Perhaps that had been a bad thing to do. Shutting down their communication. But she’d been trying to protect their relationship. She hadn’t wanted it to end.
Sucking in a breath, she rushed to his side, dropping her bag on the floor, not caring as she reached for his outstretched hand, stooping down to kiss him, feeling his bristles scrape her face as his lips met hers. Nothing mattered at that moment apart from the fact that he was alive. Awake. Back with her. She never wanted to go through those ten days ever again.
It didn’t matter that they’d been arguing. She was just happy that he was awake. Reacting. That he was looking at her and he was smiling and—
‘How are you feeling?’ She stroked his face, looking for clues, looking for any sign of discomfort that he might be trying to hide. Making sure that he wasn’t in any pain. Her professional skills as a nurse-midwife were coming to the fore.
‘Better for seeing you, Em,’ he croaked, squeezing her fingers, and she looked down at their entwined hands and smiled.
All those days she had sat holding his hands and he had never squeezed back. Never shown any sign of life in his fingers. They’d just lain there, limp. Breaking her heart. It felt so good to be touching him again. Gaining strength from him.
‘I’ve been so worried!’ She sat on the bed facing him and ran her thumb over the backs of his hands.
He closed his eyes briefly, as if he couldn’t stand the knowledge that she’d been so concerned for him. ‘The doc says we’ve been in a car accident?’
The confusion in his face was heart-rending, but Emily guessed that this was the amnesia that Dr Waters had mentioned. Sam couldn’t remember the crash. Sometimes people’s brains would exclude certain bad experiences or memories, to help prevent itself from feeling hurt. Like a safety mechanism. If that was all that had happened to him then they’d both got away from this lightly.
‘Yes.’
‘Were you hurt?’
The concern in his voice and the way his blue eyes darkened at the thought relieved her. He did care for her! He wasn’t angry at what had happened between them prior to this.
That was good, right? It took something like this to wake people up. To make them notice what was important in life. Each other. They were stronger together than they were apart. Even if they had been disagreeing. Giving each other the cold shoulder.
‘Not really. Just whiplash.’
He frowned. ‘Whiplash can be serious, Em. Have you been checked out by the doctors?’
He reached up to stroke her face, then his hand fell to her shoulders and neck to rub at her muscles, but he must be feeling tired because his hand dropped back to the bed, his eyes closing as he drifted in and out of sleep, before opening them again.
‘Look at me. Weak as a kitten.’
‘You need to rest. You’ve been out of it for ten days.’
‘Ten days?’ He looked upset.
‘They had to put you in an induced coma, Sam. Your brain got shook around in that hard skull of yours.’
He sighed and closed his eyes again and she realised with a sudden pang that he had drifted back to sleep. And she hadn’t had a chance to tell him their news, yet.
It can wait. It’s waited this long. What’s a few more hours?
Right now he was happy to see her. Relieved. All signs of their previous turmoil was gone. They were speaking to each other. Something they hadn’t done properly for weeks, and she’d missed that.
But it was odd, wasn’t it? That he should be so happy to see her? After the last few days of stony silences, the weeks of arguing and disagreement...
She liked it that he was being nice. Concerned about her whiplash, concerned about her health, but she wasn’t used to it. It was throwing her slightly.
Having to wait a little longer to deliver the news that she was pregnant was just fine. Because she had no idea how he would react to that. Probably not very well, and then they would be back to being at war with each other. She didn’t mind holding off on that for a while.
She liked what they had right now, thank you very much. The talking. The concern for each other’s wellbeing. The holding hands.
Emily stared at his hand in hers, lifted it to her mouth and kissed it, inhaling the scent of him, breathing it in like vital oxygen. Then she got up off the bed and settled into her usual chair, staring long and hard at her husband.
She was getting him back. He’d smiled at her!
She felt sure there was a chance...all this just might be okay.
* * *
Sam slowly came to. He had a wicked headache, but he appeared to be still in hospital, attached to God only knew how many wires and monitors and, beside him, her head slumped to her shoulder, asleep, was his beautiful fiancée Emily.
She looked tired. Exhausted, even. Her face was a little pale beneath wave upon wave of that gorgeous hair of hers. But then he assumed she would be. Hadn’t she, or someone, told him that he’d been out of it for ten days? After some accident he couldn’t even recall?
Ten days. What had he missed? Probably nothing too much. That serial he’d been watching on television had been scheduled to show its last episode the other week, so probably that. There was still another month or so before Emily’s birthday, so thankfully not that. He had a big surprise planned. He was hoping to take her to Las Vegas.
It was strange, though. Only ten days and he could swear that her hair seemed longer. A little more sun-bleached. Those honey tones were brighter than normal. And were those new clothes? He hadn’t seen them before. But then again, Em did enjoy shopping. Perhaps she’d gone out and treated herself whilst she’d been waiting for him to recover? A little pick-me-up?
He lifted his head off the pillow to check himself out. There didn’t appear to be any limbs wrapped in bandages, no plaster casts or anything like that. Had he just got a head injury? That would explain the headache, and the fact that he’d been out of it for a while. He hated it that he was laid up in hospital, because they still had so much to do. Not only did they need to tell everyone that Emily had accepted his proposal of marriage, but there was so much to do at work, too!
His idea, of building an exclusive five-star birth centre—the Monterey Birth Centre—was close to fruition. They’d toured the halls just last week and everything had looked perfect. Almost ready for their Grand Opening.
It was going to be massive. He wanted the Monterey to be the premier birthing centre in the whole of the US. He wanted people to aspire to have their babies there, to be treated as if they were royalty and enjoy the ultimate birthing experience, which he and his team would provide whilst their patients were being fed with delectable dishes provided by a team of Michelin-starred chefs in the kitchen.
