“You can’t leave your wound open like that. You don’t need to get an infection and die. You need stitches. Come on. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Don’t you have a private doctor we can go to? One that won’t ask questions?”
“No. Not anymore. Not after I lost everything.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He shakes his head. “That’s a discussion for another time. Come on. Let’s go.”
I sit beside Marco in his car, neither one of us talking. There’s a tenseness between us, like the grand canyon. We don’t know how to bypass it.
I hold a napkin to my arm and watch as the blood seeps through the white flimsy fabric. “You stopped that man after he cut me.”
“He shouldn’t have cut you.”
“I agree. I just…”
“What?” he asks in a surprisingly gentle tone.
“I just didn’t think you’d help save my life.”
“I said you were mine, Ciara. That means protecting you.”
“You just acted like you wanted to control me so I assumed you wouldn’t want to protect me.” The moment I say it, I realize how silly it sounds.
“If a man comes at you with a knife, I’ll protect you. That I can promise. I am a man who keeps my word.”
I flinch. He’s implying that I don’t keep my word. Screw him.
We arrive at the hospital but before we get out, I have to say one more thing. “Thank you. I guess. For saving me from that man.”
“He was trying to kill me so it wasn’t completely selfless.” He pauses. “But you’re welcome.”
We enter the ER and a nurse takes me straight to a chair to look over my arm. Marco hovers nearby. A nurse tries asking him questions but he says that we’re just friends and he doesn’t know any of my medical history.
But Marco and I won’t be strangers forever. Not after we’re married. A tingle runs down my body and I’m not sure how to feel about it.
“I have to tell your dad about this,” he says after a doctor begins stitching up my arm.
“Do you have to?”
“I have to gain his trust, Ciara. You understand. Besides, he’ll see the stitches on your arm anyway.”
I sigh and slump against the seat. “You’re right. Call him.”
Marco does. It doesn’t take long for my brother and father to show up at the hospital. The doctor finishes my stitches and gives me a prescription for antibiotics and tells me I’m free to go.
“What happened?” Cormac asks once I enter the waiting room. Marco keeps his distance from my brother, I notice. “Was it that fucker? Did he hurt you?”
“No. Two men tried killing Marco and I got in the way. One of them cut me.”
“What?” my father hisses.
Cormac’s eyes widen and he stumbles back. “What men? Where did this happen?”
“At a nightclub,” I admit. “I got away from Ian.”
“I know,” Dad says in a stern voice. “Ian called me the moment you ran away and he couldn’t find you. If it weren’t for Marco, then who knows where you’d be.”
