gave me their cards, thanked me, and left, with the promise that they would be back to talk to Connor tomorrow.
16
Once I got back to the room, we had a little argument about who was going to stay the night. There was no question that Johnny was in for the long haul, but both he and Sebastian kept telling me I ought to go home and get some sleep.
“Like hell I am,” I shot back, then told Sebastian, “You go get some sleep.”
Finally they gave up, but decided that if we were going to stay, we needed some food. The problem was, it was after midnight and the cafeteria had closed at 10 PM. Raiding the vending machines wasn’t going to cut it, so Sebastian searched Google on his phone until he found a nearby deli that was open 24 hours. They didn’t do delivery, but when Sebastian promised them a two hundred dollar delivery fee, they somehow magically found a busboy who didn’t mind driving over.
Sebastian told him to go to the main entrance so as not to piss off the ER attendants or the ambulance drivers. I volunteered to go down and get the food. I needed a little walk to stretch my legs, and besides, Connor was still out like a light.
Sebastian handed over $250, and I walked down the hall and rode the elevator to the ground level. Rather than try to thread my way through the hospital’s labyrinth of hallways, I decided just to walk the perimeter until I came to the main entrance.
In retrospect, maybe not the best idea.
The night air was cool as I exited the ER. The entire world was still and quiet, with only the occasional car driving down the street outside the hospital. I walked along, enjoying the relative silence and giving thanks that the day’s events hadn’t been worse.
Then they got worse.
“I was wondering when I might catch you alone,” said a low, throaty, Lauren Bacall voice.
All That He Loves (Volume 2 The Billionaires Seduction) Page 31
