Page 7 of Charge

I turned my head his way. “What do you mean?”

“I made an error of judgment. But I’ll fix this.” He put the back of my hand to his forehead, then his lips. “I promise.”

They stayed with me until the nurses kicked them out. Despite fighting to keep my eyes open, I fell into a drug-induced sleep.

* * *

“Areyou sure you don’t need anything else?” William hovered next to my bed.

I’d been home for five days, confined to the bed, even though I was perfectly capable of walking. But William’s guilt weighed him down, which was why he wouldn’t let me lift a finger, anticipating my every need and refusing to let me walk farther than the bathroom.

His constant hovering was wearing on me. No matter how well he meant, if he didn’t back off soon, I’d throw something at him.

I wanted to stay in bed for the next week, not talking to anyone. Which, so far, William had prevented, forcing me to shower every morning, then staying to keep me company.

Whenever I indicated I wasn’t up for it, he carried me to the bathroom. If I didn’t undress fast enough, he did it himself, then deposited me into the shower, handing me a soaped-up loofah before leaving.

If only Ciel were here to talk sense into him. But he lived in Paris and needed at least three Valium to brave getting on a plane. The fact he came to the hospital in Genoa where the rescue team had taken me showed how much he cared. He wouldn’t get on a plane for just anyone. Ciel was the yin to William’s yang, and they balanced each other out perfectly.

William would have lost it at the hospital if Ciel hadn’t been there.

“I’m fine. But a nap sounds great.”

I knew if I said I was going to sleep, I’d buy myself at least two hours of peace. I wondered how he’d been able to postpone work for so long. I’d never seen William take more than a day off, not even when he had his wisdom teeth removed and could barely talk.

His guilt must have been weighing him down more than I thought.

Finally backing off, he smiled at me. “I’ll leave the door open, but I’ll be in the office. If you need anything at all, yell out.”

Resigned to spending another day assuring my husband I was fine, I turned on my side, watching him walk out of the room. It was as elaborate as the rest of the house, every last thing color coordinated.

I’d gone with an elegant look, choosing pastels and whites. The room was light and three times the size of the trailer I grew up in. I could hear the ocean when I opened a window, something I did often.

William was an attentive husband, even if he couldn’t give me the one thing I longed for. I’d known from the start what I was getting into. He’d always been honest about who he was. If someone had asked me before the incident on the boat, I would have said William would never have done anything to put me in danger.

But now I couldn’t shake the doubt that ate at me. My emotions were all over the place. Not only about William, but I also hadn’t been prepared to see Archer. He’d changed, yet he was still the same. His voice had carried a hard edge that hadn’t been there before, and his piercing aquamarine eyes were duller.

The man I’d encountered on the boat was much more jaded than the joking, carefree boy I once knew.

I wondered if he had a girlfriend. He wasn’t married, I knew that much. My best friend—and his sister—Everleigh would definitely have mentioned a marriage. But then again, she didn’t mention his change in career either. I doubted she even knew.

He’d only been back a year after disappearing in the wilderness of Guyana. We still didn’t know what had happened to him.

The phone on my nightstand vibrated, and I dove for it, grateful for the distraction. My desperation to escape my thoughts was so great that I accepted a call I usually avoided.

“Don’t you know how to answer a phone? Or do you have people doing that for you now?”

I’d been ignoring my mom’s calls for the past week. Talking to her required a strength I simply hadn’t possessed so close after being used as a punching bag and seeing Archer.

Not that I was a stranger to a beating.

“How are you?”

Keeping my voice neutral was the best way to get her to tell me why she was calling. I guessed it was money. She didn’t ever call for anything else. Thankfully, I didn’t have any siblings. I wouldn’t want to put anyone through what I had to deal with growing up.

Or at least what I’d endured until I met Everleigh. She’d been my knight in shining armor. I didn’t know if I’d have survived without her and Archer.

“I need money.”

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