“IwishI had a woman like her I could call family,” I replied coldly.
“A woman like who?”
I looked up to find Dom striding towards the door. He was much lessput together than usual. His hair looked like he’d been running his hands through it, and his beard badly needed a trim. But saving the love of your life from a violent attacker would do that to a person, I supposed.
“Sophia,” I answered. Lucian made a grumpy noise behind me. The overly suspicious twit probably thought Dom was going to whip out his phone and call the police.
“Lucian, this is Dom,” I explained, in the voice I’d used with my littlest Learn to Swim kiddos. “He’s Kat’s boyfriend. He does not need to provide you with photographic evidence of his relationship with her.”
Dom cleared his throat, and with a tiny, amused smile, offered his hand to Lucian.
“Nice to meet you. I’m guessing you’re the bodyguard?”
Lucian shook his hand curtly. “I’m Henry’s security detail who has been put on wayward wife duty.”
I opened my mouth to say something snarky, but Dom cut me off. “Have you been in to see her yet? How is she today?”
I shrugged, forcing words past the tightness in my throat. “She seems in very good spirits, all things considered.”
Dom nodded, tight-jawed. “She’s going to press charges. I …” He scratched at his beard. “I’m glad you could make it, Ri. I know Kat has been worried about you.”
A wave of affection for this man overtook me. I hadn’t been around for Kat much this year, and this man had stepped up when she needed someone. He was hers.
The way Henry was becoming mine.
“I’m glad she’s got you, Dom,” I rasped. “I … I’m glad she’s found someone who fits her perfectly.”
“She’s my person.” Dom’s eyes softened, and a tiny smile tilted his mouth. “Any chance of meeting the elusive Henry soon?”
“Soon. Things are … busy at the moment, and we’re keeping a low profile.” I gave him a gentle nudge towards the door before Lucian decided I was saying too much. “Go see your girl.”
Dom nodded, opening the door just as a spluttering cough erupted from inside the room.
“Shit,” he muttered as the door closed behind him, and I let out a long breath.
“If you want to spend some more time with her, you better do it now,” Lucian warned. “We can’t loiter around the hospital all day.”
I rolled my eyes, slipping back inside the room.
“… Don’t say that I did nothing wrong,” Kat insisted in that gravelly, damaged voice that made my throat tight. “Because I know that. But we’re not talking about what’s rational. We’re talking about my feelings. This, right or wrong, is how I feel right now. And nothing anyone can say will change that. So I just need to be allowed to sit with it. I’m sure the psychologist will have some words to say to me about it. And that’s all I need at this point. To sit with my feelings and know that I’ll work through them when the time comes.”
Her words may as well have reached out and punched me in the space between my tits, because they robbed me of my breath.
“Why’d you lie to Kat—why’d you tell her that photographers are hounding you?” Lucian asked when I emerged from Kat’s room, and he immediately whisked me towards the elevators. He jammed his finger against the button over and over, glowering at the door like he could terrify it into opening for us.
“Well, theyhavebeen hounding us,” I argued. “What about all those TechRaker articles?”
Lucian’s eyes left the elevator doors to fix me with a cold stare. “Did you forget, in your little interlude with your friend, that it’s not the media we’re trying to avoid today—it’s the police, who’ll have no qualms about deporting you, given you’re breaching the agreement Henry managed to make with them. Will youpleasetake this seriously?”
My stomach lurched, but I forced the queasy, lightheaded feelings down, rolling my eyes. “Me taking this seriously is exactlywhyI didn’t tell Kat the truth. We don’t need to drag more people into this mess.”
I leaned against the wall, my legs suddenly wobbly. I gritted my teeth; I was made of stronger stuff than this!
Kat was handling her very recent, very harrowing experience with far more strength than I was handling my memories. Her words about sitting with her feelings—of needing space to feel all the messy, miserable things—had hit me hard.
How many events in my life had I run from, pushed down, hidden away, rather than allowed myself to face the hurricane of emotions that went along with them?
Was that why I hated sharing them with anyone? Because sharing meant digging up feelings that I’d suppressed for so long. It meant reliving emotions that were festering away in the very centre of me.
