Page 90 of The Enslaved Duet

I felt his fingers graze my neck, and I realized that I was still wearing the pearl and ruby collar. “Look at me,bella.”

When my eyes opened, they were filled with the tears I didn’t want him to see. One fell off the cliff of my lower lid and burned a path down my cheek. Alexander stopped it with one knuckle and brought the salty drop to his lips.

“I am sorry this happened to you,” he said, filled with gravitas that pressed like a weight against my sore heart.

His anguish made mine all the more acute.

“I feel as though I’m always saying that,” he admitted as he twirled my hair.

“You are,” I agreed without malice.

I’d been through so much because of him.

But I’d grown so much too, just as I would grow from the ashes of this last tragedy like a phoenix.

“So heartrendingly beautiful, so savagely brave,” he whispered.

“Mmm,” I hummed, closing my eyes again because his handsome face combined with his beautiful words were too much for me to take even when I was at full strength. “My head feels wrong.”

“You have a bad concussion, bruised ribs, a sprained ankle, and innumerable bruises. It was a nasty fall that honestly could have been much worse. When…” He sucked in a fortifying breath then let it out slowly. “When I saw you lying there, I thought at first that you had broken your neck.”

“Someone pushed me,” I murmured, remembering the distinctive imprint of two hands pressed to my back as if into wet concrete.

I knew I would always feel them there, a scar on my memory that was impacted on my flesh.

“I thought I saw a figure behind you, but I was too far away to make anything out. Do you have any thought of who it could be?”

I shook my head. There was no one at the ball that I’d even known.

“Did anyone else know about the baby?”

“I think Mrs. White guessed tonight while she was helping me get ready,” I admitted. “But I doubt she would have been at the ball to push me down the stairs. She could have found a much more opportune time or way to get rid of me or the baby or both around here or at Pearl Hall.”

Alexander’s eyes narrowed into the distance as he narrowed down suspects in his mind.

“How did you know Dr. Farley wasn’t giving me proper birth control?” I asked, shivering as a chill swept through me.

“You’re cold,” he noticed, gently scooping me into his arms and then carefully moving us both to the edge of the bed so he could stand up and carry me into the bathroom.

I stayed quiet, my hand linked behind his neck as he sat on the edge of the bath and turned on the faucets. Immediately, the bathroom began to fill with steam and the scent of my spicy bubble bath as he dumped half the bottle in the bottom of the tub.

Finally, he looked down at me in his arms, and a little of his outrageous anger dimmed at the sight.

“Riddick had been suspecting of the man for a while, and when he did some bloodwork after Landon flogged you, he thought something was off. It was a natural guess. When I called him here under the guise to attend to you, I confronted him, and he was easily rattled.”

“But he didn’t confess who asked him to do it.”

“No.” His jaw clenched as he undid the tie of my fluffy terry cloth robe and then stood me up to be rid of it before he helped me into the quickly filling tub.

The hot sting of the water felt like blissful agony against my sore muscles, the kind of duality I usually experience with my Master. I settled back into the bubbles and closed my eyes.

Moments later, there was a splash and I squeaked as Alexander swung his other leg into the water. He softly pushed me forward so that he could sink between the edge of the huge tub and my body, then he arranged me comfortably between his legs.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he opened the bottle of my shampoo and squirted the gel into his palms.

“Bathing you for a change. I think you deserve all the tenderness in the world after what you’ve been through tonight. Lean back again and let me care for you.”

Reluctantly, I placed my head back on his chest. His sudsy hands worked across my scalp, massaging the lather into my aching head with just the right amount of strength.