by Kendrick, Sharon; Lawrence, Kim; Crews, Caitlin; Milburne, Melanie
Satisfied that he was resting comfortably, she had just drifted off to sleep herself when she was woken.
The man wheeling the chair told her that he had come to take her to CT before discharge.
She glanced towards Sebastian, who was still sound asleep.
‘I don’t need one.’
‘I’m not a doctor, are you?’
She could have said yes but she didn’t. ‘I could walk.’
‘You could, but if you fall over I’m the one who’ll get the boot…so…?’
She got in, holding the open back of her gown in place to cover her modesty and her behind.
‘I’ve seen worse,’ wisecracked her driver. ‘You two the honeymooners? Don’t worry, it won’t take long and he’ll still be here when you get back.’
* * *
He was, but not in bed when she walked into the room past the security guards who had been there when she’d left. Her brief flurry of irrational panic subsided when she saw the figure standing in a narrow open door that was a tight squeeze for a broad-shouldered man plus a portable drip stand.
In her absence the big bulky dressing had been removed. In its place was a narrow, almost transparent strip that showed the full extent of his repaired wound. Sabrina was relieved by what she saw. The man who had operated had clearly been as good as the nurse had claimed. Her professional eye could see beyond the bruising and swelling that made his face unrecognisable, and she knew that the healing process would fade the livid raised red scar to silver.
The professional in her saw a good job; the woman in her saw not ugliness, but pain and she winced, her empathy shifting uneasily to dismay. What she was feeling went beyond normal empathy. It wasn’t even guilt that she felt; it was more…it was… The name for what she was feeling remained there, just out of reach.
As their eyes met Sebastian’s were dark with pain and exhaustion. She ironed her expression out into a smile as her eyes moved in a covetous sweep up the long, lean length of his body. Unlike her he was not wearing hospital issue, although someone kind in the CT department had given her a big towelling dressing gown to cover the open-backed theatre gown. Sebastian, by contrast, was wearing a pair of dark sweats and a T-shirt that revealed the incredible lean muscles of his torso and his powerful biceps. Fighting the hormonal rush, she lowered her eyes.
‘Should you be out of bed?’
Sebastian took hold of the drip stand awkwardly in one lightly bandaged hand and began to walk towards her, feeling her eyes on him and knowing what she saw when she looked at him. It had been there in her face in that unguarded moment—he had become a man with a ruined face, someone to pity, someone she would soon learn it was her duty to be with, to lie in bed with even if inside she felt disgust.
And Sabrina would never turn her back on her duty.
He turned away as he felt the fury and outraged pride rise in him.
‘Well, as you see, I am. The surgeon is apparently due to arrive in…’ He glanced towards his wrist and swore, then swore again as he banged the drip stand into the table positioned at the bottom of the bed.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing is wrong. I’ve left my watch in the bathroom and this thing is—’
‘I’ll get it.’ Sabrina moved past him into what was little more than a cubicle, clean but utilitarian with a basin, lavatory and shower.
‘How are you feeling, really?’ she called out as she lifted the metal-banded watch from where he’d left it on the edge of the washbasin.
‘Pretty much the way I look. Maybe under the circumstances pretty is not the right word.’
The bitterness in his voice made her pause; he could not blame her for what had happened any more than she was blaming herself. If she hadn’t run away from her responsibilities her sister and Sebastian would have read about the pile-up in the newspaper.
‘The scar will fade, you know.’ It sounded like a platitude and one it seemed he had no intention of responding to. Taking a deep breath, she prepared to go back and face his pretty justified anger when the sound of a new voice made her pause.
‘Outside, all of you!’
Poised on the point of walking out of the small bathroom, Sabrina instinctively shrank back into the room. The voice was unmistakably that of King Ricard.
‘I thought you’d had a heart attack, Father.’
‘A slight cardiac incident, that’s all,’ she heard the King correct. ‘You look like hell. What were you doing on that road with the Summerville sisters?’
‘Going for a swim.’
‘Do not t…t…try me, Sebastian.’
‘Shall I get that nurse back in here?’ No sarcasm this time, but concern roughened the edge of Sebastian’s deep voice as his father wiped beads of sweat from his upper lip.
‘She’s a doctor, not a nurse, and no, it’s just overly warm in here.’
‘You didn’t need to come in person. You could have just sent flowers but I’m touched. I really am.’
‘Why is everything a joke with you? This is the sort of attitude that made it necessary for me to come in person. The news that you and the Summerville girls were involved in the pile-up has leaked—inevitable, but annoying. However, there is some good news. They have decided that you were a hero. Don’t look at me like that. I don’t care if you were not—this is the way people will see you.’
Her back pressed against the white-tiled wall, she could hear the satisfaction in the monarch’s voice. An image of her parents sitting beside her sister’s bed drifted into her head. The last thing they would be thinking about was how the media spun the story. While in the other room the King had not even asked his son how he was!
‘And that is all that matters, the perception not the truth.’
Her eyes widened. It was as if Sebastian had picked up on her own thoughts, though he sounded more warily resigned than angry.
