Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
A sudden wave of grief and fatigue hits me, and I choke back a sob.
“Please wake up,” I whisper.
I press my forehead to the top of his hand and let the exhaustion of the last week crash through me.
Igor’s finger moves and brushes my cheek.
I lift my head. “Igor?”
He’s still unconscious, but his finger definitely moved.
“Can you hear me?” Again, his little finger moves, and I start to laugh, but tears prick at my eyes.
He’s going to make it.
I call the doctor, and a team of medical staff pile into the room, and one of them ushers me out so they can examine him. I stand at the viewing window, waiting anxiously for an update.
I wrap my arms around my waist. Surely, this is good news. Surely, this is a sign that he’s healing.
I feel Lev before I see him. It’s like a sixth sense. Or a dark cloud. I turn to look down the corridor and see him exiting the elevator, looking elegant and composed in a fresh new suit. He’s shaven, too, and my heart sends out a protest that the beautiful man walking toward me no longer wants me.
Our eyes meet, but his expression doesn’t change. It’s cold and unfeeling.
I know things are bad between us. But none of that seems to matter right now. Not with Igor improving.
“He’s waking up,” I say to him when he joins me at the window. “I think they’re removing him from the ventilator.”
Only now does his expression lose its cold edges. “Has the doctor said anything?”
“No, they ushered me out of the room, so I don’t know anything. But I was talking to Igor, and he could hear me. I know he could. He moved his finger. He knew I was crying—”
Levs frowns. “You were crying?”
He looks at me, concern in his eyes.
But I have to look away. Because if I don’t, I’ll cry. Thanks to these damn hormones and the fact that the man standing next to me has built a floor-to-ceiling wall around his heart and seems determined to keep me out.
“According to my pregnancy hormones, I seem to have a lot to cry about.”
He shifts his gaze from me to look into Igor’s room through the window, and I see his jaw harden.
The silence and tension between us are so thick you’d need a chainsaw to cut through them.
“Are you going to give me the silent treatment forever?” I ask. “We’re having a baby—”
“And I’ve told you that I will provide for you and the baby.” He stares straight ahead as he talks. “You will want for nothing.”
“But I want you.”
My words rattle him. Oh, he does his best not to show it, but I see that flicker of humanity and pain on his robotic face.
But when he slowly turns his face to me, they are gone. “That is not an option.”
His words aren’t spoken cruelly. Just with cold, harsh fact.
“Fine. When you’re over your tantrum, you know where to find me.”
When I try to walk away, he takes me by the arm. “What you said earlier is not true. This isn’t easy for me. It’s not fucking easy at all.”
Hope blooms in my chest. “Then talk to me.”
He lets me go. “I’ve said all I intend to say about the topic.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
And without another word, I walk away.
36
BROOKE
They remove Igor from life support but keep him heavily medicated. He’s not out of the woods, they explain. He needs to heal. So I spend the next few days with Enya at his bedside. I’m keen to put some space between Lev and I, but I also want to support my new friend as she waits for her love to heal and wake up.
On the day Enya has to go to an appointment, I decide to stay with Igor and read to him. Because I’ve heard reading to unconscious people helps them heal quicker. Or wake up. I’m not sure on the details. But I figure if he hears me talking to him it might bring him some kind of comfort.
Besides, the silence is killing me. Without distraction, my thoughts go to Lev, and I’m tired of him taking up the real estate in my head.
So I go in search of a book in the waiting room, but there is little to choose from. Just a pile of old magazines, and I’m not sure how interested Igor would be in Ten Ways to Know He’s Cheating, or How to Make the Perfect Meringue.
A nurse walks past and asks what I am looking for, so I explain my idea to her even though it sounds crazy saying it out loud.
Her face lights up. “I have a book in my bag that you could read to him. I just finished it on my lunch break. It’s a mafia romance though. Do you think he’d mind?”