Page 44

CHAPTER 44

MY GIRL'S A DOCTOR

EMORY

I practically leap off the couch the instant I hear the elevator. I'm standing right in front of it as it opens. Kayden is leaning against the wall, and some man I've never seen before has his hand on his shoulder.

"Kayden?" I whisper as I hug him. I know noise can trigger headaches for the next few days. So can sudden movements, but it's been nine miserable hours of waiting, and I can't take another second without him in my arms. "You're okay." I plant several kisses in a line along his cheek to his mouth. "You're okay."

"You're trying to convince yourself, aren't you, Nyx?" His voice is small, but he still manages a smile. "My girl's got me from here, Elijah. She's a doctor."

I shake the other man's hand while still holding on to Kayden with my left arm. "Hi, I'm Emory. I'm a veterinarian, not a human doctor."

"She's a doctor. My girl's a doctor." Kayden insists as Elijah shakes my hand.

"Yes, but a veterinarian."

"Emory Hopkins, animal doctor M.D."

I roll my eyes. "It's D.V.M., but close enough. But Kayden's right, I've got him from here. Thank you for bringing him all the way home." I turn all of my focus back to Kayden as the elevator doors close. "Now let's get you to bed."

His gasp causes me to freeze, my heart rate spiking from the fear that I've already done something wrong.

"Emory Hopkins, animal doctor M.D.D.V.M. would take advantage of an innocent patient like me? I think my head's a little too woo woo to play naughty doctor tonight, but maybe in the morning."

"Oh my god!" Chloe whisper-huffs from the couch where she was napping just a few minutes ago. "I'm sleeping in the parking garage if you two are going to behave like lovesick teenagers."

"Chloe? Why are you here?"

I pull Kayden tight to my side. "Remember, she's staying here while Lily and Brant are on their honeymoon?" I knew there might be temporary issues with his short-term memory, but my chest still tightens actually seeing it.

"Oh…" He reaches out the arm that isn't draped over my shoulders as Chloe comes up to hug him. "Well, you didn't have to stay up too."

"Yeah I did. Em's been out of control ever since she saw you go down. Someone had to take care of her."

I swat at Chloe. "I wasn't that bad."

Kayden's body tenses. "You looked it up online after I called you?"

"No. We saw it live," Chloe answers. "It was so gruesome. We were both really scared. Em spent the next hour trying to get ahold of someone with the team until you finally called."

Kayden tries to stare at me, but I can see that he keeps losing focus. "I never gave you numbers to call for an emergency." His head sways a little. "And I didn't make you my emergency contact with the team yet. Emory…"

He looks like he might start crying, so I give him a quick kiss and then smile at him. "It's fine. We'll take care of it later."

"She was a mess, Kayden." Chloe continues her hushed story, not reading the room at all. "Really bad. I don't know what she would have done without me. I'm kind of a hero."

"Nyx…" And there they go. Tears are bubbling out of Kayden's eyes, and he throws both his arms around me with so much force we almost fall to the floor. "I'm so sorry. I'm calling the front office right now, and adding you as my contact so this doesn't happen again. Then I'll give you their numbers so you can call them any time."

"Kayden… baby…" I speak even more quietly, hoping to calm him. "It's three in the morning. Let's do this later. Okay?"

I glare at Chloe over his shoulder. We had this discussion. I told her his emotions could be erratic for a while.

Sorry, she mouths, I wasn't thinking. She looks genuinely upset with herself, and I know she's been through almost as much as I have tonight. We've both been terrified from the second we saw the blow.

Gruesome doesn't describe it. It felt like my heart was emptied as he crumpled to the ice. And when he didn't get up—not even when the players and trainers circled around him—my entire body went numb. I've never been so frightened. I dropped to the floor in tears, and Chloe immediately had her arms around me, even though I know she was just as scared.

"Come on, baby." I lead him down the hallway with small, slow steps. Chloe stays right behind us, sniffling every few seconds. She stops when we get to our bedroom door, and I take Kayden the rest of the way, stripping him down to his underwear and pulling the covers up around him. "Get some sleep now. We're all okay. Everything is fine." I brush a kiss across his forehead. "I'll be right back, okay?" Before he can give anything more than half a nod, he's out.

Chloe is leaning against the wall across from the door when I walk out and pull it shut behind me. She's not even trying to hide her tears now. "Aww, sweetie." I hold out my arms, and she melts into my embrace. "He'll be fine. The doctor even did an MRI just to make sure there was no other damage or bleeding. He needs rest. We all do."

"I'm sorry, Em. That was stupid of me. "

"Hey!" I hiss and brush the loose hairs away from her forehead. "Don't say that! You made a mistake. You're tired, and this was scary. It might take him a couple of days, but he'll be back to normal before long."

"Now that's a scary thought." She tries to joke as she sniffs back the tears.

I grin at her. "Do you need anything before you go to bed?"

I tried getting her to go to bed earlier, but she insisted on staying up with me. I'm glad. I don't know what I would have done if I were alone. Despite what the doctor told me during our phone call—despite knowing the team arranged for him to fly home as soon as he was cleared—my thoughts kept circling around the image of him lifeless on the ice, and I couldn't stop shaking. Chloe waiting beside me kept me from getting so much worse.