‘Do not take that sanctimonious tone with me, Sebastian. You are not some innocent. The royal family is a product and it is our job to promote it. You are my heir.’
‘You make it sound so attractive, Father,’ she heard Sebastian drawl. ‘Has it occurred to you that I might say thanks, but no, thanks?’
‘You always thought you could do the job better than me. Now is your chance to prove it.’
‘Spoken like a true manipulator.’
‘So is there anyone in your life at the moment—a woman?’ From her hiding place the King’s deep sigh of irritation was audible. ‘Fine, it makes no difference, but if there is get rid of her. Later on if you are discreet I see no reason you shouldn’t enjoy liaisons, but until you are safely married I want no sniff of scandal. Getting her on side is going to take delicate handling after what your brother did.’
‘I thought I did not have a brother.’
The King ignored the interjection. ‘The Duke and Duchess,’ he continued, ‘have become very sentimental. Their attitude is most disappointing. I suppose with the other girl in hospital…but hopefully they will rethink in due course. However, as it stands, they say they are not going to force Sabrina to marry you. They say it is her choice. So it is your job to make sure she makes the right choice. It should not be too hard for you—she has a sense of duty and you have a way with women. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Crystal.’
From her hiding place she heard the sneer in Sebastian’s voice but his father seemed oblivious to it.
‘In some way, you know, this accident could be a blessing. It will keep the wedding story off the front page at least.’
‘Spoken like a true narcissist. Pain, suffering and loss—who cares so long as it’s useful for us?’
‘At least you recognise that there is an us… Finally. This royal business we are in, love is best kept out of it.’
‘You told me you love
d my mother.’
‘And it never gave me a moment’s happiness. What do you want? Oh, for God’s sake…’
‘Five minutes, I said, Your Majesty.’
‘All right, just watch what you are doing with that chair. Sebastian, we will speak later. Do not say anything to the press until you have spoken to Hugo and if anyone calls you a hero try to look modest. Who knows? That scar might even be useful.’
Sebastian waited until the royal party had exited, leaving the original guards outside, and went into the bathroom. Sabrina was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chin, her back pressed against the tiles as though she had slid down them.
‘I am assuming you heard all of that.’
Sabrina lifted her head, pushing her hair back from her face with both hands as she angled a look up at him. There was a remoteness in his face that she found chilling.
‘So, I’m going to be passed on to the next brother.’
Who doesn’t want me any more than the first one did…
She recognised it was irrational, but for some reason this knowledge was far more painful to her than the humiliation she had suffered at Luis’s hands.
The belief that she was doing the right thing had enabled her to take a pragmatic approach to the prospect of a loveless marriage to Luis, but when it came to Sebastian being coerced into taking his brother’s reject, Sabrina couldn’t be objective. Everything inside her just shrivelled up with horror at the prospect of living a lie with Sebastian; she hated the idea of him resenting her and their life together.
How long would it be before he did as his father had suggested and had a discreet affair?
‘You heard him.’ Their glances connected. ‘You could refuse. It sounds as though your parents have had a change of heart. They have realised perhaps that their daughters’ lives are more important than political machinations?’ He looked at her and saw the sadness in her dark eyes. ‘But you won’t, will you? The fact is you won’t because you have been brainwashed from birth to be the sacrifice. You didn’t want to marry Luis but you were prepared to, you were prepared to lie in his bed, let him make love to you while you planned next week’s dinner menu.’
‘I tried not to think that far ahead.’
She didn’t realise until she said it that this was true; she had never once imagined herself in bed with Luis. She had never thought about his naked body, or his mouth or how his skin would feel against hers. But since the first moment she’d seen Sebastian she had not stopped thinking about all of those things about him, and a lot more!
She was thinking about them now, and the rise in her core temperature made her glad of the cool of the tiles as she pushed herself up the wall into a standing position. The ache low in her pelvis mocked her weakness while his double standards and his contemptuous attitude made her angry enough to ignore the grey tinge to his skin, the lines of pain bracketing his mouth.
‘I don’t know why you’re angry with me. I didn’t hear you say no to your father! You have to do something you don’t want to—oh, well…boo-hoo! Do you think I enjoy feeling like some hand-me-down pair of shoes that never quite fitted to begin with? But, what the hell, they look the part if they cripple you…!’
During her outburst he had stared down at her, then after a couple of beats of silence he laughed, the hard sound devoid of humour.
‘No, I didn’t, did I?’ he drawled slowly, the anger in his cobalt-blue eyes replaced now by a glitter of self-derision. ‘I’m actually as surprised as you to discover that I’m not about to take advantage of this heaven-sent opportunity to kick my father when he’s down.’
As he inhaled through flared nostrils his chest lifted dramatically, drawing her attention to the telltale triangle of sweat on his T-shirt. Her self-righteous tirade still echoing in her ears, she winced as guilt sliced through her. She had made zero allowances at all for the fact he was clearly in considerable pain, even if he was too damn stubborn to admit it.
He released a long, hissing breath as his glance settled on her face; the look in his eyes made her own breath catch.
If her life had depended on it she could not have broken free of that hypnotic azure stare.
