Their silence was answer enough.
I suddenly felt stifled by my fear in a way I’d never encountered before. I felt hunted, trapped, by the idea that some person was out there waiting for his next opportunity to attack me. I’d never feared walking out of my door, stepping out on my street before, but now the very thought of standing anywhere out in the open caused me this bone-deep terror.
My chest wheezed as I tried to draw breath.
I couldn’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
Black dots speckled my vision and my skin felt suddenly clammy and too tight.
“Lexie.” Caine’s hand tightened on mine as his other smoothed my hair back from my face. “Deep breaths, Lex.” He took in a deep breath and let go of it slowly.
I concentrated on his face and on mimicking him.
The panic began to ease its death grip on me.
My limbs felt limp, and I was more exhausted than ever. “Why is this happening?” I whispered as I closed my eyes.
A few seconds later warm lips brushed against my forehead. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
I relaxed a little more upon Caine’s hoarse vow and felt the darkness of sleep reach for me.
“I’ll have to tell Adele everything,” I heard Grandpa’s voice in the distance. “I’d like to help in any way I can. I don’t want to leave Alexa to deal with this alone.”
“She’s not alone. She’s got me,” Caine said. His voice sounded much colder now.
“Yes, but for how long?”
“Don’t you dare … You have no right to even be here. I’ll take care of Lex. You just go back to keeping the peace in your family, Edward. Lexie knows where your priorities lie. It would be hypocritical to change your mind now.”
“This coming from you? I watched you on Saturday night and I can see the way she is with you now. You’ve left her.”
“I never stopped being her friend. Now, the last thing she needs is us arguing, and frankly there’s only one Holland in this room I can stand, so why don’t you do what you’re good at and leave, and let me take care of her?”
“She’s my granddaughter, my family. I’m going home to tell Adele about her, and I’m going to bring her to the hospital to see her granddaughter, and by God, no one, including you and your security guards, is going to stand in our way.”
I tried to stay awake to hear Caine’s reply, but the darkness was much too warm and inviting …
CHAPTER 27
The hospital threw Caine out. They had a strict visiting hour policy and although he’d somehow managed to arrange it with them and the police to keep the two big, burly security guys stationed outside my door, the hospital wouldn’t budge on allowing him to stay. The fact that we’d broken up had temporarily fled my mind and I didn’t want him to leave. When I woke up my grandfather was gone and the police were waiting to talk to me. Caine sat by my side the whole time as I recounted what I could remember. None of it was very useful since I hadn’t seen the guy’s face.
“He smelled a little,” I recalled. “Like stale sweat.”
The police left with grim faces and Caine’s hand was gripping mine so hard I had to ask him to ease up on me. I knew my attack had shaken him up, and I had to admit that took a little of the sting out of his rejection. He didn’t love me, but he at least cared about me, and that was enough right then. Because right then I was scared, and he was the only thing that made me feel safe.
I didn’t want him to leave.
I could tell he didn’t want to leave me.
So, even though I didn’t think I owed it to him, I gave him a reassuring smile and told him I’d be fine.
“I’m tired anyway. I’ll just be sleeping. And you do have Stallone and Schwarzenegger stationed outside my door.”
“I’ll be back in the morning.” He reluctantly shrugged on his jacket and leaned down as if to press a kiss to my forehead. He hesitated and instead of brushing his mouth across my temple, he bent lower and brushed his lips across mine. “Get some rest.”
Dazed, I nodded and watched him leave, all the while wondering what the hell that had been about.
The next morning I woke up before visiting hours in pain. Angela, my nurse, gave me Percocet and told me to stop wriggling around so much if I could help it. I couldn’t help it. I’d had approximately three hours of sleep. I’d woken up at every little noise and then had almost suffocated as I subconsciously held my breath while I attempted to hear over the sound of blood rushing through my ears.
I’d remind myself I had my own commandos outside and then I’d doze off again, only to be woken up by the sharp, burning pain in my belly.
Restless sleep did not go hand in hand with a knife wound.
Caine showed up at morning visiting hours and he came brandishing pastries and coffee. He snuck them to me, and I swore if he had wanted to, I’d have married him right there and then.
“Thank you.” I threw him a soft smile in gratitude.
“You sleep okay?”
“Fine. You?”
“Fine.”
We were both lying. He looked exhausted and I could only imagine I looked like shit.
“I have a few things I need to do, but Effie said she’s dropping by this afternoon. I called Rachel and let her know what happened. She said she’d be here soon. I’ll drop by again this evening.”
“Thank you,” I repeated. “You really don’t have to take care of me, you know.”
He looked instantly annoyed.
“Not that I’m not grateful,” I hurried to assure him.
“There’s a possibility that the person who did this did it to get to me.” He stood up abruptly and started shrugging into his jacket. “I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
All I’d been thinking about was who the possible culprit was. I knew my father was capable of some pretty shitty things, and that mixed with how I’d treated him for the last seven years, plus not knowing what my mother’s death might have done to him … but it was ridiculous. I shook the thought off right away, disturbed that I’d even considered it. It plagued me that I’d considered it. So I desperately tried to think of who else it might have been. And although I hated to think that Caine was right, something occurred to me. “What about that woman you were talking to on Saturday night? She sounded like she was threatening you.”
Caine frowned. “I’m almost positive it wasn’t her, but I’m looking into it.”