“I know being confined to this bed is frustrating for you, but it’s for your own good. You woke up yesterday, you can’t start moving around quite yet otherwise you’ll disturb the wound and it’ll take longer to heal,” she said softly.
“I’m just a little restless. I hate being idle.”
“I know, Liv. Just please, give it a little bit of time.”
“Can I at least resume with my studies? My body may not be up for it right now but my mind is still active and alert.”
“I’ll talk to your doctor and see what he says.”
“Don’t let them sedate me again. I have memory lapses and I keep having recurring nightmares about that night. After the shooting, I don’t remember much of anything else until yesterday when I woke up. It’s all hazy in my head.”
When she didn’t respond, but instead continued looking at me, I wondered if there was something I was missing. “What is it?”
She hesitated and shook her head, “Uh, it’s nothing.”
I could tell there was something she was keeping from me and since I was lucid enough to know I’d remember this part, I reached for her hand and met her soft gaze. “I know it was stupid to ask him to shoot me instead, but I would’ve died if he’d shot you, Amelia.”
“It was stupid,” she said. “You could have died, Livvy.”
“All I could think about at that moment was protecting you.”
“It almost cost your life.”
“I’d do it again.”
She raised her eyebrow and pulled away from me. After a moment she said, “If you hadn’t made it… there wouldn’t have been a life to go back to.” She turned her back to me. “When I thought I was going to lose you, I realized just how much you meant to me.”
When she turned to face me and I saw tears in her eyes, my entire body shook in emotion. “Amelia,” I tried to get out of bed to go to her.
“God, what are you doing?” She rushed over to my side. When I leaned back on the bed, she sat down beside me and met my gaze. I gently reached out and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She smiled, then leaned close and brushed her lips against mine. When I responded, she lightly touched my cheek and slightly pulled back.
I was almost afraid to ask. “What does this mean?”
She pulled back to look at me then released a soft laugh. “It means that from now on,” She trailed her thumb over the outline of my jaw. “You’re mine and I’m yours.”
My heart fluctuated in disbelief.
“It means that I’ve stopped fighting what’s between us.” She took a breath and met my gaze. “It means that I love you.”
I watched her in surprise. I couldn’t believe she was finally saying everything I’d ever dreamed of hearing from her.
“I’ve never said that to anyone or meant it more than I do now.”
I couldn’t help tearing up at her words. I had wanted her for so long. I’d waited, cried and hurt and she was finally there, telling me she wanted me back. Telling me she loved me. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
She kissed me and a wave of warmth swarmed through me. I had to be dreaming. This couldn’t be real. Amelia loved me.
“Say it again,” I said.
She smiled and whispered softly against my lips. “I love you.” Had I died and gone to heaven because if so, then God truly did work wonders.
The moment was interrupted by Rex, who looked instantly embarrassed when he realized what he’d just walked in on. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” he started.
“It’s okay,” Amelia said as she got to her feet. “I’ll go talk to your doctor, see if we can do something to make you more comfortable,” she said.
I barely heard what she said because I was still stuck in the moment. She surprised me when she planted a light kiss on my lips in front of Rex, then she left the room.
“She loves me,” I screamed.
Rex started laughing. “What?”
“She said she loves me.” Had I been able to, I would’ve gotten to my feet and danced around the room. “This has got to be the best day of my life.”
Rex came over to me and hugged me. “That’s amazing. You truly deserve to be happy.”
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself because I was completely overwhelmed. My heart raced at the thought of finally getting to spend my life with Amelia.
“Thanks, Rex.” My lips were stuck in a permanent smile. “Okay, tell me, how did it go with Adrianna?”
He retook his earlier position on my bed. “It was a little awkward at first, we’re not used to being around one another but after talking, we realized we had a lot in common, which made it easy. We’re going out for dinner tomorrow night.”
“That’s great, Rex. I really hope it works out for both of you.”
He laughed and said, “A crazy thought just passed through my mind.”
“What?”
He looked at me and laughed some more, which made me even more curious. “If you and Mrs. Gallagher got married, and Adrianna and I got married, you’d sort of be like my mother-in-law.”
I playfully punched his shoulder and laughed along with him.
“On a serious note though, I believe it when she says she loves you. The night this all happened, anyone could tell how worried she was about you.”
There was a part of me that had thought I wouldn’t live to see another day but the idea of my parents losing another child, Rex grieving and everything that had been unfinished between me and Amelia, all of it just kept me strong.
“What happened that night Liv?” he asked.
“Eric, Amelia’s cousin, was responsible for Greg’s accident.”
He looked at me in surprise and I told him everything Amelia had shared with me. “After Adrianna discovered the truth about me and Amelia, and Jaime found out, I got really upset and went to see Amelia. Eric showed up while we were talking and aimed a gun at her. She’d put a manhunt on him and hired me a bodyguard because she was unsure of how far he was willing to go. While they were talking…” The details started running through my mind.
