CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Everything felt warm and cozy. Far away, something beeped. People clucked, their voices a low and steady stream sounding like the background chatter you hear in restaurant scenes in movies.
I turned my face to the side, enjoying the softness brushing it.
“Blaire?” Cristiano asked.
I murmured to let him know I heard him but didn’t open my eyes. The dream was too perfect, and I wasn’t about to let go of it. I threw the back of my hand over my eyes to block the light. Just a few more minutes, and I would wake up. Until then, I would get lost in thinking everything was all right again. Where I was, I didn’t know, but it was too comfortable to be that garage, and the lights were too bright for me to be home or at Cristiano’s.
Wait. So where was I? Panic filled my chest. I dropped my hand and sat up straight. An ache so intense it bordered on shooting pain hit my right shoulder, and I hissed.
“Easy,” Cristiano said. “Lay back.”
Out of nowhere, he appeared in front of me, his eyes wide and eager. “You need to rest.”
I did as he instructed. “Where am I?” I asked, noticing for the first time just how parched my throat was.
“You’re at the hospital. Here. Drink some water.”
He reached over towards something I couldn’t see and brought back a little plastic cup filled with water. Moving it towards my face with one hand, he slipped his other hand behind my head and started to lift it for me.
“I’m good,” I told him, taking the cup and drinking.
His hands dropped away, and he just sat there, watching me. The hospital room we sat in had a green curtain to the left. To the right, the door was cracked open. More voices drifted into the room; none of them I recognized.
I looked for a spot to set my empty cup down. Cristiano quickly took it from me and put it back next to a water pitcher on the table against the wall.
“Is anyone else in here?” I asked, looking at the green curtain. My voice felt tired, like I hadn’t used it in a while, but at least it wasn’t dry anymore.
“No. You’re the only patient in here.”
He stared at me, a concerned look on his face. “Blaire...” He licked his lips and tried again. “I don’t know where to start.”
I sighed. “I know.” Just how much did he know? “It was you,” I murmured, meeting is soft gaze. “Who came and saved us... but how?”
“I followed you there from Florentia’s house. I was just pulling up when I saw the men take you two out.” He shook his head. “Two seconds earlier or later, and I wouldn’t have seen you. It was just for a moment, while they were taking you across the yard. It was a miracle. I didn’t have my phone, and there was no time for me to go find someone to call the police. I had to follow them to their van. And from there, I followed them to the house in the country. It took a while, because I had to stay kind of far behind, but it was dark, and I drove with my headlights off.”
I absorbed the story, the whole thing blowing my mind. There were so many points in it where things could have gone wrong. Just the fact that the kidnappers hadn’t caught on to being followed was a miracle.
I gasped, something else suddenly occurring to me. “Florentia! Evie! Are they...?”
“They’re fine. Don’t worry. The only person who got hurt was you. Well, other than...” He let the sentence trail off as his face grew thin. “Those three men are still alive, but they’re in jail. They’ve already confessed. They sang like canaries.”
“They were from Cyprus.”
“No, turns out they had nothing to do with mine or my mother’s past. They targeted me because of my money. The man they work for had completed a successful ransom in some small town south of here. Apparently, he was ready to try the big time so he targeted me.” His jaw ticked.
“So they were just after you for money? It didn’t have anything to do with your family and where you’re from?”
“Right. They were following you to determine just how valuable you were to me, I guess. And they were doing the same with Florentia.”
My cheeks grew hot. “Because of me. They followed me to her house. They must have.”
He stared straight at me. “Probably.”
I tried to swallow the hard lump in my throat, but it wouldn’t go down. “So I guess you know now what a liar I am.”
His eyes went wide. “Blaire...”
I shook my head ferociously. The movement made my shoulder hurt, but that was fine. I deserved the pain. “I don’t know why I didn’t just tell you about what I did. I don’t know why I didn’t tell anyone. I just... it was exciting, but I didn’t know if I wanted to be a PI forever. And I kind of just wanted to wait...” I hung my head. “God. It sounds so stupid. It doesn’t even make sense.”
“I’m trying to understand,” he offered.
“For years, my identity depended on one thing. I was in the army. Even when I was in the reserves, my life still revolved around that. And then I left... and it was a little scary at first. But it was also freeing. In Chicago, not a lot of people knew about my past. Where I’d been, what I’d done. I could be anything I wanted to be. And I liked that. I liked being a girl who didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing. But there was this other side to me, this part of me that craved excitement. And so when Evie’s cousin offered to get me certified for PI work, I said yes.”
“But you didn’t tell anyone?”
