Page 26 of Chosen By a Billionaire (Rags to Romance #24)

But she also looked very disappointed to him. And he knew the reason why. Maybe that was why he blurted out that he had a date. Maybe their connection was so strong that it was alarming him as deeply as it might have been encouraging her.

He turned to his side and leaned back, too.

Resting on his elbow with his face in his hand, he stared at her body first, which brought back memories from last night, and then he looked into her eyes.

This time he didn’t see depression, or even sadness.

He saw pain. And that look worried him more than any of the previous expressions on her highly expressive face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her in a low, tender voice.

He realized she was the only human being he knew that always brought out the softer side of him.

She didn’t respond to his question at first, as if she was still holding that private conversation inside of herself, and she scrunched up her face. Then she shook her head. “I don’t understand men,” she finally said.

“What don’t you understand about us?”

“How somebody could be intimate with one woman on Friday night, and then a completely different woman the very next night. I know that’s how people do it, but I thought we . . .” She almost let her true feelings slip, and that terrified her. She looked at Harrison, hoping he didn’t notice it.

But she could tell in his grassy-green eyes that he noticed everything. He appeared to be searching her eyes. “I’ll never hurt you, Jayda,” he finally said to her. “That’s why you will remain the only woman I didn’t use protection with.”

But that only made her frown. “What does that have to do with anything? Why is it always about sex?”

He didn’t want to go there, but she seemed even more pained than she had before he spoke. “It shows your vaulted position in my life,” he admitted. “It shows that it’s you that I favor.”

But that didn’t help matters either. She frowned even more. “I don’t want your favoritism,” she said as sat back up. “That sounds like something you’d say to a lap dog or to somebody you pity. I don’t need your pity and I’m nobody’s lap dog.”

Harrison knew he had put his foot it in this time.

He was trying to be too cute by half: give her some red meat she could chew on, while keeping his heart a good distance away.

He sat back up too. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.

“And I’ll never view you as any dog. Nor do I pity you.

What I meant to say is what I said: I’ll never hurt you. ”

But Jayda gave him a hard look. “I thought we were going to be honest with each other.”

He felt as if he was being unmasked. Exposed.

“I think I am being honest with you,” he said, knowing, on his end, that it wasn’t entirely true.

He had feelings for her he didn’t want to have because they were forcing him to confront what he’d always feared.

He had no intentions of giving himself completely to somebody else because he’d seen that pattern too often: Fall in love and then you fall.

He refused to fall. And apparently the very perceptive Jayda Robinson was picking up on his deception too.

But before they could go any further with it, the door to her hospital room opened and the doctor, followed by Vincent, walked in.

“Hello, Mr. Bainbridge,” he said as if he had run to her room. He was extending his hand as he hurried to the bed. “I’m Dr. Lessinger.”

Harrison found it annoying that he would address him instead of his patient. Making her invisible the way she had said, the first time he laid eyes on her, that he had made her feel. “And this is Miss Robinson, your patient,” he said without shaking the doctor’s extended hand.

“Yes, of course. Hello Miss Robinson.”

“Hello Doctor.” Jayda shook his hand since it was still extended.

“She’s been in this emergency room for nearly four hours and you haven’t met with her yet?”

The doctor cleared his throat. “I was seeing other patients, sir, but I was going to get to her. Eventually.”

“You ran tests?” Jayda asked him. What was the point of all of this spilled milk talk?

“Yes, we ran tests,” the doctor responded. “And I’m very happy to report that all of her tests. I mean, all of your tests, Miss Robinson,” he said, directing his response to her instead of Harrison, “were negative.”

“Thank God,” Jayda said with great relief.

Harrison exhaled. He was relieved too.

“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that doctor,” Jayda continued. “They were saying that I could have internal bleeding and all kinds of problems that you can’t see on the surface. But it’s all negative?”

“Yes ma’am. Every test was negative.”

“Whew. Thank God, thank God, thank God. So that means I can go home now, right?”

“Well. Not exactly, no ma’am.”

Harrison looked at him too. “But why not?” asked Jayda. “You said all the tests were negative.”

