“Wow.” My throat went dry. “That’s kind of harsh.”
Dad pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is nothing serious to you?”
The pillow gave a plastic crackle as I turned away from his glare.
“Can’t you fix this?”
“You know me better than that, goddamnit. I would not fix this if I could.”
I nodded. I deserved what I got after what I’d apparently done.
“The video that was posted last night wasn’t any of the ones we have.”
His jaw tightened. “I have an investigator looking into it.”
“Will they’ll say I violated the NDA? Will they sue—”
“Let me worry about the legal ramifications of the video.” He brushed my hair out of my eyes. “We’re still trying to figure out who uploaded it and why.”
“Humiliation,” I said miserably. “Or extortion.”
“Probably. They said they have ‘the rest’ whatever that means.” He let out a weary sigh. “It’s too early to speculate.”
“I ran into someone on the shoot yesterday.” The memory of my encounter with Ian Drake chilled me.
“Saturday you mean. It’s Monday now. Molly told me about the photographer you argued with. I remember him well. It always bothered me that we couldn’t get anything on him.”
“I’ve been out of it since Saturday?” I’d lost a whole day.
“You needed rest.”
“If Drake’s the one with the video—”
“Maybe he knows who drugged you.” Dad finished for me. He wanted that bastard even more than I did. It killed him to know that with all his money and success and connections, he hadn’t been able to protect me.
How could it be Monday already?
“Has Molly stopped by?” I asked.
“Of course. She pretty much moved into this facility as soon as they brought you here.”
A middle-aged nurse wearing royal blue scrubs came in. “How are you doing? Feeling some pain?”
“Everything hurts.” So what if I sounded pitiful.
“Can you tell me what level of pain you’re feeling? One being no pain and ten being the worst pain you’ve ever felt?”
“Seven maybe? Eight for my left arm.”
“Then I have good news for you. Help is on the way.” She had a syringe of something to add to my IV. Warmth spread through me.
“Dad?”
“What is it?” His hand fell gently next to my head. Thanks to whatever she gave me, I could hardly keep my eyes open.
“It’s starting all over again, isn’t it?”
“No. I won’t let it.” Like most kids, I grew up thinking my dad was the biggest badass ever. In my case, though, it was true. “Don’t worry, Sebastian. No one will ever hurt you again.”
Just a father’s anguished promise in a world that didn’t come with guarantees.
Dad and I had both cursed the day I went to that party. I reeled between outrage and horror whenever I thought about it. The pain I felt probably meant outrage had won the night I’d taken a golf cart and run it into a tree. Apparently, I’d also fallen off a cliff.
Why did I take other people’s transgressions out on myself?
A glance at the nightstand showed my phone on a charger. I was surprised Dad brought it. Maybe he knew I wasn’t in any hurry to see how much more damage had been done to my reputation and career.
Molly could be my buffer against the world. I needed to get well and go back to work, but I was tired all of a sudden. I let my eyes shut, just for a minute.
My father pressed a soft kiss to my forehead and tiptoed from the room. I was almost asleep, but I wished he’d stayed. I felt safer with him there.
The next time I woke, Molly sat in the chair beside my bed.
“I’m baaaaack,” I croaked.
“Well, hello there, sunshine.” She held water for me to drink. “God, your breath stinks.”
I turned away. “Don’t just stand there. Find me a mint.”
She dug around in her purse and came up with a piece of gum.
“Here, this is all I’ve got.” She unwrapped it and pushed it between my lips. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m told…pretty much everything.”
“You scared the hell out of everyone. You know that, right? Why didn’t you wake me up? When you saw that video, why in heaven’s name didn’t you come to me?”
“I don’t know. It was all starting again. I felt humiliated. I wanted—”
“They’re writing you out of the show until you’re better.” She couldn’t care about that, could she?
“Makes sense,” I said carefully.
“I thought you were okay.” She put her tablet aside and leaned forward. “We talked about that photographer. You seemed fine at dinner. Obviously, you weren’t fine, and I feel like an idiot for missing it.”
“I was fine. I remember…then the video.”
“Do you think Drake uploaded it? He made me pretty uneasy. I told your dad I thought the timing was suspicious.”
“Dad hired an investigator.” She gave me more water. “They’ll find out who uploaded the video and why.”
“I would not want to be in their shoes when Alastair Keye gets hold of them.”
I concurred. “You know about the fifty-one fifty?”
“Alastair told me.” She folded her hands tightly. “They have some questions.”
“Why?”
“You careened into that tree at full speed. You were found on a ledge below a steep cliff. What other conclusions can they draw? You know, Stone and Morrigan found you. He was a wreck afterwards. Morrigan was so anxious she almost made me cry.”
“Why?”
“Are you an idiot now?” She flicked my already painful forehead. “Because they looked over the side of a cliff and saw your lifeless-looking body lying on a ledge, that’s why. You know where they found you? If you’d missed that outcropping, you’d have fallen thirty feet and probably been swept away by the tide.”
“I don’t remember.”
“That doesn’t make it okay, Bast.”
“I fucked up, all right? Is that what you want to hear?” Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw black branches against a backdrop of mist. Barely any light—not enough to see where I was going. After that…there was nothing. A blank, black void.
Thinking about it made my head ache. “Is it still Monday?”
“Yeah.” She glanced at her phone. “It’s five. You’ve been asleep for about six hours. Are you hungry?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“You need to eat. I’ll see if the nurses can find you something light. There’s someone else here to see you. I’ll go tell him you’re awake. Back in a bit.”
Who else would come? Stone? My heart gave a happy lurch at the idea of him dwarfing my visitor chair.
It couldn’t be him, could it?
They wouldn’t let him in if he had Morrigan and the hybrids with him, and he’d never have left them alone. The same nurse from before came in with juice and some yogurt. She asked me my pain level and told me she’d be back.