Page 22 of Kiss Me Like I Didn't Kill You

I head for the infirmary. Everything in me aches, and still the day stretches ahead, lessons I must somehow endure.

The nurse glances up from her computer when I enter, offering a smile that falters the moment she notices the figure at my back. She rises from her chair.

“Ophelia. Let’s have a look at you,” she says kindly, opening the door. We step into the same consultation room as before.

I sit on the edge of the bed while she rummages in a drawer for supplies. She comes towards me and halts when she notices the man casually seated in one of the chairs.

Her eyes flick between us, and I lift my shoulders in a shrug, as if to say I’ve no idea what this nutcase’s problem is.

Judging by the dark look he shoots me, I may have said it aloud, or perhaps that’s simply his face.

“Please wait in the hall,” the nurse says, finally. “This is a private consultation.”

“I’m quite comfortable here, but thank you,” he replies, bored.

“I want you to leave,” I say, tired of his performance.

“Well, we do not always get our wishes, do we, princess?” he says, the title dripping with mockery.

The nurse looks between us again, but it’s clear she’s too intimidated to demand that he leave.

This is Saint Monarch Institute after all, everything here bends to hierarchy. Judging by where he sat in the assembly this morning, and later in the dining hall, I’m almost certain he resides in the private dorms next to mine. Which places him high. High enough that even staff tread carefully. She’s frightened, and whatever authority she ought to have seems to evaporate in front of him.

It’s absurd, if you ask me. A teacher, any faculty figure, should be able to manage these spoiled brats. But they can’t.

She touches my leg to draw me back into the present. “Ophelia,” she says softly, and I startle. “Take off your shoes, please.”

I comply, slipping off my shoes and socks until my legs are bare except for the bandages. She peels them away and examines the wounds. “They’re improving,” she says as she cleans the cuts, the antiseptic stings and I wince while she re-dresses them. “We’ll keep them bandaged for a few more days. They’re deep and on the feet, so they’re harder to keep clean, we simply must avoid infection.”

I incline my head without a word. The man, whose name I still do not know, watches me as though intent on searing through my skin, though I refuse to meet his stare.

The air between us is charged, his contempt so unguarded it might as well be spoken aloud. Yet, inconveniently, my own body betrays me, responding to him in a way I neither welcome nor understand.

Better to maintain my distance, I’ve lost years of memory, but that doesn’t make me a blank slate to him. He might be a stranger in my mind, but I’m no stranger in his.

The nurse finishes and looks toward the man before returning her attention to me. “I need you to lift your vest, or remove it entirely, I must check your ribs.”

I glare at the man now. “Leave,” I say through clenched teeth.

He smirks, which only makes me more furious. “I don’t think I will.”

“Why are you even here?” I ask.

“I have my reasons.”

“And those are?”

“For me to know and for you to discover.”

The headache starts again and is somehow worse in his presence, and my patience is thinning fast.

I take off my vest and then my shirt. I am left in a lacy white bra, and the sudden vulnerability makes my skin prickle.

He watches without the slightest attempt to disguise it, I feel the sweep of his eyes along my body and, against my will, gooseflesh rises.

Mortification burns through me when my nipples begin to harden, and I wish the floor would open and swallow me whole.

The nurse palpates my ribs, focused on the bruised area, and I tense beneath her hand. The man finally drags his gaze from the swell of my breasts, the lust in his eyes is unmistakable, but as his stare drops lower towards my ribs, it changes.