Page 25 of House of Scarlett
She grabs Kelsey’s hand. “We’ll give you two a few minutes alone. We’ll be right outside.” Flynn shoots a hard look at Gabriel before dragging Kelsey outside.
As soon as the door shuts behind them, the silence in the room turns to leaden weight.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I’m too weak to figure it out.
But, thankfully, I’m the one hooked up to the machine, so I can’t go far, which cuts down on the number of decisions I can make. However, that heart rate monitor is annoying as hell, because I feel like I’m hooked up to a lie detector test. Part of me wants to rip the leads off my chest, but I don’t want to summon the nurse.
Gabriel takes a step toward me, leaving the shadows of the corner to enter the dim pool of light coming from above me.
“How do you feel?” he asks, closing the distance between us until his big hands curl around the back of the chair beside the hospital bed.
“My toes are cold.”
He reaches down to grab the hem of his shirt, and before I realize what he’s doing, he pulls his T-shirt off and tucks it around my feet, under the thin sheet and blanket covering me.
The beeping picks up the pace as I attempt to school my breathing.
I’ve never seen Gabriel in a tight white tank before, but that’s all he’s got on after stripping off the T-shirt. His shoulders and arms ripple with muscle, and I can’t help but follow one thick vein down his forearm.
“Nurses must love you,” I mumble, now remembering the three times they had to poke me to get this stupid IV in my arm.
“I don’t know many nurses, but I do know one thing.” His hand wipes across his mouth and chin. “I fucked up, ladybug. Real bad.” He bows his head, and his dark blond hair falls forward into his face. “I shouldn’t have done what I did, Scarlett. You deserved better than that. A million times better. You don’t have to forgive me, but I need you to know how much I regret treating you like that.”
His pulse thrums in his throat, and I have to wonder what the heart rate monitor would sound like hooked up to him right now.
When I don’t reply to his apology, he glances at my face, and those vivid blue eyes spear into me. “You’re probably thinking I’m only here because your stepsister told me you were dying, but I realized how bad I fucked up before all that. I had to tell you how sorry I was. I was working it out. This ... this just happened first.”
Flynn told him I was dying? Holy shit.
“I’m not dying. Well, not today, anyway.”
He nods slowly. “That’s what I hear, and I’m really fucking glad about that.”
“Why?” I can’t help but push him. Maybe it’s unfair, but he’s the one who threw me out of his office while I was still riding the high from the best orgasm of my life.
Without waiting for an invitation, he releases the chair and steps around to sit at my bedside. “Because I figured something out.” His voice is lower and more sincere than I could ever imagine him sounding.
“What’s that?”
His Adam’s apple bounces in his throat. “Someone’s going to get to be your man, and there’s not a single guy on this planet who is good enough for you, including me.”
My brows tug together in confusion.This again.“I don’t understand your point.”
“I’m not done.”
I incline my chin, indicating he can continue anytime.
“If one of us unworthy assholes gets to have you, it damn well isn’t going to be another guy like your ex who doesn’t know what kind of woman he’s got.”
“You don’t know that,” I say, even as I try to shove thoughts of Chadwick out of my head.
Gabriel meets my gaze, and something burns in his blue eyes. “Yeah, I do, because if anyone gets to have you, it’s going to be me. There’s something between us. You felt it. I sure as fuck did too, even if I couldn’t admit it. It goes deeper than you wanting me just as much as I want you. That’s why I fucked up. Because you got to a part of me that I thought was dead and gone forever. It’s not, though. It was just waiting for you.”
My mouth drops open at his declaration. Static buzzes in my head, and I’m not sure I heard him correctly. But Gabriel keeps going, and I hang on his every word.
“I’m not what you need, ladybug, but I’ll learn. You were right. We have to see where this goes. I want to make this real.”
Tears flood my eyes, and no amount of blinking can keep them back.
