“Macalister.” She squeezed out a strained smile as she tucked her hair behind an ear. “I didn’t see you there.” Her gaze swept across the room, searching for who else she may have missed. “Is Alice here too?”
“No.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she exchanged a quick, puzzled look with my father. “Oh.” She struggled visibly with how to proceed. “Have you been here long?”
She winced at her question, probably realizing the answer was obvious. He wore the same tuxedo she’d seen him in at the gala last night, so it was clear he hadn’t had time to change.
Something was buried in his voice. Was that . . . pride? Macalister didn’t smile, but it gave me the same uneasy feeling I had when he did. “I was the one who found Marist after she’d collapsed.”
“Oh,” was all my mother could say.
Her gaze flitted back to me in the bed, and I watched her throat bob in a hard swallow. If she was nervous about Macalister seeing her in sweats, she was downright terrified he was seeing me in a shapeless hospital gown. I could only imagine what my face looked like. The only makeup I wore was whatever was left over from yesterday, and probably beneath my eyes instead of the eyelids above them.
“Well, we’re glad you were there to help her,” she choked out.
She was likely recalling the terrible moment my sister Emily had thrown up all over Macalister’s hand. He was basically the last person she would have chosen to see me like that.
For once, Macalister Hale said exactly what he meant. “I’m glad I was there too.”
I fought the urge to suck in a deep breath.
The suite was like a high-end hotel, but it was still a hospital, complete with beeping machines and nursing staff that cycled through at all hours, making meaningful sleep impossible.
When the doctor informed me I needed to stay overnight, I tried to talk Royce into heading home and getting a decent night of sleep, but he wouldn’t hear it. At some point when I’d been napping, he’d had clothes delivered, and then showered in the suite’s full bathroom and changed.
Now, as the sunlight was fading outside, I rolled over in the bed and peered at him through the railing.
He sat on the tan couch, one arm slung along the back of it, wearing a maroon sweater over dark jeans, and his gaze locked on to the phone he held in his lap. His dark eyebrows were pulled together as he was deep in concentration. Whatever he was reading, it had his full attention.
I’d never been jealous of a phone until this moment.
I wanted his intense stare pinned on me, the one that used to make me uncomfortable, but now I craved. My voice was raspy from exhaustion, and breathless from the sight of how handsome he was. “Hey.”
Royce’s head lifted, and, when his gaze found mine, he pushed to his feet. “Hey, you’re awake. How’re you feeling?”
“Still weird,” I said glumly. At least the lights had finally lost their halos and my head didn’t hurt as much. But between the fatigue and the medicine I’d been given to regulate my heart, I felt disconnected from my body. “Did my parents leave?”
“They went to get something to eat and check in on your sister.”
Because Emily was on bedrest, and probably not allowed to travel to Boston. I inhaled slowly. “And your father?”
His shoulders lifted in an equally deep breath. “He went home to deal with . . . things there.”
It was like he couldn’t bring himself to say her name, and I was grateful. “So, we’re alone.”
“We are.”
The light coming through the window warmed, and the air in the room thickened.
“Come here,” I whispered.
A faint smile teased his lips as he strode toward me, a gorgeous man who I hoped felt at least a fraction of the way I did about him.
“I know I’m a mess right now,” I said, “but if you don’t kiss me, I’ll feel like I’m dying all over again.”
“Fuck, Marist.” His hand dove beneath my head, gingerly scooping me up into his kiss that obliterated everything else. His mouth was hot, a branding iron against my lips, marking me as his. His other hand cupped my cheek, holding me in place while he laid siege.
The Greek myth of Helen of Troy had been told a thousand different ways. In some versions, the most beautiful mortal in the world was stolen away from her loving husband, the king of Sparta, by an evil prince and dragged unwillingly to Troy. In others, she was seduced and ran away with her new lover.
The only constant in the myth was that it led to the Trojan War. Two great empires went to battle over the love of one woman.
Was that what this kiss was? Royce was king Menelaus, launching a thousand ships to rescue me from his opponent, the one who felt he was entitled to whatever he wanted, including me? Was Royce willing to sacrifice everything and go to war for me?
I sighed against the soft, deliberate brush of his lips over mine, each pass deepening our connection.
“Did you mean it?” I said breathlessly between kisses. “When you said you loved me?”
His mouth slowed and separated from mine, and with each inch of space he put between us, the farther my heart sank. He kept my face cupped in his hands but pulled back enough so I could see every fleck of uncertainty in his eyes.
We’d promised when we were alone, we wouldn’t lie to each other. We’d said we’d always get to be the people we truly were when it was just the two of us. But I could see the struggle inside him. He didn’t want to hurt me, but he also didn’t want to lie.
As I waited for his answer, my breath came and went so quickly, I grew lightheaded.
His words were quiet and measured. “I don’t know.”
In theory, it was a better answer than a solid no, but somehow it felt worse. Like a sugar-coated no, only instead of tasting sweet, it was acidic.
“It’s not a complicated question,” I said, blinking back the tears that leapt into my eyes. I didn’t want to push him, but I’d been through too much the last few days, not to mention hell last night, and couldn’t stop myself. I needed him, and I would recklessly go after what I wanted.
Royce’s gaze drifted down to settle on my lips, and his thumb brushed softly over my cheekbone. “The way I feel about you is hard to put into words.”
I swallowed thickly. “Try.”
His eyes turned back to meet mine. “Everything I’ve ever really cared about has been taken from me.”
He hesitated and fell silent. This wasn’t a ‘poor little rich boy’ act. He was talking about so much more than just possessions. He was talking about opportunities. Choices.
And his mother.
“So, after a time,” he finally continued, “I learned it was better not to get attached to anything. It’s easier then when he takes it away.” He leaned in, setting the top of his forehead against mine. “You made that fucking impossible. I wanted to be cold, an unfeeling stone.” His voice went low and thick. “But you, Medusa? You have the opposite effect on me.”
He pressed his lips to mine, dropping a short, abrupt kiss on my mouth, too fast for me to react. Or maybe it was his words that made me slow.
“I’m never going to get that image out of my head,” he said. “When he was on the stairs and had you in his arms, and I thought that was it. Like everything else, my father had succeeded in taking you away, and something in me—I don’t know—broke.”