She’d given me an odd little smile then, this breathtaking woman from the other side of the world who’d captured me so completely that I wasn’t even mad about it—not when she loved me as hard as I loved her.
“I never thought I’d meet someone like you, Tavish. A man straight out of my fairy-tale dreams.” Her fingers on my jaw, the caress so light it was the merest whisper. “I feel so free with you, as if I’m truly seeing life for the first time. No filters, no restraints. I’m myself and I remember all of me.”
The pills, so innocuous in their brown plastic bottles…those I’d discovered later. I’d grown up in LA, the land of glitter and excess; my first thought had been that my wife had a party-pill habit. ThenI’d seen the labels with complex drug names and started to understand that this had nothing to do with ecstasy or heroin, uppers or downers.
I was holding prescription medicine in my hands.
It didn’t matter; my wife owned my heart when she shone bright—or when she fell into the dark.
I shoved through the door into the toilets.
It was hospital clean and hospital cold, hard-wearing tile and icy white sinks. Unable to even look at my crumpled and bloody T-shirt after I pulled it off, I shoved it into the trash can meant for the paper towels used to dry hands.
It vanished in a soft rustle.
With the toilets still empty of anyone but me, I washed my hands and forearms to get rid of any traces of blood and soot, then threw some water on my face, using the paper towels to finish my cleanup. I noticed absently that I’d lost some of the hair on my arms—scorched by the heat from the fire. But no burns as far as I could see…until I turned and looked at my back.
A scattering of mismatched red spots across my shoulders and upper back, small indicators of my proximity to the flames, but nothing serious. Not like the lips sliced into my wife’s body.
Hands shaking, I pulled on the dark blue scrub top; the color was several shades lighter than the midnight blue Bentley I’d hired to drive us to our wedding in Vegas.
“Black looks good on you, Mr.Advani.” Diya’s gaze had been sultry as she ran her fingers over the tuxedo that Susanne had had made for me when I turned twenty-one, an expensive gift that had stood the test of time; the tailor had left room in the seams so I’d been able to have it altered when I put on more muscle, settled into my adult body.
Diya, for her part, had chosen a dress of darkest amethyst fittedto the waist, the bottom half an airy flow to the ankles. Sleeveless, with a plunging V-neck, it had made her appear a siren right off the silver screen.
The necklace I’d given her—a jagged icicle of a diamond pendant—had sat perfectly in that vee, but she hadn’t needed the adornment. Diya’s shine had dazzled brighter than any gemstone as she spun under the kaleidoscope of lights and music and color that was Las Vegas, her beauty so sharply defined that it had scared me for a minute.
A woman that lovely, that fragile, might just one day shatter.
As Jocelyn had shattered. As Virna had shattered.
Susanne…her end had been a thing far more torturous and slow.
“I’m Diya Advani!” Diya’s happy scream had obliterated the cold chill of my worry, my world as awash in multihued lights as the skies of Vegas. “Mrs.Tavish Advani!”
Grabbing her by the hips, I’d lifted her up and spun us both around.
Diya’s hair a tumbled fan around her shoulders, her strappy black heels hanging off her fingers, and her body light but so, soalive.
My fingers clenched on the cold porcelain of the sink. “Please, baby.” The plea whispered out of me.
The door to the toilets swung open.
Gut clenching at the sudden burst of noise, I pushed off the sink. It took all my courage to follow the directions to the waiting area. The main atrium of the hospital proved huge and wide; it was full of natural light due to a high peaked ceiling full of glass panels, while the pillars to my left bore intricate Maori carvings.
A number of people sat talking quietly at tables I could see at one end.
I didn’t notice much else, my focus on getting closer to Diya.Going up one floor using the stairs, I went through the doors as the instructions said I should—and realized I’d arrived.
Tucked to the left of the doors, the waiting area was delineated by several large armchairs currently empty of occupants. A sign at one end advised of the hospital’s chaplaincy services, while the largest wall held a striking piece of Maori art. The usual hospital signs and a fire extinguisher sat at the far end of the wall, while a water fountain occupied the little corner directly next to the doors.
Despite the fact that the waiting area wasn’t a walled room on its own, it sat mired in silence…because according to the sign opposite the doors, the hallway led to the Intensive Care Unit as well as the Coronary Care Unit on the left, the Medical Unit on the right.
Not a place where people lingered or wandered past without painful reason.
While a nurse about to enter the ICU did check and confirm that Diya remained in surgery, she refused to share any information on Shumi, and since my mind was going in circles, my panic stretching my skin until I thought it would burst, I decided to keep myself busy by seeing if I could find my sister-in-law’s family.
They needed to know what had happened.
