Page 70 of Luciano

“Don’t,” she warned gently. “You had a ruptured fibroid. That pain you were feeling? Could’ve gotten real bad if he hadn’t brought you in when he did.Headvocated well for you. He told the doctor to check everything. Said, and I quote, ‘Checkeverything.If anything happens to her…’”

She paused, smirking. “He was threatening everybody. And everybody believed him.”

I blinked hard.

She patted my arm. “He’s something else, that man. You’re lucky.”

"I am." I agreed.

When Luciano came back, he didn’t say much. But he looked me over like he was trying to X-ray me to make sure I was okay.

Then he sat in the chair beside my bed, arms crossed, coat still on over his expensive silk pajamas like he didn’t plan to stay long—but he didn’t move. Not for hours.

He didn’t sleep either. I watched him from the corner of my eye as I drifted in and out of sleep, as the nurses came and went. His face was unreadable, but I could see the tension in the line of his jaw. I didn't say anything because I knew he didn't want to talk.

When I shifted and winced, his eyes were there instantly. He reached up and pushed the button for my pain meds.

“You’re okay,” he said.

The discharge papers came the next day.

Luciano carried my bag. My prescriptions. Thenme, when I got dizzy trying to stand and get out of bed and into the wheelchair the nurse had brought for me.

My whole face was hot because it felt like everybody in the hospital was looking at me as we left.

Once we got back to the house, he didn’t leave my side. Not once.

Every pill was on time. He made me soup. Gave me water. He watched me sleep. No sugar, no dairy, no processed food. The doctor’s instructions had become his doctrine.

If it said I needed rest, I got it. If I even tried to argue about doing something for myself, he just stared until I backed down.

He barely spoke until he decided to apologize.

“I’m sorry.”

It came out of nowhere.

“Because it’s a social norm?” I asked, because I was confused as to why he was apologizing.

“Because I let this happen. If you wouldn’t have been—”

I cut him off.

“This has nothing to do with you. I know you researched fibroids. Youknowthat.”

“But it feels like it is my fault,” he said—and he was right. Because of him, I’d missed my appointment.

But he had been violent for me. Brutal. Protective.

And now he was... this.

Gentle.

Careful.

Quiet.

I think I was a little harsh in my judgment of him. He wasn’t emotionally stunted he just processed differently.

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