Page 93 of Guarding Bristol

“You’re welcome.”

She spun around and rushed through the rain for the door, heart tripping all over itself.This was a work-life complication she didn’t need.She’d sworn off men for damned good reasons, was still trying to pick up the pieces of her life and build a new one she could feel proud of.

Tristan Abrams tempted her in too many ways to count.Worse, from everything she’d seen and heard, he seemed like a genuinely good guy.Which practically made him a damned unicorn.

She didn’t trust it.That saying about if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was?One-hundred-and-fifty percent true in her experience.

Given her history and shitty judgment when it came to men, it pretty much guaranteed that Tristan was probably also a raging narcissist.

Chapter Thirty-Five

––––––––

An indistinct voicebecame audible somewhere in the background.Muted, as if he were underwater.

“Can you hear me?”It was closer now.Clearer.

He struggled to home in on it.Somehow identify where it was coming from.

“Mr.Angelopoulos.”

Nico dragged his leaden eyelids open.Squinted against the line of bright lights that hit his retinas.

“Can you hear me?”

He blinked, struggling to focus on the blurry face hovering above him.His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth.His chest was on fire.Every breath hurt.“Yes.”It came out barely a whisper.

“You’re in the hospital.”

His surroundings slowly registered.More pain bloomed in his upper back and shoulder, yet he remained strangely detached from it, as if it was happening somewhere in the background.A middle-aged woman was standing over him, wearing scrubs.

“You just came out of surgery.You’re in the recovery room.I’m just going to check your temperature.Are you warm enough?”

He nodded.Or tried to as she slid a thermometer into his ear.

“How’s your pain level?”

---