Page 29 of Corrupt Princess

“It’s not as bad as it looks, I promise.”

Ugly stitches cover my red, blood-stained, swollen skin.

“I find that hard to believe,” I choke out as she discards the old dressing and pulls a clean one from its packaging.

“It will scar, Brianna. But you’ll be amazed by how quick it will improve.”

I blow out a breath as I fight to keep my tears from spilling down my cheeks.

“Here, it’s time for some more painkillers.” She passes me a small white cup with some tablets inside and I make quick work of swallowing them down. With any luck, they’ll send me back to sleep, and when I wake, I’ll be in my flat and all of this will have been one big nightmare.

“We’ll get you up and washed tomorrow,” she tells me after cleaning up.

There’s a part of me that wants to argue, to tell her to do it now and then go and get my discharge papers, but there’s a bigger part that’s too exhausted to even bother trying, so when she leaves with the promise of bringing me some dinner soon, I just let her go.

I’m only alone for five short minutes before a knock sounds out on my door, and a head that I wasn’t expecting pokes into the room.

“Brad?” I baulk.

“Hey, baby. How are you feeling?”

Something seriously uncomfortable settles heavily in my stomach as he walks inside and closes the door behind him.

The last time I was with him, he was about two minutes away from being seduced by that hooker. The fact he never came to find me only leads me to believe she did her job in distracting him.

He moves across the room silently, but his eyes hold mine firmly. If he’s feeling any kind of guilt over what happened, then he isn’t showing it.

“So the Cirillo wing?” he finally asks after lowering himself to the chair closest to me. “You’ve sure got some friends in the right places, huh?”

“I-I—”

“It’s okay, baby. I’m glad you’re being looked after.”

He sits forward and takes my hand in his.

“I’m sorry, Brianna. If I had any idea that you weren’t feeling well then—”

“W-what?” I stutter, thrown for a loop by his words.

“I spoke to Jodie. She said you left because you were sick.”

“Right,” I mutter.

“You should have called me,” he says softly as if he wasn’t all over some glamorous blonde two seconds after I left the restaurant.

“I didn’t want to ruin your night.”

“Taking care of you would never ruin my night.”

My lips part to say something. Surely, he doesn’t really believe the bull that’s falling from his lips? It’s been two days since we were in Twenty-Five, and as far as I know, this is the first time he’s tried to see me. Guilty much?

I probably should feel some kind of jealousy, knowing that while I was in surgery having my arm stitched back together, he was probably balls deep in some hooker. But honestly, I just don’t care. I’m mostly shocked he fell for it. Although, knowing Nico, he wouldn’t have hired someone who would have been easily cast aside if he was serious about keeping me away from Brad.

“I came by yesterday,” he confesses as if he can read my thoughts, “but you were sleeping. I brought those, though,” he says, nodding to a vase of flowers I hadn’t really paid any attention to.

“Thank you.”

Over the past few weeks, there’s been a disconnect growing between us that wasn’t there when we first met, but now, as we sit here awkwardly, it’s only getting wider.

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