Page 58 of Corrupt Vows

She fought hard and protected herself until I could get there.

Guilt hits me hard as I recall how harsh I was in the car before we met her parents, but I need her to never put herself in this kind of situation again.

She shifts and lifts her lashes before whispering, “Lights?”

I interpret her request and use the remote to turn off the overhead fluorescents and dim the side lamps. She sighs and winces before flexing her fingers in mine.

“Where do you hurt?” I ask.

“I’m fine,” she says.

I growl and kiss the back of her hand.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

I make a noncommittal sound and kiss higher on her hand.

“You probably hate the hospital,” she says with a sob.

I peel my lips away from her wrist, stand, brace my elbow on the far side of the bed near her shoulder, and stroke my fingertips over her face.

“Hush,principessa. I don’t hate the hospital. Calm down and tell me why you think I should,” I demand to hide the panic growing in my chest as she cries harder.

Her grip tightens on my fingers, cutting off my circulation, but she calms after a minute and speaks in a raspy voice.

“I came to see you after the accident when your mom died. The nurses told us to stay away because you were violent,” she hiccups and tugs my hand closer to her side, “but when I started crying, you gave me your hand.”

I run my thumb over her bottom lip.

“I don’t remember,” I admit.

A fresh tear trails over her temple, but I wipe it away before it reaches her hairline.

“Don’t let go,” she whispers.

“I won’t,” I promise.

She inhales a jagged breath before latching her other hand on top of our woven fingers.

“Tell me why you don’t hate the hospital.”

I study her pale face, note her pinched expression, and recognize her request for what it is: she wants me to talk to her as she dips in and out of consciousness. She wants me as her tether to reality as she relives today’s nightmare.

I kiss her cheek and trail my fingers down her delicate neck before I sit down and wrap my hand around her thigh over her blanket, giving her yet another connection to the present.

“I spent many years going in and out of the hospital for Natalie, and I still take her to all her appointments. It was scary at first, but the little menace carried happiness no matter where she went or how much she was hurting. I couldn’t hate the hospital when the doctors and nurses were the reason she was still alive.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you took her. She never mentioned it. That’s so sweet,” she murmurs, already slipping into another nap.

My gut clenches. If she knew guilt was the driving force behind my insistence on chaperoning my sister’s doctor visits, she may feel different, but I cling to the hope that her soft heart will forgive me. I know I never will.

“I wish I had someone who’d support me like that,” she mumbles.

“You do, Serenity,” I say, but she relaxes into an exhausted slumber.

Ermanno arrives with a change of clothes, so I take a quick shower and return to her bedside with dripping hair. She sleeps through an IV bag change and a visit from Doctor Hennessy but wakes for another dose of pain meds and to use the bathroom. When I carry her back to the bed, she refuses to release my nape.

“Lay with me?” she asks.

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