Page 130 of Modern Romance December 2025 5-8

He snorted. ‘You’re not going to die.’

She considered the response inhuman.

‘This is a headache?’ He couldn’t keep the doubt out of his voice.

‘No, it’s not a bloody headache, it’s a migraine. It’s a headache like a tornado is a gentle breeze.’

Listening to her response, at how Amy managed to pack an incredible amount of aggression and loathing into a whisper, Leo felt something painful break loose in his chest. She was so fragile and yet so tough.

‘I’ll take you to your room. Can you walk? Oh, I know you can, but you don’t have to.’

‘My balance goes.’

‘Not a problem.’ He bent down to scoop her up.

‘You can’t carry me,’ she whimpered as her head, which she couldn’t hold up, found the support of his shoulder, and she discovered another scent that did not make her feel queasy—Leo.

‘Actually, I can.’

And he did, although the journey was all a bit of a blur to Amy as they negotiated a myriad of corridors and passageways.

Lying on her bed in a blissfully dark room, she made objections when someone who she didn’t want to identify but knew was Leo unlaced her trainers.

She grunted and rolled into a foetal ball of misery.

‘The doctor will be here presently.’

‘I don’t need a doctor. I just need you to go away.’

‘You are a very bad patient.’

The unexpected tenderness in his voice made her eyes seep weak tears that ran silently and unchecked down her cheeks before blotting into the pillow.

‘Ah, here he is now. I will leave you.’

She wanted to yellDon’t go…but, ashamed of her weakness, she managed to stop herself. She was not so incapacitated that she had lost sight of the fact that safety was the last thing that Leo represented. Not to her, anyway.

The doctor was gentle and kind, he didn’t drag out the consultation and the only questions he asked were pertinent.

He told her he would arrange a prescription for her normal medication should this happen again.

The jab he gave her, he explained, would deal with her nausea, vomiting and pain.

‘You just need some quiet and to sleep.’

She didn’t really expect to sleep, but when the door closed and she was alone, able to lower her defences virtually immediately, she did fall into a deep sleep.

When she woke, her initial disorientation morphed into relief as she registered that the hammer inside her skull was now just faint background noise.

At the first little groan she emitted, Leo rose from his seat by the window and laid down his laptop. By the time he reached the bed, Amy was levering herself awkwardly into a sitting position.

‘Don’t—let me,’ he said, masking his concern under a layer of brusque irritation. He recognised that his irritation was ridiculous, given that the entire object of this exercise had been—what? Revenge? To make her feel vulnerable and uncomfortable? But he’d never been aiming for torture, which was what her pain level had apparently been.

Of course, she could have simply admitted the problem, explain that she was unwell, but it seemed to him that this Amy admitted nothing, certainly not to him anyway. She had looked so damned vulnerable and fragile as she’d slept, her dark lashes spread like butterflies’ wings on her scarily pale cheeks.

He had countered any feelings of irrational guilt on his part by focusing on the blindingly obvious. Which was that Amy was the author of this situation, simply by not owning up to a weakness and also not bringing essential medication with her.

Did it not occur to her that he had better things to do than keep a bedside vigil?