"Em? It's selfish, but you know what I keep thinking? That could be Brant. That could happen to him, and I don't know…" Whatever she was going to say dies in her throat.

"Sweetie." I wrap my arms around her again. "I won't lie. This sport is dangerous and stupid. But I promise, they do everything they can to come home safe to us after each game. That's why they have great doctors and trainers working for the team. It's normal to worry, but this was just a freak accident." I feel her nod against my chest. "Do you want me to stay up with you for a while?"

"No," she whispers. "I'll be okay."

I lean back to look her in the eyes. "Yes, you will. And so will Kayden, and so will Brant." I bop her on the tip of her nose. When she rolls her eyes at me like I'm the stupidest person in the world, I know she's already better. "I'll keep our door open. If you need me for anything, come get me. Just remember to keep quiet, okay?"

She nods, and I watch her go into the guest room before I walk back to my bedroom.

I barely sleep at all.

I set an alarm on my watch to wake me every hour so I can check on Kayden, but most of the times it goes off, I'm already awake. Replaying that hit. Seeing him fall to the ice after he tried to stand. The dazed look that still haunted his face as he stepped off the elevator.

I know the doctor told me everything will be fine, but I have to see it with my own eyes. Every hour, I have to see his chest rise and fall. I have to see that he looks peaceful and resting. And every hour, I'm reassured for the few minutes it takes for the worries to come back.

By the time my final alarm goes off, I'm exhausted. I'm careful to slip out of bed without disturbing Kayden, and I think I do a good job of it, until I hear him stir after I've taken just two barefoot steps away from the bed.

"Nyx?" I hold my breath and wait. Maybe he's calling out in his sleep. "Where are you going? Come back." He holds out an arm, and god, I do want to go back, to spend the whole day curled against him.

I lightly brush my lips against his. "Morning, baby," I whisper. "How do you feel?" He tries to laugh, but it just causes him to wince. I have my hand wrapped around his before he can even open his eyes again. "It's okay. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay." I hope the words reassure him, because they sure don't work on me.

"I feel like someone took my brain apart and then didn't put it back together right."

"Yeah, sorry. I was never good with Legos, so I should have known better." I kiss his cheek. "I promised I'd take Chloe to the library. She gets extra credit if she goes to a symposium they're hosting today."

"Does she need extra credit?"

I rub my thumb across the back of his hand. "I don't think that's the real reason she wants to go."

Kayden nods as much as he dares. "So the boy who's a friend but not a boyfriend is going to be there. You'd better hurry. I wouldn't want her to miss out on any time with him."

I chuckle. "Promise you won't move while I'm gone?"

He closes his eyes, nestles his head back on the pillow, and blows me a kiss .

When I pull up in front of the library, Chloe is out of my truck almost before I have it stopped at the curb. I say a quick goodbye, tell her to text me when she's ready to be picked up, and then utter a quick thanks that she's as eager as I am.

Back in the penthouse, every sound I make seems to be amplified by one hundred, but when I peek my head around our bedroom door, Kayden's fast asleep, exactly where I left him. I rest my head against the doorframe and just watch him for a few minutes, mouthing a silent I love you before heading back down the hall to fix something for breakfast.

That's when I see his phone sitting on the dining room table where we left it last night. The screen is illuminated with a call. He's not supposed to take any phone calls for at least another day, so if it's something important, I'll have to take care of it. But as I learned last night, not many of his people have my number yet. Even though it feels a little like invading his privacy, I pick up the phone. "Hello?"

There's a pause on the other end, and then a man's voice. "Who is this? Is this Kayden Bouchard's phone?" Another pause and then a chuckle. "Oh, you're the girl. The fake fiancée. Marie, right?"

"The very real fiancée, Emory." I practically snarl at the man. "Who are you?"

"When he told me about it, I thought the whole fake girlfriend idea was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. Then he made it even stupider by announcing you were his fiancée. I thought it was all over then. But you both played your parts beautifully, and it really worked. At least it did until this morning. Before that shit went online."

"A name. Now." I'm not practically snarling now. I am snarling.

"You didn't look at the phone before you picked it up? Mattias Baumiller. His agent. I called at least a dozen times this morning."

His agent calls on Sunday mornings? "If you're his agent, you should know what happened last night and know better than to call. Kayden's fine, but he's not ready to talk on the phone. Once he is, I'll let him know you called."

"So neither of you heard?"

"Heard what? He's been sleeping since he got home last night, and I haven't even touched my phone or his until now."

"Fuck, I just assumed… Go to The Post' s website. On second thought, don't. You don't need to see that shit. Neither of you does. Just know they didn't give us any warning about this. If they did, we'd have stopped it. Somehow. I already talked to Kayden's attorney this morning. She's gonna try to bluff her way into a cease and desist order, but she's not optimistic."

Ice creeps down my spine. "What are you talking about?"

"I'll handle it. Just focus on getting our boy better, yeah? And be sure to look at the phone before you pick up. If either of you gets a call from a number you don't recognize, don't answer."