I hear voices, low and deep. Male voices.
I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where I am. Or why it’s so hard to wake up and open my eyes.
Why can I hardly move? Why does my head hurt so badly? And my face? God, it throbs.
But then a voice pushes through among the others, and I calm. I can’t place who the voice belongs to, but it soothes me for some reason. Tells me I’m safe.
“Gina, can you hear me?” I could drift on the timbre of his deep baritone voice. Hands touch me, and I know they’re his, and I drift some more. “Can you open your eyes,il mio sole?”
Something within me awakens, lifting its head.
Il mio sole.
My sun.
Why do I know that?
“Come on, love. Open your eyes.”
I want to tell him I like the other endearment more than ‘love,’ but my throat is dry and parched.
There’s a touch on the side of my face that doesn’t hurt, and I lean into it and sigh, completely content to just lie here and exist.
He has other ideas, though, and coaxes me to open my eyes.
And I finally do.
I’m aware enough to realize I’m in the hospital. The room is dim as I blink slowly, trying to get more of my bearings. Two figures are fuzzy, but I can see enough to know they’re men.
Are they doctors?
My vision clears a bit as I blink some more, and they don’t strike me as doctors… They look like dangerous men.
Panic starts to stir within me; I don’t know them. Who are they, and why am I in the hospital?
The men step aside when the doctor hurries into the room and heads straight for me.
“She just woke up,” the one with the deep baritone timbre to his voice says, and my panic instantly dissipates upon hearing him.
The doctor says something to a nurse who appears by my bed, but I can’t make out what he says. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.
And right now, I want to concentrate on that man’s voice. It makes me feel safe, like strong arms wrapping around me to protect me.
“Gina.”
A hand gently cups my chin, and I know it’s him—the man with the voice. He slowly turns my head, and I need to blink rapidly again to clear my vision.
Both because it went fuzzy, but mainly because the man beside the bed is so gorgeous he can’t be real. He’s that otherworldly type of handsome.
The fact that it looks like he’s been sleeping at my bedside doesn’t diminish the potency of his attractiveness.
His unique crystal-blue eyes are startling. Makes you just stop and stare, not wanting to look away from something so beautiful.
“ll mio sole,” his voice is thick with emotion—relief and…love?
I can only stare at him, confused but still feeling safe. However, I still need to ask, “Who are you?”
He jerks, pain flashing over his face, and he quickly glances at someone. I’m assuming it’s the doctor because I can’t look away from him as I try to pull something from the black hole that seems to be my memories.
