Page 98 of King

“You want me to come back for you? You've been trying to get me out of Eden since day one."

“I thought you had something on my family. That you were trying to tear us down. It’s not every day a girl like you walks into ERA like she owns the place. When the Huangs kept asking about you, I started to think something was up.”

Was? “Something is up Damien.” I lean on my elbows, ignoring the pain. “Cindy Huang knows something about my parents. I know it. She has a whole file on my mom and she gets super aggressive when I ask about it.”

Damien raises an eyebrow but I continue, “I don’t know what it is.” My eyes scan the stained boards in the ceiling. “I mean, a non-profit lawyer and a journalist died in an accidental house fire. How important could they be?”

“Shit, Jo.” With my eyes back on Damien, he rubs his chin, glancing down at his shoes. “You mean you really don’t know?”

The look on his face makes my heart sink. I’m not sure I can take more bad news. “What is it?”

Putting my hand in his, he takes a second before he continues, but I’m already starting to feel like I can’t breathe.

He sighs, "The fire wasn’t accidental.”

“Quit being stubborn.” Damien holds a spoon to my mouth, but I’m not liking what it's holding. “You don’t like French onion soup?”

“Don’t like the smell of it either.” I grimace, white sheets ruffling around my naked body when I try to sit up.

Damien’s taking his instructions from the doctor like he's a medic on duty. Doc says I’ll recover soon as long as I take it easy. The damage is minor. A trail of stitches and bandages some of the only clues that I'd suffered a gunshot wound.

Regardless, I don't want to go back to Eden Gardens. Not right away. Not ever. So Damien did the next best thing that came to mind. He got a room at one of those fancy hotels near the airport between Eden Gardens and The Grove.

Of course, Damien made sure to get the best room available. Top floor. King bed. Fluffy sheets. Fluffier towels. He ordered room service for food to take with my medication but he’s still got a lot to learn about my tastebuds.

“Fine. I’ll get you something else.” He reaches for his phone, stripped down to his boxers. "But you gotta eat, Rowland."

“Pho.” Smiling I can already taste the comforting savoury broth.

Damien pauses, his dark hair a mess from rolling around in bed with me for hours. "French onion soup is too much but pho isn't?” I nod and he shakes his head, a smirk on his face before he taps on his phone.

The bedroom gives us a view of planes arriving and departing. A TV hangs from the white ceiling in front of us but we haven't turned it on, my eyes locked on a Boeing heading for the clouds. The dark walls in the room are both luxurious and calming. An upgrade from the hospital's sterile, white environment.

I'm still not over what Damien said in the hospital room. I was still paralyzed from shock when the doctor came in to discharge me. Unable to digest his instructions, Damien was there to take it all in. He even stopped off at the pharmacy along the way.

It's a side to Damien I've never seen before.

“Didn’t take you for a caretaker.” My eyes turn to him as he grabs one of the dozen pillows we threw off the bed. He tucks it under my head before grabbing the leftover soup from the glass side table.

His head falls against the leather headboard. "You took an actual bullet for me." Moon-like eyes bounce around my face, tingles joining the burn in my abs. "I'm repaying the favour."

“Well, you only get one.” My head sinks into the feathers, my eyes positioned on the clouds. “Don’t let it get to that next time.”

He chuckles and even with a gunshot wound, it stirs my insides. "Not that many bullets flying around Eden,” he says.

I've only been gone a few days but the sound of that town still makes my mouth bitter. "Not a good enough reason to go back."

He pulls the spoon from his mouth, one dark eyebrow up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

“Why should I go back to Eden? You said it yourself, I’m better off—”

“What? Here? With your backstabbing BFF?" I must have hit a nerve because he's clenching his bowl of soup hard enough that his knuckles turn white.

"Oh, and you're a saint?"

He stares into his bowl, swirling around the spoon. "If it wasn't for me, Zane would've had his way."

"And if it wasn't for me you'd be nursing a gunshot wound." Shifting in the bed, my eyes narrow at Damien. "Wait, what happened to Zane?"

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