Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“Are you in a lot of pain?” she asked.
“Nah, Doc has me fixed up. Stop worrying about me. I’m fine,” I assured her.
“And you have a nurse there? Ransom said he didn’t leave you alone. That you were being seen after.”
I bit back a smile. “Yeah, I got a nurse. Real good one.”
Bay’s eyes narrowed at my words, and I winked. If I told Opal that Bay wasn’t a nurse but a female I had abducted and was holding here, she’d call Burl and demand he get a nurse here. I didn’t want one of those.
“All right. Keep me updated. I’ll let you rest. Don’t try and start doing things too soon. Let it heal properly.”
“I will,” I replied.
“Love you,” she told me.
“Love you too.”
She ended the call, and I handed the phone back to Bay. As she took it, she licked the bottom lip she’d been biting, then met my gaze.
“Guess you do have a daughter after all.”
“Told you I didn’t lie.”
One of her eyebrows shot up. “You just told your daughter that I was a nurse.”
That got another chuckle out of me, and I hissed from the reminder of my injury, which lit me up.
“Yeah, well, I lie about things that will keep my little girl from worrying. You’d think I was fucking elderly, the way she worries about me.”
“What? She wouldn’t have been okay with your prisoner taking care of you?” There was a teasing lilt to her voice as she took my phone and placed it back on the nightstand.
“Doubt it,” I replied.
“Shocking,” Bay said with a mocking glint in her eyes.
Yeah, I wasn’t going to mind this at all. Blaise could take his time searching Bay’s apartment and making a sweep through her personal life. I wanted to keep her a little bit longer. Just until this shoulder was better. Then she could go.
Thirty-One
Bay
By the time I warmed up Hale’s breakfast from the meals that Ellen had left in the refrigerator and took it up to him, whatever pain medicine he’d taken had knocked him out. Not sure how long he would sleep, I decided to wait a little bit before taking the food back down to the kitchen to keep warm.
Finding the kitchen would have been a little difficult because I hadn’t gone there from this room before and the place felt like a labyrinth, but Slash had led the way. He was a dog on a mission and wanted to be fed his breakfast as well. I’d handled that before I did anything else.
Placing the tray I had brought up on the dresser that sat on the opposite wall as his bed, I picked up the coffee I had made for myself and went over to the sofa to wait. He hadn’t said I was to sit in here with him all the time, but we hadn’t talked about that before he said he was hungry. I hadn’t considered he would be asleep by the time I returned.
Curling my feet up beside me, I took a drink from the cup and studied the room while Slash made himself comfortable beside me. Hale’s bed was centrally located and could not be any more masculine with the black cowhide cover and cream fur quilt folded at the end. The wall behind it was stone with backlighting breaking up the darkness of the colors. The chandelier that hung from the ceiling was made up of bound branches that formed a circle and had over at least two dozen pillar candles sitting atop it.
The dresser, which perhaps was more of a chest when I looked at it from this angle, had four iron doors and was encased in what I thought was teakwood. Above it hung a flat screen that took up the majority of the wall and looked more like a cinematic piece of art than anything. There was a door that was open on the side of the bed where he was sleeping. I hadn’t looked inside the en suite, but from here, I could see more stone and marble. I was sure the bathroom was just as impressive as everything else.
My gaze went back to the bed, where Hale slept. I tried to wrap my head around all of this. How I had gotten to this place, all I’d been through in less than a week, and now here I sat, playing nursemaid to the man who had caused all my trauma. Hearing him talk to his daughter had once again humanized him. Taking away yet another layer of the monster I’d believed him to be.
His phone began to ring, startling me and Slash, whose head snapped up from where he’d laid it on my lap. I jumped up, hurrying over to silence the sound. I didn’t want it to wake him, but I also couldn’t answer it. When I finally reached it, Hale’s eyes were opened, but not fully.