It had taken a lot of planning. And sourcing funding. But he’d found people—mainly people whose babies he had already delivered safely—to sponsor and endorse the Monterey. He’d secured a great board of directors—along with himself and Emily, of course—and his excitement for this project had driven him onward like nothing he had ever experienced before. There’d been so much to think about! But he enjoyed that.
Asking Emily to marry him had been the icing on the cake. And she’d said yes. So he guessed now he’d be busy planning a wedding, too!
They hadn’t been going out long. Six months? But there was something about her—something that had reached out and grabbed him. She’d seemed so...vulnerable when they’d first met, and he’d been cautious not to scare her with his desire to be by her side. He’d not been able to pinpoint the source of that vulnerability and, to be honest, they’d both been so busy at work, and setting up the Monterey, that it hadn’t seemed all that important after a while.
Emily had blossomed by his side, driven on by their shared vision. She was everything he could have wished for and he loved her deeply. She cared for and
loved delivering babies as much as he did.
But today she looked exhausted. She must have been handling any last hiccups at the birth centre, working and having to deal with his accident and their families all by herself. No wonder she looked shattered. Had they put off the Grand Opening whilst they’d waited for him to recover?
For a brief moment he just lay there and stared at her, his heart swelling with love for the woman at his side, but after a minute or so he couldn’t stand it any more and reached out to take her hand. Needing to touch her. To connect.
She blinked herself awake in seconds. ‘Sam?’
He smiled and lifted her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss upon it. ‘Sleeping Beauty.’
She glanced at her watch in confusion. ‘I’ve been asleep for three hours!’ She rubbed at her eyes and then glanced at him with concern. ‘How are you? Are you in any pain?’
‘Just a headache.’
‘Should I call a nurse?’
‘No, it’s fine. It’s understandable, considering my head got bashed. I’m sure there’s some morphine being dripped in to me somewhere...’ He looked up at the various drips and then smiled at her. ‘I’ve missed you.’ He squeezed her fingers, wishing he could be holding her in his arms. Wishing he could get her to come and lie beside him upon the bed. He needed to feel her next to him.
She looked a little apprehensive. ‘You’ve been in a coma.’
‘So you keep saying. But what about you? How are you doing? Any problems with Monterey I need to know about?’
Emily frowned and shook her head. ‘No. It’s all going very well.’
He let out a sigh. ‘That’s great news. How did Harry get on with the window treatments? Did he make the changes we asked him to?’
His fiancée looked at him, lines furrowing her brow. ‘What?’
‘The curtains and sashing in The Nightingale Suite. We decided to change them to that lighter gold colour. Has he done it yet? If he hasn’t we need to get on that—the Grand Opening is only a few days away.’
She continued to look at him with puzzlement. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The curtains were too dark. That suite is going to be our most prestigious—we want it right for the press tour. Think of the spread of pictures...’
‘Press tour? We haven’t had a press tour since...’ Her voice drifted away and she suddenly looked at him, her eyes searching his face as she sucked in a breath. ‘Sam, what day do you think it is?’
He closed his eyes and thought about it. He’d proposed on Friday, he’d been in a coma for ten days, so today had to be... ‘Monday? Tuesday, maybe?’
She shook her head, her choppy blonde locks shimmering around her shoulders. ‘No. I mean the month. The year.’
Month and year? What was she talking about? He’d been out for ten days, they’d said! He told her the date and watched as what little colour there was leeched from her face. She turned away from him, her curtain of honey-blonde hair hiding her face from his as she pulled her hands free of his grasp.
Her recoiling from him made him feel nervous. What didn’t he know? ‘Why are you asking? I’m not that much out of step, am I?’
He heard her sniff. Watched as she reached into her bag and pulled out a small hankie, dabbing at her eyes before she turned back to face him, bracing herself to prepare to say something she clearly thought he wouldn’t be ready to hear.
‘Sam... We’ve been married for eighteen months. The Monterey has been open and running for just over a year now.’
Sam stared at her hard. He swallowed painfully and his hands scrunched up the bedding as he made fists.
Eighteen months?
No! That’s ridiculous...
‘Why would you say that? Why would you even play a trick like that?’
A tear dripped onto her cheek and with clear-cut pain in her voice she said, ‘I’m not lying to you.’
‘Emily...’
‘Sam, please, listen—’
But he wasn’t listening. Not any more. Em was playing some cruel trick on him, and he didn’t know why, but the doctors would have to tell him the truth! The nurses would. He’d make them show him a newspaper or something. This was completely ridiculous. There was no way that he’d lost all that time. He’d know. There’d be signs!
Sam stabbed at the button that would call a nurse to his bedside and kept doing so, ignoring Emily’s pleas, her cries. She was standing now, her hand covering her mouth, looking at him with those wide, tear-filled eyes...
The door opened and a nurse he hadn’t seen before came in. She glanced at Emily in concern before turning to him. ‘Mr Saint?’
‘I need to see the doctor in charge of my care.’
The nurse kept on looking between the two of them, not sure exactly what had happened. ‘Dr Waters has gone home for the evening. I can get—’
‘Get someone! Someone who knows what they’re talking about!’ He glared at Emily, angry at her, and watched as she snatched up her handbag and ran from the room.
The nurse nodded and hurried out, and with both women gone he felt his anger deflate slightly.
Married eighteen months? Emily was crazy. Perhaps she’d had the bump on the head and not him!
He lay in the bed, fury surging through him, and waited for someone who knew what they were talking about to come and tell him the truth.
There was no way he had lost that amount of time.
Copyright © 2017 by Louisa Heaton
ISBN-13: 9781488020445
The Boss Who Stole Her Heart
Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Taylor
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, M3B 3K9 Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
The Boss Who Stole Her Heart Page 17
