Page 107 of Billionaire Temptations

“I asked you first,” he spoke as he took the glass from my hand and took a drink.

“Where I was doesn’t matter. What matters right now is how you’re feeling. Should you even be out of bed?”

He sighed as he handed me back my glass.

“It’s okay. You keep it. I have the whole bottle.” I smiled as I held it up.

“I have high blood pressure, and right now, I’m feeling a lot better.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“You’re not?” He arched his brow.

“No. You keep long hours, yell a lot, and get upset when you feel like you’re losing control. To be honest, you’re a heart attack waiting to happen.”

He laughed. “Thanks. So, are you going to tell me about that panic attack you had at the hospital?”

Chapter Twelve

Emerson

Now he wanted to talk to me. After all the days that went by, and he couldn’t be bothered?

“It’s being back here. I should never have let Adam talk me into coming back.”

He looked at me in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“You know, with the accident and stuff.”

“What accident?”

“Didn’t Adam tell you?” I frowned.

“Tell me what? I didn’t even know he had a sister until he asked if you could stay with me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course, he didn’t tell you.”

“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know anything about Adam’s personal life. He has never talked about his family or anything. I only knew about a girl he had dated for a while.”

“Really? I always thought he was gay.” I smirked.

Alex chuckled. It was good to see him laugh. I took in a deep breath and a sip of wine from the bottle.

“When I was sixteen years old, I was in a bad car accident with my parents and my identical twin sister, Emily. They werekilled, and I spent three months in a coma in that hospital. I actually had died for a couple of minutes, but the doctors were able to bring me back. There were times that I wished they hadn’t.” I lowered my head.

“Emerson, don’t say that,” Alex whispered as he reached over and placed his hand on mine.

I pulled away because I didn’t want or need his pity. He was lucky I was even telling him everything. Bringing the bottle of wine up to my lips, I took another sip.

“When I woke up from the coma, Adam told me everyone was dead. I felt like my soul was gone, and I wanted to die. I couldn’t believe they were gone. Emily was my best friend in the whole world, and we did everything together. When she died, a huge part of me died with her.”

I got up from the sand and walked towards the water. Alex followed behind.

“Besides the coma, a couple of bruises, and a fractured knee, I lost complete control of my right arm due to severe nerve damage. After surgery, I spent a year in rehab, trying to regain use of it again. The doctors said I only had a twenty percent chance of it ever fully recovering and that I needed to get used to doing things with one arm.”

“But you did recover,” Alex softly spoke as we walked along the water.

“I did because of Emily. Swimming was our life. We trained in the pool every day since we were seven years old. Our parents didn’t know we were training; they only knew how much we loved the water. Emily had her heart set on becoming an Olympic swimmer. She wanted nothing more than to make the USA Olympic team. My goal wasn’t that big. But I trained with her anyway because it meant so much to her. Before the accident happened, she was training for the national swim meet for ourhigh school. She was on her way to the top, and everyone had their eye on her.”

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