Page 93 of Reluctantly His

One final thought echoed through my head.

“How am I going to tell my family? My father is going to lose his mind.”

CHAPTER 33

CHARLOTTE

“How many forbids is that?” Olivia asked.

She was perched on the edge of my hospital bed, snacking on a little bag of pretzels she’d picked up from the vending machine down the hall because, according to Olivia, a show like this needed salty snacks.

“Fifteen, I think,” I answered, reaching for one of the mini pretzels in her bag.

“Seventeen,” Luc corrected. His eyes were closed as he sat back in the chair next to my bed, his feet propped up at the foot of my bed.

“Are you sure?” Olivia asked. “I counted fifteen, too.”

“Positive. You missed two of them while you were texting Marksen. By the way, is he going to try to make it to the rest of the show or…” He let the question hang as we both turned to listen to our father on speaker phone start another round of ‘absolutely not’ and ‘over my dead body’ and calling all of his children worthless and ungrateful.

After I had woken up the second time, I was starting to feel more like myself.

Reid was still by my side, holding my hand as the doctors came in and gave me a rundown of everything that had happened during the surgeries to remove the bullets and what was going to be required to get me back on my feet.

Unfortunately, I had lost so much blood that they wanted to keep me inpatient for at least a week to make sure that there were no other complications and that the gunshot wounds would heal completely.

I managed to convince the doctor to lower the dosage of morphine when I pressed the button, making it enough to manage the pain, but not so much that I couldn’t think straight.

As soon as the doctor had left my room, Luc came in, first staring down Reid with a look of manly competition and unspoken threats.

Reid met the stare and then sat back with his arms crossed over his chest, daring Luc to say something.

Luc narrowed his eyes and then focused on me. “Can we talk privately?” he asked.

His shoulders were pushed back, and for a moment I thought he was talking to Reid, asking him to step out in the hall, but he was looking at me.

Asking my permission to speak with him.

It was the first time he had ever asked my permission for anything.

It took some convincing, but with Luc swearing he wouldn’t leave the room until Reid got back, we managed to convince Reid that he needed to go home, take a shower, shave, and then come back.

I also wanted to suggest a nap, so he could get a little rest in his own bed, but I knew he wouldn’t hear of it. He had left me alone once and look what happened. It wasn’t his fault, but convincing him of that was proving to be rather difficult.

Once he was gone, Luc deflated in front of me.

For once, my big brother didn’t look like the younger version of my father.

He looked tired and stressed. I had never seen him look like anything other than distantly cold and strong, unless he was looking at his wife.

I motioned to the chair Reid had just given up, and Luc slumped into it, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hand.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Am I okay? No, Charlotte, I’m not okay. I’m confused. And I feel like I failed you.”

“You didn’t fail me,” I said, reaching over to pat his shoulder. “Tell me why you think you failed me, and I will tell you why you’re wrong.”

“I thought marrying Zeigler was what you wanted. I went along with it without checking with you. I’m your big brother, I should have known.”

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