Page 216 of The Enslaved Duet
Wasn’t it ludicrously obvious that she was my everything?
Instead of struggling to convey the depth of my unrest, I let my voice go cold with rage and recrimination. “I am the only one who hurts you, remember?”
Her entire face suffused with peace for the first time since waking, and she leaned even farther over to the edge of the bed. I met her halfway, our faces so close I could smell the signature fragrance I’d had made for her so long ago. One of her sisters must have been brushing the oil through her hair while she slept.
She dragged a deep lungful of air into her lungs, closing her eyes as if the smell of me was as essential to her as hers was to me.
“I know,” she whispered on the exhale.
I brushed my free hand over her forehead, down the side of her soft cheek, then into her hair so I could twirl a lock around my finger. The smile she rewarded me with for the familiar gesture was worth more than her weight in gold.
“Cosima,” Giselle said softly after clearing her throat. “I know you just woke up, but what the actualfuck? You’re married?”
“Yes,” my wife affirmed immediately, relaxing into the bed as I stroked her hair. “I know you’re worried, but Alexander…cares for me. He is here to take care of me.” Her eyes flashed open and unerringly landed on Dante who still lingered like a tosser in the doorway. “And so is Dante.”
The doctor pushed into the room then, frowning at the many occupants and then immediately ordering their removal. Her sisters protested, but I’d had Dr. Steele flown in specially to tend to Cosima because he was the best neurosurgeon in North America, and he wouldn’t let anything get between him and a patient.
“I am the husband,” I told him, standing up to offer my hand.
Dr. Steele stared at me, his face impassive but for the twinkle in his eyes.
The man had known me for years, and when I’d called him to take care of my wife, he’d almost busted a gut laughing at the news I’d succumbed to something as mundane as love.
“Fine, but stay in the corner. The rest of you, out.”
“It’s okay. I’m awake now. I’ll see you again, soon,si?” Cosima said, her voice even weaker, and her lids fluttering to stay open. She’d been awake only ten minutes, and already, she was exhausted.
I burned with the need to shout at the lingering family to get the fuck out.
The sisters and the male stranger left before I was forced to take bodily action, but Dante lingered, leaning against the wall beside the door with his ankles and arms crossed like a lazy bodyguard.
And he was.
Lazy, inept, fucking useless.
Why the bloody hell hadn’t he been with her?
He should have stuck to her side likegluewhile I was away.
I shot him a scathing look that promised retribution later, but he only smiled thinly and answered Elena’s outraged call from down the hall, leaving the room to speak to her.
When the door clicked shut, I instantly moved. “Will I hurt you if I come onto the bed with you?”
“It’ll hurt more if you don’t,” she promised, shifting over with a wince so that I would have a sliver of the bed.
Carefully, more carefully than I’d ever done anything, I curled myself around her, one hand on her good side, the other over her head where I could play lightly with her hair. She sighed as soon as I settled and closed her eyes.
“I could sleep.”
“You can sleep, my beauty. I’ll watch over you,” I vowed.
“I know,” she whispered. “I knew even when Giuseppe threatened to take me to Noel. I knew you’d find me no matter what.”
Rage moved through me, quick and silent as a possession. I swallowed thickly once, twice to speak through the wrath lodged in my throat.
“Always. Know also that Giuseppe is a dead man for hurting you.”
“Already dead,” she murmured, falling quickly into sleep. “I shot him.”
