“Waylen, you shielded me from a bomb with your body, how could I possibly be hurt?” Leilani asks.
“I’m your husband,” he whispers. “I have a duty to keep you safe.”
Leilani looks away to hide the tears, filling her eyes. She wants to take his hand tenderly and softly kiss the uninjured fingers, but she stops herself. He just called himself my husband, she thinks. But I plan to leave him soon. It’s too cruel to let him think I care for him.
“Robert says the Oliver family made peace with your grandfather,” she says, trying to change the subject.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave that sc.u.mbag in peace,” Waylen hisses. “Jackson will pay, no matter what stupid treaty my grandfather has agreed to.”
“The Olivers lashed out because of Charles, but now they’ve promised to leave us alone,” Leilani says. “Why can’t we just put it all behind us?”
“Put it all behind us?” Waylen asks. “Jackson ordered a hit on you, tampered with the elevator, and planned a suicide attack. How can I just put that behind me? Besides, I don’t trust him to keep his word. He’s a snake.”
“Listen, Waylen, I know you don’t trust him,” Leilani says. “He could change his mind and attack again at any time, but we have to trust that the family will keep him under control.”
“Are you defending him?” Waylen asks angrily.
“No, of course not,” Leilani says with a tired sigh. “I know you want to protect me, but think about yourself for once. If you go after Jackson, he’ll go after you. It’ll go on and on until one of you ends up dead.”
“It’ll be him,” Waylen says.
“Waylen, I can’t bear to worry about you every time we’re apart,” she says. “If you continue this feud, I’m going to worry all the time. I’ll never know if you’ll come home alive. I can’t live like that.”
Waylen’s expression seems to soften, but his eyes are still sharp. He strokes her back under her dress. His palm is slightly too warm on her skin, and she wonders if he has a fever. He looks at her as if he’s trying to read her mind, and she stares back, trying to keep her expression calm and relaxed.
“So, did the Olivers say anything about the heart?” Leilani asks. “If your grandfather convinced them to end the feud, he must have come up with some way to get Charles a new heart, no?”
She knows where Charles is getting his heart, but she doesn’t want Waylen to get suspicious. If I ask about it, I’ll seem innocent, she thought guiltily. She hates lying to Waylen, but she knows it’s the only way.
Waylen shrugs carelessly and says, “My grandfather says they’re bringing in some specialist who promises he can save Charles.”
Leilani tries to hide her relief by looking down at Waylen’s bandages. It seems that Francis has kept his end of the deal and hidden the truth from Waylen. Waylen pulled her toward him and smells her hair. Leilani pulls away, embarrassed. She knows she smells like blood and soot and worse. She doesn’t want Waylen sniffing her.
A nurse opens the door and pauses, blushing to see Leilani and Waylen in such an intimate position on the bed. Leilani tries to stand up, but Waylen won’t let her. The nurse clears her throat and looks down at her white shoes.
“The doctor says Mr. Bamford’s wounds need to be cleaned before he sleeps,” the nurse says.
She’s carrying a tray with disinfectant and medical swabs and gauze, but her hands are shaking terribly. Leilani tugs away from Waylen and takes the tray from the embarrassed nurse.
“I’ll do it,” Leilani says. “Don’t worry, I know how.”
The nurse nods and runs out of the room. Leilani turns to Waylen and gently loosens the bandages from his back. The gauze sticks to the wounds in some places, and he flinches as she peels it away from his bloody skin. Leilani sucks in her breath. It looks so much worse than she thought it would. She can’t believe he’s able to talk to her like normal when he has such bad injuries.
“Let Robert do it,” Waylen says, sounding concerned. “I don’t want to upset you.”
Leilani takes a deep breath and says, “No, I can do it.”
She pours the liquid onto the cotton and lightly dabs it onto his back. She touches him as gently as possible, but he trembles with pain. She starts with his earlobe and then moves down to his neck, collarbone, and chest. Waylen presses his lips together, and his face goes pale, but he doesn’t make a single sound.
She carefully disinfects his back and then looks down at the band of his underwear. She wonders if he’s injured down there, but she’s scared to ask. Slowly she moves her shaking hand toward his underwear, but he grabs her wrist. With a quick, strong movement, he tugs her toward him.
Leilani pulls away, but he hugs her again, and she loses her balance. She stumbles forward, almost landing on top of him. She puts her hands out just in time, catching herself against the mattress. Her face is just inches from his.
“Waylen, that was dangerous,” she says angrily.
Waylen’s eyes burned with an intense fire, and he asks, “Don’t I get a reward for saving you today?”
“Waylen, you know we can’t,” Leilani says. “Even if you weren’t injured, I’m pregnant.”
Waylen ignores her. Instead, he reaches for his jacket on the bedside chair. He fumbles with it for a moment and then pulls out a ring with a champagne-colored diamond. Leilani immediately recognizes it from his proposal on the island.
“Marry me,” he says.
Leilani stares down at the ring. The stone shines and twinkles, but Waylen’s eyes are even brighter. He smiles softly and rolls the ring around his palm.
“Don’t say no to me again,” he whispers.
“This is where you’re proposing to me?” Leilani asks, stalling for time.
“What’s wrong with that?” Waylen asks.
“It’s the hospital, Waylen,” she says. “No one proposes in the hospital. Least of all when they’re too wounded to even get out of bed.”
“The place doesn’t matter—it’s the thought that counts,” Waylen says with a smile.
“Stop joking about this,” Leilani says. “You just survived a bomb blast. And the doctor said your wounds need to be cleaned to avoid infection.”
She reaches for the bottle of disinfectant, but Waylen stops her and asks, “Why are you avoiding the question?”
“Why would I avoid the question?” Leilani asks, feeling her palms start to sweat. “I’m just worried about your health.”
“Last time you refused me because of Charles, but now he’s
Leilani’s eyes brim with tears, and she looks away, trying to hide them from Waylen. She doesn’t want to refuse him a third time, but she can’t accept either. She presses her lips together and watches as Robert passes Waylen another glass of water. Her ear is pressed to his chest, so she can hear him swallow it down.
Within a few minutes, Waylen clears his throat and says he needs to use the toilet. Leilani isn’t surprised—in just fifteen minutes, he’s had almost two liters of water. Robert walks to the bedside and tries to help Waylen up, but Leilani waves him away.
“Let me help him,” she says, surprising herself.
Waylen raises his eyebrows at her, and Robert clears his throat nervously, but Leilani gets up. Carefully, she takes Waylen’s arm and puts it around her shoulders to help support him. Waylen pauses, and Leilani looks back at him.
“What’s wrong?” Leilani asks. “Can’t I help you?”
“I’d prefer for you to wait here,” Waylen says embarrassed.
“What are you embarrassed about?” Leilani asks, rolling her eyes. “We’ve already been intimate, and there’s no part of your body I haven’t seen before. Why can’t I just help you with this?”
“This is different,” Waylen says. “It feels dirtier somehow.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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