Page 65 of My Irresistible Enemy

I just wished there were a way to make sure my door was locked behind him. The thought of lying here vulnerable, where anyone could come in…

“Hey. Hey! Don’t fall asleep on me yet.” Aiden’s voice penetrated the fog in my brain, and when I opened my eyes again, he was crouched at the side of the bed, holding a glass of water.

Seeing that reminded me that I was actually the thirstiest person on the planet. I was a water vampire. I could have drunk the entire contents of the Mississippi and the Amazon combined. I reached out, took the glass, and promptly spilled half of it on the comforter.

Aiden sighed. “I probably should have predicted that. Here, let me.”

He took the glass back and brought it to my lips like I was a baby who couldn’t be trusted not to make a mess. The fact that he was right only made it worse. Water dribbled down my chin, and I died a little inside. When I finished the glass, Aiden set it down on the nightstand and gave me a long look.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I think you need to go to the hospital.”

“Wha? Hosh—no.” I tried to shake my head, but only managed to press my face farther into the pillow. It squished my nose and made it a little hard to breathe, but I couldn’t quite summon the energy to move again.

But Aiden had other ideas. He slipped one hand underneath my cheek and turned me so I was facing him.

“Hey. Asshole. I know you’re high as a kite right now, but I’d really appreciate you not suffocating yourself while I’m trying to save your life.”

“Noddye,” I mumbled. “Cannd. Dunwah. No spull.”

“Yeah, you’re doing a really great job of convincing me you don’t need help when you can’t even pronounce your words right.” He frowned. “Aren’t you worried? Who knows what you actually ingested tonight? What if it’s something dangerous?” He bit his lip. “If you were roofied, I—I don’t know what to do. But I don’t want you to die on me.”

Fuck, I needed him to stop saying that word. Every time I so much as thought it, it triggered a full-body shudder, and then a new batch of tears, and I really, really didn’t want him to see that.

“No.” At leastthatword, I could say correctly. I squeezed my eyes shut. I was not going to cry anymore. Not in front of him, not in front of anyone. “No.”

“I know you don’t consider your day complete unless you’ve disagreed with me a hundred times, but this is serious.” I felt his hand move to my shoulder. “I’m worried about you. Please?”

I opened my eyes to tell him to leave me alone. To go back to his room, or the party, or anywhere that wasn’t here. To leave me in peace.

But what came out was, “Cannd,” along with a broken sob. The fact that I couldn’t stop shuddering long enough to explain only made it worse. “Pleash jush. Ikinnd. Canngo.”

I knew Aiden had a point. I wasn’t sure what I’d been given. I wasn’t even sure I’d been given anything. The best way to figure that out would be with a doctor’s help.

But the thought of anyone else seeing me like this? The thought of people on the show finding out, of the world seeing this and it becoming a whole thing? I couldn’t survive that.

“Don wah peefl shee me,” I choked out around tears. “Pleash.”

Aiden was quiet for a long time. Or at least, it felt like a long time. It might have only been ten seconds. I could barely remember my own name, so tracking the passage of time was a bit beyond me.

But finally, he spoke. “Okay. If I end up regretting this because you die overnight, I am going to be so mad. You understand that, right? I’m going to find a way to resurrect you, just so I can kill you myself. But fine. We don’t have to go to the hospital.”

“Fank—” I started to say, but he stood up abruptly before I could get the words out.

“I’m getting you more water. Try to still be alive when I come back.”

I wasn’t sure how long it took for him to come back, or just how many glasses of water he made me drink in the ensuing minutes. It was more than one and probably less than twenty, though it felt like about two hundred. I slurped each one down greedily.

At some point, Mal came back to check on me, speaking quietly with Aiden by the door before disappearing downstairs again. Aiden came back to the side of the bed after Mal left.

“I’m a little surprised you didn’t ask him to stay, and send me away,” Aiden said with a wry smile.

“Wha—why?”

I blinked at him. His face was a little less blurry, but it was still fuzzy around the edges, and he had this halo around him now, this glow, that I couldn’t quite make sense of.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I thought maybe part of the reason you were being so stubborn about all this was that your pride was hurt. That you didn’t want to have to rely on someone you’d slept with, because it would ruin your whole aura of mystery or whatever.”

In spite of myself, I laughed. It sounded more like I was trying to gargle water, but it was meant to be a laugh, anyway.Thatwas what he thought I was worried about? He had no idea. But there was no way in hell I was going to tell him what had actually sent me into such a tailspin.

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