Page 36 of Crossed By the Stars
Dax glowered in a way he rarely did, and an animalistic bark erupted from him. “You are not going back to that man.”
While it was true, it only raised my back and made me snarl, “You keep forgetting you don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“You would never leave Violet to go back to him,” he said, confident in his knowledge of me, which was as equally sweet as it was annoying.
The doctor from the day before came in, halting any further discussion. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I was thrown into a table by a bomb,” I said dryly.
She grimaced at my words.
“We’re going to release you, but I’ve prepared a list of things to watch out for in relation to each of your injuries.” She turned to Dax. “I’m assuming she’ll be staying with you and that you can monitor her for any of these warning signs?”
She handed the paper to Dax.
“I’m not?” I said just as Dax said, “Thank you.”
“You’ll want to make appointments with your regular physician to check in on the bruising and concussion. It’s my understanding that the otolaryngologist already scheduled your follow-ups with him?”
I nodded, the motion causing the room to spin and spots to flicker in front of my eyes that I fought against.
She took us both in for a moment, as if debating something she wanted to say, then she just shook her head. “Be well, Miss Mori.” Then, she left.
“I’m not staying with you,” I told Dax.
“You have some other place to stay?” he said.
“I can go to Violet and Dawson’s.”
“Right across the hall? Where they can easily find you? And get their place blown up, too? There may already be a target on Dawson’s back, and you being there would just add to it.”
I swallowed hard, gut twisting. He knew I didn’t want to bring this to their doorstep.
“Staying with you isn’t any better,” I said.
“I have a plan,” he said.
I shook my head, and the room spun again. Nausea had me gagging and reaching for the vomit bag the nurse had left. Dax frowned, rubbing my back.
“For once…just once,mon petit bijou, please let someone take care of you.”
I closed my eyes. God…I’d wanted so badly to lean into him the other day. To let him take my worries away. To make me forget. But it was just another escape I couldn’t afford. Just another way for me to abuse my body…except this time it would be my heart.
“Tonight, we’ll stay at my place, but tomorrow, we’re heading down the coast. Vanya has a cottage we can stay at.”
I snorted. “Vanya? The poster boy for European rugby teams has a house in California?”
Dax nodded. “Yes, it’s in a tiny seaside town practically no one has ever heard of and where no one will think to look for you.”
“You want me to run and hide? For how long? Forever? I can’t do that. I have a company to run. We have products due out, and I have meetings with new distribution channels. I refuse to be the reason Violet and Dawson cut their honeymoon short just to deal with it all.”
He stared at me, hand continuing its circular motion up my back to my neck, lulling me into some kind of trance. “You know as soon as they hear about what happened, they’re going to come back. If you’re gone, we might have a chance to convince them to stay away until we figure out who’s behind this.”
I scoffed. After my father’s visit, I was back to believing, with almost a hundred percent certainty, that it was him. The talk we’d had in the sedan had all been some kind of ruse. As if my father would ever let some faction of his organization disobey him. It was ridiculous.
“At least stay with me tonight…we can figure out what comes next from there,” Dax said softly, a beg to his tone that was more mesmerizing than his hands on my body.
I was tired and full of pain. I could barely hear what was being said over the cotton and buzzing in my ears. I wanted to sleep for an entire day. Did it really matter where that happened?