‘Shoes…mmm…’ Inside her hospital-issued slippers Sabrina’s toes curled. ‘I don’t think so—not even the high-heeled spiky, sexy ones, though I can see you in them. Actually you make me think of…’ his glance sank to her mouth ‘…silk…’ the way he curled the word around his tongue made her shiver ‘…and I think we could fit very well indeed.’ His bandaged hand lifted to the bandaged side of his face. ‘If, of course, you are able to overlook this in the dark.’
The last comment shook her violently free of the dry-throated, breathless floating sensation that had gripped her during his earlier throaty comments.
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, hissing through clenched teeth, ‘Yes, because I am a shallow, superficial… Be glad you are injured or, so help me, I’d be kicking you.’ She pushed past him and back into the hospital room.
She missed the startled look on his face but heard his laughter and sensed him moving back into the room they had shared last night as she went across to the bed she had slept in and grabbed the plastic bag containing the clothes she had been wearing when she’d arrived.
Clutching the bag to her chest, she slowly turned and instantly forgot what she was about to say. ‘Get back into bed.’
‘That’s a very wifely thing to say.’
She fought the urge to help him, keeping her expression carefully neutral at a grunt of pain that escaped his clamped lips as he eased himself onto the bed.
He pulled out a pillow before easing his long lean length down slowly. By the time he had accomplished the task his skin gleamed with a thin layer of perspiration. ‘What, you’re not going to plump my pillows?’
‘When did you last have analgesia?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Being in pain,’ she retorted tartly, ‘when there is pain relief available does not make you manly, it makes you pretty stupid.’
Privately he conceded she probably had a point. ‘Not big on the bedside manner, then.’
I could be.
Shocked by the thought that jumped into her head, she veiled her gaze, clearing her throat before she responded.
‘Shall I call a nurse for you?’
‘As it’s been a full thirty seconds since one applied a cool soothing hand to my brow I think we can assume we won’t have to wait long until one appears,’ he observed, not sounding very grateful for the attention. ‘How about you?’
‘I’m fine, barely a scratch,’ she admitted guiltily.
‘And Chloe?’
‘I don’t know. She’s been transferred to a burns unit.’ It certainly put her own problems in perspective. ‘It’s so unfair. I caused this and Chloe and you are both paying for it.’
He arched a brow. ‘How exactly is this your fault?’
‘I ran away.’ She blinked as her eyes filled with the sting of unshed tears burning.
‘It was an accident, Sabrina, a freak set of circumstances. Beat yourself up by all means if you want to, but I suspect that Chloe would benefit from a slightly less self-indulgent response.’
She flinched, the initial flare of indignation at his callous attitude vanishing as she recognised he had a point. She scrubbed her eyes with her knuckles and took a deep breath. ‘You’re right,’ she admitted. ‘Mum and Dad are with Chloe. It’s where I should be.’ Her jaw firmed as she wondered how quickly she could get to them.
Disarmed by the admission that he could not imagine any woman finding herself in Sabrina’s position, he studied her face. The tear stains, the bruised smudges beneath her eyes, the honey hair lying loose and tangled—and yet she still looked beautiful. His body, bruised, battered and broken even as it was, rea
cted to that beauty, the lust tempered with tenderness that struck a chord of shock through him.
‘Family loyalty?’
Sabrina’s eyes lifted at the soft comment. Her slender shoulders rose in a tiny shrug. ‘It’s what families do.’
‘Your family maybe.’
‘Have you and your father…?’ she began tentatively.
‘Always hated one another?’
She met his gaze steadily. ‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘No, I’m sure you were going to be more tactful. My father never forgave me for being born even after he discovered I was actually his son and, unlike Luis, I never forgave him for killing my mother. Oh, not literally,’ he admitted in response to her wide-eyed reaction. ‘He didn’t need to. Perhaps he did love her, or his version of it, I don’t know, but he sealed her fate the day he married her. She was very young and the marriage was—’
Across the space that separated them Sabrina could feel the emotion rolling off him. Years of anger and resentment that had dominated his childhood and shaped his adult life. ‘Convenient,’ she inserted quietly. ‘What was she like?’
A flicker of surprise crossed his face and for a moment he was silent, as if considering the question. ‘Didn’t Luis ever speak to you about her?’
She shook her head. ‘We never talked much at all.’
He stayed silent as he absorbed this information; something in his expression made her wish she had been less open. ‘Delicate,’ he said eventually. ‘And sensitive, shy. I used to will her to stand up to him.’ His jaw clenched as he admitted with an air of acceptance she sensed had been a long time coming, ‘But she couldn’t, it wasn’t in her. Ironic really—Luis did what we always wanted her to do: he escaped. But she never did. It was like seeing a wild bird trapped in a cage. Painful, heartbreaking, but you know deep down that even if someone opened the door for her she’d be too scared to fly away.’
The poignant image his words drew made her eyes fill, but as much as she felt for the sad, unhappy woman he described Sabrina felt more for her sons. She strongly believed that a mother’s job was to protect her children but it seemed the roles had been reversed with Sebastian and his brother. She sucked in a deep breath as she silently vowed that no child of hers would ever feel like that.