A groan slipped out. “Please don’t.”
“I’ll be brief. Have you been managing your eating disorder recently, or would you say you’re in relapse?”
I just stared at her. Unable to believe those words came out of her mouth. Vince went still beside me.
“I don’t have an eating disorder,” I snapped. “I’m just stressed.”
“Clinically, you’re severely underweight with very low muscle mass. Chronic malnourishment can cause fainting. I’m not judging you, I’m reading your history?—”
“I said I’m stressed. That’s all.”
She studied me for a moment, saw more than I wanted her to, and nodded once anyway. “We’ll monitor your vitals for another hour. You’re showing mild concussion symptoms, likely from the fall. After that, assuming no changes, we’ll discharge you.”
The door closed quietly behind her.
Vince moved the second the door shut, he walked over and locked it.
He stayed there a moment, forehead tipped to the wood, shoulders heaving once.
He looked as if he had run here.
“You scared me more than anyone ever has,” he breathed slowly.
“Vince—”
He came back to the bed and sat on the edge. “You fainted. All I heard some heir caught you. I pictured you crumpled on that floor with a hundred cameras pointed at you and him touching you, and I—” His jaw clenched. “I should’ve been there.”
“You couldn’t be. You’re not supposed to be anywhere near my events.”
“I’ve been trying to get into this room for three hours,” he unclenched his hands. “Security blocked every corridor. I had to lean on the hospital board to get that doctor in so I had a reason to walk through the door without someone tackling me.”
My brows pulled together. “So the exam was… what, your tactical entry plan?”
“She did need to check you. I just expedited her timing.”
His possessive tendencies needed to be studied.
“You are unbelievable.”
Some of the tightness in his face eased. “And you love me anyway?”
The way he looked at me, as if he expected me to have changed my mind.
“Apparently.”
He leaned in and pressed his mouth to my forehead, my cheek, then finally my lips. Slow. Shaking. Desperate in a way that made the hospital fall away for a second.
Through each kiss, I could feel how scared he was.
When he pulled back, his eyes had gone darker. “Fate Moreau carried you out. Everyone saw it. They’re calling him a hero.”
He slipped into cursing into crow dialect unmistakable. Then he shook his head. “You messaged me. You told me you were in pain. I should’ve found a way in.”
“You were running a city.”
“I was failing you. I let you walk into that ballroom knowing you were hurting.” His gaze dropped briefly to the IV line, then returned to my face.
My fingers found his jaw, I brushed my thumb over rough edge of stubble. “Look at me.”