I sighed. “No... if it even matters anymore, this job was going to be my last. I’d already decided it wasn’t for me. And then I met you...” I bit my bottom lip, silencing myself. Perhaps I was over explaining and anything I said from then on didn’t matter. Likely, Cristiano had already made his mind up about me anyway.
His eyes flicked back and forth as he searched my face for something. Whatever it was, I hoped he found it there. I so desperately wanted to be anything and everything he needed from life.
“You could have told me,” he said, a hint of hurt in his tone.
“I...” My voice cracked, and I tried again. “I wanted to, but there was something else too. Florentia wanted me to wait. She wasn’t ready to meet you. And then you and I started seeing each other, and the days flew by. By the time I knew that I wanted to tell you, that I needed to tell you, even if she wasn’t ready to meet you, it was too late. I was ashamed. I thought you wouldn’t want me anymore.”
Two hot tears spilled from my eyes and fell on my cheeks. Cristiano reached forward and used his thumb to wipe one of them away.
“I know you might hate me,” I whispered.
His shoulders sagged. “I don’t hate you. How could I? After what you did for me and for my mother. You risked your life for her, more than once. She told me you were going to take her to a safe house.”
I laughed ruefully. “Yeah, I sure did good job of that, didn’t I?”
Cristiano rested his hand on my leg. “You did everything you could.”
I smiled the tiniest bit. “And look at you, a big hero.”
He smirked. “Unintentionally.” He shook his head. “I should have brought my phone with me. When I got your voice mail, I was just so shaken, I walked out and forgot it.”
“Where did you go? Florentia and I were looking for you. We thought the men had gotten you.”
“I was walking. For hours... just trying to make a decision. And when I finally realized I was ready, that I needed to meet my mother, I went back and got my SUV out of the garage. I had the address memorized. It was the only thing playing in my mind. I didn’t even think about my phone.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “There you were just walking around, and we thought the worst thing possible had happened to you.”
“I guess we all make mistakes.”
“Don’t say that,” I begged. “Don’t act like what I did is as innocent as leaving a cell phone at home.”
His hand squeezed my leg. “Do you not hear what I’ve been saying, Blaire? I’m not angry. I was shocked, yes. But I understand why you did what you did. I see how complicated everything got, and how quickly. And I love you.”
The last three words rang in the room. “Say that again,” I whispered.
He took my hand and lifted to his lips. “I love you.”
I laughed, giddy and in shock and exhausted and amazed. “I love you too.”
Cristiano grinned wide, showing off nearly all of his sparkling teeth.
A dry sob escaped my chest. “I can’t believe everyone is okay.”
Cristiano wrapped his arms loosely around me, careful not to press against my bad shoulder. I burrowed my face into the crook of his arm and absorbed his comforting scent. “What now?” I asked in a muffled voice.
He pulled back but kept his hands resting on my legs. “You come home with me and let me take care of you until you recuperate.”
“Okay,” I smiled, loving the sound of that.
“And don’t be afraid to ask me to wait on you hand and foot. I can take it.”
I chuckled, feeling so good that the joy itself made me slightly guilty. Was it all right to have a life this amazing?
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “We’re out of the woods. I promise.”
I picked his hand up and kissed the back of it. “The only thing you need to promise me is that you’ll just keep being your amazing self.”
His lips pursed like he was trying to stop himself from smiling so wide. “Nice gun, by the way.”
“Shit!”
“I took it off of you before the ambulance came. I didn’t know if you had a permit for it.”
“I don’t.”
“You are a woman of many mysteries, Blaire Daniels.”
“No,” I corrected him. “Not anymore. Now I’m a woman of honesty.”
Cristiano’s eyes softened. He parted his lips, but before any words escaped, the door banged open.
“Blaire!” Evie squealed, running over to the foot of my bed. “You’re awake!”
“Yeah,” I smiled at her. “I am. It was just a... um, what happened, exactly?”
“You got shot in the shoulder,” Cristiano explained. “Just one bullet.”
“And I fainted?” Thank God Seth and my other army friends weren’t there. Passing out over a bullet in the shoulder was downright embarrassing.
“The doctor said it was because you were weak,” Evie explained. “That you were dehydrated and exhausted.”
“Ah. Okay. That makes more sense. Are you all right?”
Evie clutched the bed rail and looked solemnly down at me. “I’m fine. I think I probably just had the adventure of a lifetime, so now I’m good for the next sixty years.”
“I can’t believe I got you into all of that.”
“Don’t,” she fiercely said. “We’re not going through all of this again. Anyway, it all turned out all right, thanks to you and Cristiano. You guys are both, like, heroes.”
I smirked and gazed at the man who I cared about so very much. “He’s more than just that.”