I slipped into dreams where I was free to touch her, kiss her, fuck her, and get on one knee to make her my wife.

Chapter Thirty-Six

NO! NOT AGAIN!

I flew to my feet.

Dread galloped through my bloodstream. Panic that he’d fallen into a coma all over again ran rampant in my mind.

Doctor.

He needs a damn doctor.

Now!

Spinning around, I bolted toward the front door. If I was lucky, I could sprint to my old villa on the beach and grab Louise. If she was fit enough, we could run and be back here in fifteen/twenty minutes?

Too long!

God, why did I send them away?

Pika and Skittles took off, flying in front of me just as I reached the front door.

I ripped it open.

And smashed into Louise who ran in the opposite direction. Our bodies collided, our hands swooping upward to push against shoulders and boobs in our attempt not to fall on our asses.

Tripping backward, she grabbed my arms for support, her skin flushed with sweat, her legs covered in sand from running. She wore a simple purple dress that I recognised from the wardrobe that was fully stocked for a goddess.

Louise blurted, “Has he died—?”

“You’re here—”

“Is he dead?”

“I was coming to get you—”

“What happened?” She pushed past me just as her two colleagues, Joe and Steph, appeared in the flickering tiki torches, running down the sandy pathway. She didn’t wait for them, barging through the living room and into Sully’s bedroom.

“Tell me what happened.” Marching to his bedside, she grabbed his wrist and checked his pulse, all while glaring at the heart monitor. “I had an alert on my offsite unit. His pulse turned haywire. Did he have another attack like last time?” She assessed his vitals all while I jogged to her side and tried to control my worried breathing.

“You had a way to track him?” I couldn’t take my eyes off Sully’s unnatural stillness.

Don’t you dare die on me now, Sullivan Sinclair. Not after asking me to marry your ass!

“Yes.” She nodded impatiently, still looking at Sully’s pale face and dark beard. “The heart monitor sends data to my phone via an app.” She reset something on the controls, saying, “I came as fast as I could. I’m sorry if you had to deal with anything stressful while I wasn’t here, but you need to tell me what happened so I know how to treat him.”

“He...he woke up.”

“He what?” She spun to face me, Sully’s wrist still in her hand. “Was he coherent? Aware of his surroundings?”

I nodded stupidly. “Coherent and aware.”

She beamed. “That’s fabulous.”

I had two emotions rioting through me.

Sublime joy and utter despair.

Tears I couldn’t control slicked down my cheeks. “He woke up.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “But he crashed only a few minutes later.”

“What was he doing when he passed out?”

I blushed and looked away. “Eh, we kissed and—”

“You kissed?” She threw me a livid glance. “Dammit, Eleanor, you two have got to stop indulging in physical pleasure when his life is on the line.” She rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath. “Sex before a heart attack and now a kiss straight after a coma. Jesus.”

I trembled, fighting the highly inappropriate urge to laugh.

She hadn’t meant her scolding to be funny, and there was nothing amusing about this if Sully had woken, used up the last of his strength, and died for good, but for some reason, my panic had turned into a jittery jester determined to make me insane.

I’m mad.

I’ve officially gone crazy.

If Louise wasn’t here, I could’ve fooled myself into thinking this had all been the strangest dream.

Swallowing hard, I forced away morbid humour and shivery stress, sitting heavily on the bed. “Please tell me he’s going to be okay.”

“Louise, what do you need?” Joe, one of her Geneva team who’d been couch surfing for weeks, bowled through the villa followed by Steph who was young but smart.

“I can help too,” Steph said. “Need an injection of epinephrine?”

Louise didn’t reply, her entire focus on Sully. “Mr. Sinclair, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

The monitor revealed a healthy rhythm but no sign he’d heard her.

My entire body felt like jelly. Quivering, terrified jelly. “Come on, Sully. Please.” I clasped my hands, fighting the urge to touch him while three doctors hovered with urgency.

With her lips thin and mouth bracketed with strain, Louise did what I’d done when I’d woken to Pika’s chaos and made eye contact with Sully. I’d pinched myself to try to snap out of a hallucination I wanted more than anything to be real. She pinched Sully to see if he was still with us or once again unreachable.

She pinched him so hard, she almost punctured the skin of his forearm.

The slightest blip on the heart monitor hinted his system felt that but was either too exhausted from previous conversation or too stubborn to wake.

I stayed silent while Joe passed her a small torch and she peeled open his eyelids, shining the light into Sully’s bright blue pupils. She stared forever. She made all my doubt crest with new pain.

“Diagnosis?” Joe asked, his blond hair in disarray from springing from bed and racing through a moonlit island.

Louise didn’t reply as she palpitated Sully’s joints, ran her hands over the areas of healing bone and ribcage, and checked his temperature with a thermometer in his ear. Finally, she muttered, “He’s stable. He’s reacting to pain and light stimulus. That means his brain is functioning at a higher level, and he’s successfully waking from his non-responsiveness.”

My heart cracked like a delicate piece of china, shattering with hope. “So...even though he’s under again, he’s still with us?”

She nodded, swiping her auburn hair back into a ponytail. “There are stages to waking up. Some patients cycle through these for a while. Sometimes they’re agitated and confused as they relearn motor skills and accept the overwhelming input from their senses. He might need to be restrained if he has difficulty with memory and behaviour. However, if he held a conversation with you, that means there is no speech or intellectual impairment, and he might already be in stage four.”

“Is that good?”

“Stage four is classified for higher level responses. Talking, doing familiar tasks without too much difficulty. However, he might not be aware of his limitations and push himself too fast. He might also suffer personality changes which—”

“He sounded and acted like himself.” I itched with the need to touch him, but I kept my hands braced together between my thighs.

“That’s a good sign. At least his repeated attempts at cardiac failure haven’t caused long term damage.” She smiled and relaxed a little. The other two doctors headed back to the living room, the sounds of coffee being made floated back. “Did he mention how he felt? Any mention of pain or stiffness?”

I smiled. “You’re going to scold me again.”

She crossed her arms. “Go on.”