Page 111 of Arrogant Playboy

There’s a lot of beeping.

All I can see is darkness.

People’s voices sound like a jumbled mess.

Is that Daniel’s voice I can hear?

Why would he be here?

My head hurts.

I feel so tired.

Everything aches.

Where am I, again?

Why won’t my eyes open?

Then I’m pulled under into the darkness again.

43

DANIEL

We got to Dubai as soon as we could. Rosie was very lucky she only had a dislocated shoulder and broken nose. Thankfully, she was wearing a helmet, but she was still knocked unconscious. The girls said she came over a hill, turned sharply, then the next thing she was rolling and then thrown off. They found her unconscious in the sand. She’s come out of surgery, and we are all waiting in the waiting room; me, Louis, Emily, Georgia, Matthieu, Ivy, and Alex. I continue to pace up and down the fluorescent corridors of the hospital.

“Hi, Rosie Hunt’s family?” the doctor asks, looking over at us. “She’s awake, but only two people are allowed in.” Georgia and Emily look over at me and I nod. They should be the first people to see her. I have no claim over her like they do. They look relieved and walk with the doctor.

“Thanks,” Louis says, squeezing my shoulder.

“Rosie will want to see her friends, not me. Maybe I should go.”

My brother grabs me and hauls me back. “Now is not the time. I’ve been in your position before, remember Paris,” he tells me, reminding me of the night Emily was attacked. “You need tosee her, and only then if she asks you to leave, you leave. Now is the time to step up and show her how much you love her. Do not let fear push you away from her.”

“I was so close to losing her. I can’t lose her,” I tell him.

“I know. Look at Emily and me. Did you ever think we could come back after that night?” I shake my head. “Exactly. I dreamed every single day for the moment that she would look at me with love, not hate. Have faith, brother.”

The girls come out after an hour. “She wants to see you,” Emily says.

My heart thunders in my chest. “She does?”

Emily gives me a wide smile. “She does.”

I launch myself down the hospital corridor toward her room, stop at the door, suck in a deep breath, and steady myself before pushing it open. I see her black and bruised body in the bed, but seeing her awake with those marks seems so much worse. Her face pulls into a grimace as she looks over at me, and I’m not sure if it’s from pain or my presence. I move toward her and take a seat.

“You’re crying,” she mumbles.

I don’t realize I am until I wipe my tears from my face. “I thought I lost you, Rosie,” I confess quietly. She reaches out to me, and I take her hand and slide my chair closer to her.

“I thought I lost you, too.”

I lift her hand to my lips. “Never, you have my heart forever.” Tears start to form in her eyes as I continue to kiss her hand.

“I’m sorry I never told you about Dubai.”

I shake my head. “Whatever happened before today I don’t care. I love you, Rosie Hunt. I never ever want to spend another day without you in my life, this has been torture. You’re the end game for me. I want to build a life with you wherever that may be—London, Dubai, the fricken moon. As long as you are by my side that is all that matters.”

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