Page 66 of Friends Who Fake It

“The rest of the family’s just arrived,” the nurse said. “And the doctor’ll be along to explain things to them soon.”

Xavier’s family was here? Her heart ratcheted up a notch. How could she explain her being there to them?

“His family,” she murmured.

The nurse’s expression flashed with a look that was close to sympathetic. “His parents and his fiancé.” The nurse looked down at her paper, giving Ellie a moment to absorb this information in relative privacy.

“His…” Everything shook, like the earth beneath her was rumbling. She dug her feet into the floor but her body was like a feather in the breeze.

“Yes. His fiancé,” the nurse said gently. “I presume you know her?”

For the second time in twenty four hours, Ellie gripped the counter top, her expression deathly white. “I…”

The nurse stood, alarm on her features. “You’re not going to pass out, are you?”

Ellie shook her head and straightened. There had to be some mistake. Xavier wasn’t engaged. He couldn’t be!

“No. I’m…” she couldn’t finish the sentence. She wasn’t fine. She was so far from it.

Her legs were wobbling but she forced them into action, walking down the hallway, towards the room she’d been in all night. She didn’t go in though. She stood outside the window, staring in, her heart racing and then abruptly coming to a stop at the sight before her.

Two parents. A mother. A father – so like Xavier! And a woman. A beautiful woman who was everything Ellie wasn’t. Curvaceous and blonde, and so very expensive, dripping in designer clothes and jewels. She had a hand on Xavier’s chest, just as Ellie’s had been, a moment earlier, and the most enormous diamond ring sparkled in the bright light of his room.

There was only one thing the two women had in common: their hearts were breaking.

The other woman – Xavier’s fiancé – sobbed over his broken body, just as Ellie had.

Ellie gasped, she couldn’t help it, and the nurse was there, an arm around her shoulders, comforting.

“You didn’t know?”

Ellie sucked in a breath; it hardly reached her lungs. “It can’t be true.”

But the ring, the woman’s inclusion with his family. Even as she uttered the denial, she knew she was wrong. This woman was engaged to marry Xavier.

“Come on, dear. Come and have a seat out here.”

Ellie nodded, completely numb, in absolute shock. And a primal need to stay with Xavier tore through her. She didn’t care about these other people! She, Elizabeth Jones, was the one who would make him better! She was who he needed at his bedside!

Only it wasn’t. His parents and fiancé were with him now. His family. She moved down the corridor, her life seeming like shards of glass, broken and sharp, too difficult to contemplate.

“Excuse me, miss?”

The voice from behind was husky and accented. Elizabeth spun around to see Xavier’s mother, her face lined, the worry there obvious.

The nurse stayed by Ellie’s side for a moment, but then the ringing of the phone at the nurses’ station had her moving swiftly away, only a concerned look over her shoulder a sign that she had wished to remain.

Ellie couldn’t speak. Words seemed clogged in her throat. A moment later, Xavier’s father joined the mother. They were so handsome; a perfect, intimidating pair.

“You were looking at our son just now,” the mother said, a tight smile on her face. “Do you know him?”

Ellie began to shake all over, her face unknowingly haunted, her eyes huge.

The parents shared a look. “You do know him, don’t you?”

His mother’s lips were a grim line in her face, and though she hadn’t seen Xavier look worried or cross at all over the weekend, she imagined he might look exactly like this if he were.

“Yes.” Ellie whispered. She took a step backwards, panic rising inside of her. They knew – they understood what Xavier meant to her. No words were necessary to confirm their suspicions.

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