“Eric admitted it was Kathy, Amelia’s mother, who’d ordered him to kill Greg.” I trembled at the memory. “He wanted to hurt Amelia but he could never do so without hurting Kathy because he loved her. My presence in Amelia’s life created an opportunity for him, I was her weakness. He was going to use me as a weapon against her. At that moment, I realized why Amelia had always kept me at a distance. I didn’t want anyone else to ever use me to hurt her again so I told him,” I exhaled. “I told him to shoot me.”
“Oh my God.”
“I was just thinking about protecting her. When he shot me…” I remembered all the blood, Amelia holding me in her arms with fear and terror in her eyes and then silence and darkness.
Rex pulled me in his arms.
“Amelia’s mother had my brother killed,” I said in a bit of a panic.
“Did Amelia know?” he asked.
Her conversation with Eric that night made it pretty clear. “Yes.”
My thoughts kept twirling around Amelia, Eric and her mother, long after Rex had left. I understood Eric’s vendetta against Amelia, but I didn’t know how Kathy fit into all of it.
Why would she have Greg killed? Was that part of the information Amelia had withheld from me thinking she was protecting me? I was up most of the night trying to think of every possible angle I could make sense out of the situation but nothing plausible came to mind.
The following day when I woke up, it was around noon. I found Amelia seated silently on the chair next to my bed. I was happy to wake up to her beautiful face.
“Hey, how long have you been sitting there?” I asked.
Her blue eyes had never been brighter as she looked up and met me with a smile, making my heart palpitate. How could she still do that?
“It’s not important,” she said as she reached out and took my hand in hers.
> My gaze stayed locked in hers for a while as the memory of her declaring her love for me replayed itself. She got up and sat next to me on the bed.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Happy,” I said.
She laughed softly. “I mean how are you feeling, physically?”
“I’m okay.”
“Good, I spoke to your doctor. Since I know how much you hate it here, I managed to convince him to let me take you home. I’ve hired two nurses to care for you, and your doctor will pay you regular visits to make sure you’re improving.”
She never ceased to amaze me. “That’s great, Amelia. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“When will I get to see you?” I asked, knowing once I was back in my apartment with a bit of normalcy, things would easily go back to the way it was before and with everything that had happened, I wasn’t sure what Amelia had planned for us.
“I’m assuming probably every day since we’re going to be sharing the same bed, that’s when neither one of us is traveling or working,” she said.
The gunshot hadn’t killed me but I was pretty sure if I grew any happier, that would most likely be the end of me. “We’re going to live together?” I asked, trying hard to contain my joy.
“My realtor is looking for a place for us.”
“What about the penthouse?”
“I’m going to sell it.”
“Why?”
She grew a little more serious. “You got shot there. Eric died there. You sure you’d want to live in a place that has such bad memories?”
“Amelia, that penthouse also has great memories. I love the balcony because that was where you opened up to me and shared something about yourself. I love the hallway because that was where I saw you for the first time and knew I never wanted to make love to anyone else. I love the bedroom because that was where I looked at you one morning and knew I’d fallen in love with you. No other place will ever hold such wonderful memories of us together,” I said.
She smiled at me and planted a kiss on the back of my hand. “Then I’ll have your things moved there. That is if you’d like to live with me.”
“There’s nothing I’d love more.”
She leaned close and kissed me. “Liv, there are still things I may not be able to give you,” she said when we pulled apart.
“Amelia, you’re everything I’m ever going to need.”
“I love you, Liv.”
“I love you too.”
Epilogue
After I acknowledged and embraced how I felt about Olivia, it felt like my whole life changed. I didn’t realize how sad my life had been until I discovered how wonderful it was like being with someone who made me feel so much.
Sometimes it was too overwhelming because it was like floodgates had opened upon my heart and soul and everything I’d avoided feeling in the past was flowing through every single pore of my being.
When I was with Olivia, sometimes I looked at her and couldn’t believe that one person could have so much love.
We had lived together for almost a month now, and every single day I woke up next to her, I felt like I’d been bestowed a priceless gift. She evoked feelings in me I had never known I had.
“I can’t believe I’m almost graduating,” she said. “I never thought this day would come.”
She was seated on one of the stools along the kitchen island going through her laptop and I was on my desk going through some work-related documents.
During the time we’d been living together, she’d done nothing but study from morning, noon and night and I was proud of her because she was so determined to finish up with her studies.
“I can’t wait to go back to work,” she said, meeting my gaze from the distance. “You will let me go back to work, won’t you?”
She got upset sometimes because I didn’t think she was recovered enough to go back, but I understood her frustration. “As soon as Dr. Freeman says you’re fit enough to handle the pressure.”