“They were. They absolutely are. But because of the fact that you lost consciousness at some point during your ordeal, it’s prudent that we keep you overnight for observation.”

Jayda was disappointed. “But couldn’t I just go home and observe myself?”

“No,” said Harrison. “If they missed something or something happens, I want you to be where they can do something about it and do something about it right away.”

“That’s exactly why we want to keep her overnight,” said the doctor.

“And so you shall,” said Harrison as if his word was the final word.

Jayda wasn’t accustomed to somebody else taking charge of her decisions like that, but in a way it was comforting too.

Because it made sense. What if they missed something and they send her home?

She lived alone. If something happened, she might not be able to call 911.

Although she didn’t know if she liked Harrison telling her what she was going to do as if that was his place, especially after she found out he was late for his big-time date, she wasn’t going to argue with what was obviously the better way.

Not that the doctor asked her opinion anyway. He moved on as if what Harrison Bainbridge said was what was going to be for no better reason than the fact that he was Harrison Bainbridge. “We’ll move her to a suite so that she will be far more comfortable, sir,” the doctor began saying.

But Jayda cut him off. “No you won’t either.

” That was where she drew the line. “I’ve been in this room for hours.

Nurses have come and gone. Techs and aides have come and gone.

The police came and took my statement in this room.

It has a door and not a curtain like the other rooms in this emergency area.

I’m used to it now. I don’t wanna start over in some other room.

And especially not in some isolated suite somewhere where I can be forgotten.

I’m fine right here. In the middle of everything.

And then in the morning, if y’all observe that I’m still alive, I’m going home. ”

Although the doctor seemed to find her reasoning flawed and ridiculous, Harrison understood it. She hated hospitals. If she stayed near the emergency room, where there was always activity, then she wouldn’t be alone. Or, as she said, forgotten. “She’ll stay right here,” he said to the doctor.

And something else happened with Harrison after listening to Jayda. He made up his mind.

But the doctor found it strange that a Bainbridge would be going along with her nonsense, or would even have anything to do with somebody like her, but who was he to judge?

They were going to accommodate whatever Mr. Bainbridge wanted until he left their hospital.

The Bainbridge name was almost as well-known in New York as the Rockefeller name and everyone associated with that name had a national reputation for making serious trouble for anybody they had subpar interactions with.

The employees of that emergency room liked where they were also.

They didn’t want to try out a new job prematurely.

“Yes sir,” the doctor said, answered a few more questions, and then gladly left the room.

Harrison looked at Vincent. “Put a detail on the door,” he ordered.

Although Vincent was inwardly shocked by what that meant, he did as he was told. “Yes sir,” he said and left the room too.

But Jayda was concerned. “You think I need security?” she asked him.

“Probably not,” Harrison said. “But it’s standard practice whenever I stay somewhere overnight.”

Harrison was still reeling from the close call he experienced three weeks ago, as he was convinced it was no accident although they could find nothing on the getaway car (it was stolen), and could never see the driver on any of the CCTV footage his security team viewed. But they were still searching.

But Jayda didn’t know anything about that incident. But it was what he said, not the reasoning behind it, that caught her attention anyway. “What do you mean when you stay overnight?”

He looked at her. He could see the hopefulness in her beautiful eyes. “If it’s alright with you.”

She was stunned. It was the last thing she expected to hear. “You mean you’re staying in this hospital with me tonight?”

He nodded. “That’s what I’m saying, yes.”

She searched his eyes. She so wanted it to be true, but in her life it usually wasn’t. “Why?” she felt a need to ask him.

But his answer was typical Harrison. It wasn’t about to reveal too much. “Why not?” he responded.

It wasn’t the affirmation she wanted to hear, but she was beginning to realize that it was about as good as it was going to get with this guy. And besides, she hated hospitals so much that it would have been nightmarish if she had to stay there alone. She was pleased. “Thanks,” she said.

Harrison loved that she didn’t want more from him in that moment. It was as if his actions, to her, spoke louder than words. And when it came to his true feelings, especially those deep, still odd feelings he harbored for her, he was not a man of many words anyway.