The sterile smell of the private hospital room that looked more like a hotel suite was a sickening contrast to the smell of burning rubber and blood that had been seared into my nostrils from the night before. I paced the room like a dazed animal, the wheezing of the oxygen concentrator drove me insane. Every time her heart rate monitor dipped, my heart plummeted.
Every time I looked at her as she lay there unconscious, the protective instinct I had been trying to suppress for six months roared to life. I could still see the flashes of those cameras in my mind, the way they had swarmed like vultures. To those paparazzi, Katarina was just the next best clickbait that would give them their next paycheck. She was not a real person to them anymore.
Suddenly, the thought of finding every one of them and breaking the hands that had held those cameras became the subject of my fantasies.
I had tried my damndest to stay away from her from the moment I met her. I knew she was trouble, and it would not end well for either of us. Yet, she drew me in like a firefly to a lamp. And last night, I stepped over a line. I kissed her, and now she was lying in a hospital bed.
This is my fucking fault.
It was ten in the morning when Katarina finally stirred. A soft whimper escaped her lips as her eyes fluttered open, glassy with morphine. She squinted against the light, her gaze wandered over the IV drips before settling on me. She looked so small in the hospital bed, swallowed by the white sheets.
Her forehead was wrapped in a thick pressure bandage, covering a deep gash from where her head had hit the side window of her car. A brace was locked around her neck to keep her spine from shifting, making her look stiff and fragile.
She reached up with a weak, trembling hand to adjust the oxygen mask, but her fingers were stiff, marred by tiny glass shards that the doctors had spent hours picking out.
“Where… where am I?” Her voice cracked.
“Hospital,” I said, my voice sounding like it was being dragged through gravel. I stepped toward the bed, relief and rage warring in my chest. “You were in an accident. A bad one.”
For a few seconds, she stared at me. Then I watched as the memories came back to her. Her pupils dilated, and her breath hitched. She turned her head away, her shoulders shaking as the first sob broke through. She cried with desperate sobs that made the monitor's rhythm skip and race.
“Stop, it’s okay. You’re okay.” I said, reaching out to her cheek so she could look at me.
“w-why are you here?” she chokes.
I didn't want to be angry, but the sight of her broken and pale was too much.
“I told you not to get in that car. I told you not to drive. You nearly died in my arms, Katarina. Do you have any idea what that was like?”
She finally looks at me, her tears rolling down her temples. “Lo siento… I just… the cameras… I had to get away.”
“And you almost died!” I snapped, though my hand found hers, my thumb tracing her knuckles with a gentleness that betrayed my tone. I took a sharp breath as if to calm us both.
“Mateo is on a flight back from New York. He’ll be here soon. He’s going to kill us both.” I offered a smile to lighten the mood, but it only made her cry harder.
“I’ve ruined everything,” she whispered, her eyes red-rimmed and swimming in tears. “My career… Sol… the photos…”
“The photos are already everywhere,” I said, looking at the tabloid on the bedside table. “The Model and the Mogul: A Dangerous Affair,” I read the headline to her. “They think we were having an affair. They were saying I upset you, so you left me and drove like a maniac.” I added after a beat, and she closed her eyes as if to try to hide from shame.
“Perdóname,” she sobbed. “I am so, so sorry for dragging you into this.”
I looked at the woman in front of me, hurt and scared. And somehow, the only thing that mattered to me was to make sure she was okay. She had been reckless, and she had done something wrong that I should have been mad about. But all I wanted to do was make her feel better.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“I didn't give a damn about the papers, Kat,” I said, leaning over her until my shadow fell across her face. I reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, careful to avoid the pressure bandage on her forehead.
“Your car is scrap metal. Just don’t ever do that again. Don't ever endanger yourself like that again.”
She looked up at me, her eyes glossy with fresh tears, her chin trembling.
“You stayed,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the monitors.
“I wasn’t going anywhere,Dolcezza,” I murmured. The anger that had been burning in my chest just moments before softened into something much more dangerous:devotion.
Why was I acting like this?
“Besides, everyone thought we were together now. It would have looked worse if I hadn’t.” I joked, and it finally made her smile.