“I’ve been fit enough for weeks. The wound is almost fully healed and I don’t need the pain medication anymore. I can move around by myself and apart from a little discomfort, I’m fine.”
I stopped what I was doing to look at her. “Liv, it’s admirable how focused you’ve been with your studies. You’ve done what in six months most people take a year or longer to do. Take a short break, breathe and prepare yourself because what’s coming will be an avalanche of work that will require more from you than you can handle right now.”
She sadly turned her back to me. I wanted to make her happy but her health meant more to me. “Liv,” I got to my feet and approached her.
When she looked at me, the events that had taken place at the penthouse that night quickly flashed through my mind. I still thought about it every time I passed that spot in the living room. I’d had the carpet replaced but that didn’t erase what had happened.
“Let’s give it one more week. I can’t risk anything bad happening to you.” I moved closer to her and gently touched her cheek.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t want to be forgotten. I’d just started meeting everyone at the office and I keep thinking the little turbulence I was experiencing would be over by now.” She closed her hand over mine.
“Olivia, everyone will know who you are when you go back to Price Healthcare.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I’d been waiting for the perfect opportunity to reveal the plans I had for her, but this seemed as good a time as any. “When you go back to work, you’re not just going to be another executive. You’re going to be the president of the company.”
She looked at me in disbelief. “What?”
“When Isabel left me Price Healthcare, she trusted me to continue with the work she’d started and now I’m passing the torch onto you. You’ll have all the people and resources you need at your disposal to help run the business.”
“Amelia, I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s why I need you to be in your best health when you go back to work because everything is going to change. You’re going to be running a billion dollar company.” I’d made the decision to let her take over from me when I’d seen what she could do during the time she’d worked for me. I’d been waiting for her to finish up with school so that she could take over the business and now that she was graduating, the timing couldn’t be more perfect.
“Oh my God.”
“Do you understand now? Do you see why I need you to be fully recovered?”
She nodded, smiling happily at me which warmed my heart.
“I’m going to announce it to the board, the employees and the world one week from now.”
“Wait, won’t your family be upset with this decision?”
“I’m sure they will be, but Price Healthcare is not their company. It’s mine and soon, it’s going to be yours.”
“What if they think you’re doing this because we’re together?”
I leaned my forehead against hers. “People will always have something to say, especially when they discover that I’m in love with a woman but what they think and what they say is never going to change my mind.”
“I still can’t get used to that,” she said.
“To what? You, saying those amazing words.”
I leaned close and captured her lips in a kiss. She responded, unrestrainedly expressing her love and passion and I wrapped my arms around her, moving intimately close.
We hadn’t been sexually intimate since before she’d gotten shot so we were both completely starved and being close and unable to do it was torture. I wanted her with a hunger I’d never experienced for anyone before but I always stopped myself when our kisses became far too fervent because I didn’t want her to strain herself.
I also felt her holding back when we got too close to getting intimate and something told me she was uncomfortable because of the scar the gunshot had left behind.
; When I moved my hands over the curve of her waist, she broke the kiss and pulled back while she struggled to maintain her breathing. I wanted her to know she was beautiful and she had nothing to be shy about.
“Livvy, I want to make love to you.” I touched her chin and made her meet my gaze. “The only reason I haven’t is because I haven’t wanted to strain you. The moment your doctor tells me you’re okay, I’m going to tear off your clothes and make you mine once again. Do you hear me?”
She smiled at me and nodded.
“You’re beautiful and you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. This scar,” I placed my hand over it and she covered it with her hand. I slowly moved my hand under her top, touching it for the first time. “It’s just that, a scar, which makes absolutely no difference over how much I’ll still want you even after I see it, do you understand?”
She kissed me, expressing everything she’d been holding back and quickly turned me on. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I held her closer as her lips passionately explored mine.
“Olivia, if you don’t stop I’m going to lose all control,” I said in between her arousing kisses.
“Do it.”
I trembled under her touch when her hands started exploring my body. “What?”
“Lose control.”
I slightly pulled back to meet her aroused gaze.
“I’ve missed making love to you so much and you’re right, the scar was making me feel insecure but now that I know your reasons for holding back, I don’t have to restrain my desire for you anymore. So lose control, Amelia and make love to me.”
I was afraid that if I started, I’d never be able to stop.
“Make me yours.”
I closed the distance and recaptured her lips in another kiss. I had to remind myself to take it easy on her because I didn’t want to hurt her. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”
The day I went back to Price Healthcare, Amelia made her announcement of electing me as her successor and it was all over the media. I took over her office and all her responsibilities and as she’d said, it came as an avalanche of work.
Having her as my mentor made things easier but during those first few weeks, it was so overwhelming I almost told her she’d made a mistake and I wasn’t ready, but it was like she sensed it because she was quick to reassure me and offer assistance wherever I needed it.
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