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Guilt washes over me slowly until I’m sure of it. “They were probably trying to get me or to me. What if they were trying to abduct me or…who would want to hurt Damian?”
Veronica’s phone begins to ring. “It’s Derek, one sec. I told him I would keep him updated.” She walks away leaving Cooper and me alone.
“He has to be okay.” I don’t say it to anyone in particular, just to the atmosphere in hopes it gets to the right deity that controls this kind of thing. “We just…” I look at Cooper, realizing that he’s going to figure it out sooner rather than later the second I’m allowed to see him. “I love him.”
Cooper’s eyes widen in realization. “You’re…together?”
“For a couple weeks now.” I nod. “But the feelings have been there for a really long time if I’m being honest. I don’t care what you or my PR team think by the way. Everyone is just going to have to figure it out.”
A knowing look crosses Cooper’s face and he smiles. “Well, it’s about time he told you how he felt.”
My mouth drops open and I momentarily forget about the situation as it sets in that Cooper knew Damian had feelings for me. “Excuse me? You knew?”
“Anyone with eyes could see he had it bad for you.”
“Oh my god. Cooper! What?!”
“I mean anyone that spent a lot of time with you had to know. Everything he did for you after your parents passed? He went way beyond the call of duty of a bodyguard. He slept outside your bedroom door for weeks when you were having nightmares.”
My mind is spinning with all of this information as I try to think about the past five years through a new different lens. I finally register what Cooper just said and pull my eyes from the ground where I was staring. “What?”
“He’d sleep outside your door so he could hear you and get to you faster. Usually only on the nights that Veronica didn’t stay over.”
“How do you know that?” There’s no way Damian would have told anyone that.
“I came over early in the morning one day and found him there.” He gives me a smile. “I knew then.”
“Did you say anything? Warn him to stay away from me?” I narrow my eyes at him, daring him to tell me something like that.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I always thought if you two ended up together, it would be the real deal and your PR team would have a field day selling your love story.”
“It would have been nice if you had shared this theory then.”
“ME? Didn’t Veronica have the same theory? You ignored her. You definitely would have ignored me.”
“Yes, but Veronica thinks everyone is in love with each other. She was convinced you were having an affair with my mother at one point.” Cooper’s eyes widen and he gives me a guilty look. “ARE YOU KIDDING? Now we are adding childhood trauma to the list right now?”
He shakes his head and puts his hands up. “I’m kidding. I’M KIDDING. I was trying to lighten the mood.”
I give him both my middle fingers. “NOT HELPING.”
Not long after my conversation with Cooper, Officer Ferguson approaches me. Veronica went to get me some water, Cooper is on a call, and I’m immediately off the uncomfortably hard waiting room couch.
“I’m Shay. I’m Damian’s girlfriend.” I say before he has a chance to ask who I am.
“I thought he was your bodyguard?”
“Off the record, he’s my bodyguard and we are romantically involved.”
“Makes sense now. Heard him tell the paramedic to tell you he loved you before…”
My heart thumps painfully in my chest. “Before what?”
“He did lose consciousness on the scene. He was crashing but they got him back in the ambulance.”
I nod, knowing most of this information but it still feels like knives to my heart. “Mr. Hunt is a fighter. He was able to give me a few characters of the license plate and the color and the model. We are in the process of running a trace on all of them.”
“Did he say who he thought it was?”