I hit “Send”—and the door flies off the hinges, crashing to the floor in front of me.
Julian is standing there naked, his eyes like icy blue slits in his beautiful face.His powerful hands are clenched into fists, and his nostrils are flared, spots of color burning high on his cheekbones.
He’s magnificent and terrifying, like an enraged archangel.
“Give me the laptop, Nora.”His voice is frighteningly calm.“Now.”
Bile rises in my throat, forcing me to swallow convulsively.Standing up, I walk over to him on trembling legs and hand over the computer.
He takes it from me with one hand and, before I can back away, wraps the other one around my right wrist, shackling me to him.
Then he looks at the screen.
I see the exact moment when he realizes what I did.
“You sent it to him?”Setting the computer down on the bathroom counter, he grabs my other arm and drags me closer to him.His eyes burn with fury.“You fucking sent it to him?”He gives me a hard shake, his fingers biting into my skin.
My stomach somersaults, nausea washing over me in sickening wave.“Julian, let go—”
And jerking out of his hold with desperation-fueled strength, I dive for the toilet bowl, just barely reaching it before I throw up.
“How long haveyou had this nausea?”Dr.Goldberg takes my pulse as I lie on the bed, with Julian pacing around the room like a caged jaguar.
“I don’t know,” I say, my eyes tracking Julian’s movements.He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans now, but his feet are still bare.He’s making circles in front of the bed, every muscle in his body taut and his jaw tightly clenched.
He’s either still mad at me, or madly worried about me.I’m guessing it’s a combination of the two.Within minutes of my throwing up, he had the doctor in our room and me bundled comfortably on the bed.
It reminds me of how quickly he acted when I got appendicitis on the island.
“I think I just ate something bad or maybe caught a virus,” I say, turning my attention back to the doctor.“I started feeling sick at dinner.”
“Uh-huh.”Dr.Goldberg takes out a plastic-wrapped needle with a tube attached to a vial.“May I?”
“Okay.”I don’t particularly want him to take my blood, but I have a feeling Julian won’t let me refuse.“Go ahead.”
The doctor finds a vein in my arm and slides the needle in while I look away.I’m still slightly nauseous and don’t want to test my stomach’s fortitude with the sight of blood.
“All done,” he says after a moment, removing the needle and swabbing my skin with an alcohol-scented cotton ball.“I’ll run the tests and let you know what I find.”
“She’s also constantly tired,” Julian says in a low voice, stopping next to the bed.He’s not looking at me, which annoys me a bit.“And she’s sleeping poorly, with the nightmares and all.”
“Right.”The doctor rises to his feet, clutching the vial.“I need to run this to my lab.I’ll be back within the hour.”
He hurries out of the room, and Julian sits down on the bed, looking at me.His face is unusually pale, a frown etched into his forehead.“Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling sick, Nora?”he asks quietly, reaching out to pick up my hand.His fingers are warm on my palm, his grip gentle despite the turmoil I sense within him.
I blink in surprise.I thought he would question me about Peter’s list, not this.“It wasn’t too bad at dinner,” I say carefully.“I felt better after I took a shower and we… well, you know.”I wave my free hand in a gesture meant to encompass the bed.
“We fucked?”Julian’s tense expression eases slightly, unexpected amusement flickering in his eyes.
“Right.”Heat crawls up my body at the mental images his words bring up.Apparently, I’m not too sick to be turned on.“That made me feel better.”
“I see.”Julian regards me speculatively, stroking the inside of my wrist with his thumb.“And you decided that since you were feeling so well, you were going to hack into my computer.”
And there it is.The reckoning I anticipated.Except Julian doesn’t seem as angry as before, his touch on me soothing rather than punishing.
It looks like food poisoning—or whatever I’ve got—has its perks.
I offer him a cautious smile.“Well, yeah.I figured it was as good of an opportunity as any.”I don’t bother apologizing or denying my actions.There’s no point.It’s done.I paid my debt to Peter.
