Love Beyond Words (City Lights: San Francisco Book 1) (29 page)

“David…”

“And now I’m supposed to sit here, while Julian is
fighting for his life
, and worry about what
I’ve
ruined for
you.
” He snorted. “Yeah, that’s fair. That’s all kinds of fair.”

Natalie swallowed, her fingers plucking the ratty upholstery. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I never looked at it from your perspective. I apologize.”

David wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Apology accepted.”

They sat in a tense silence, the worry for Julian hovering over them like a dense, black thundercloud and they waited to know if it would break open and sweep them up into a terrible storm or blow over.

Finally, a doctor—a blond woman of middle years—approached. Her face was kind but passive, Natalie couldn’t read it.
Please…oh, please…
Her breath was locked in her chest with her pounding heart.

“I’m Dr. Cannon. Are you here for Mr. Kovač?”

“Yes,” Natalie and David said in unison.

The doctor smiled. “He’s going to be fine.”

Natalie closed her eyes as a deep and forceful relief swept over her. “What was wrong with him?”

“Severe dehydration, likely brought about by the flu. The excessive vomiting and diarrhea can trigger it, and muscle cramps make it difficult to take in fluids later. But the IV fluids are already stabilizing him. Fortunately, he is showing no signs of kidney failure or cerebral edema—swelling of the brain, to be more plain—though I have to say he’s fortunate you brought him in when you did or I might not have been able to give you such an optimistic prognosis. He’ll have to stay the night, of course, while we run some tests...”

“What kind of tests?” David asked at the same time Natalie said, “Can I see him?”

The doctor smiled at her. “Of course. Room 114, curtain D.”

Natalie hurried to the hallway, hoping her lack of inclusion would make David take the hint. Apparently it did, as he remained behind, and she forgot all about him as she entered the small room where ER patients were held before transferring upstairs.

Julian looked wan under the sheets. A tube fed oxygen into his nose. Another dripped saline solution into his veins. His eyes were closed, his head tilted to the side. Natalie approached, torn between letting him rest and forcing him to wake up and make him speak coherently; his earlier delirium had been so frightening.

She sat beside him and took his hand—the one not punctured and laden with needles and tubes—and kissed his fingers. He opened his eyes and smiled drowsily at her.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she said, tears choking her throat.

He glanced around, his brow furrowing—all of his movements were slow and tired. “Hospital?”

“Yes.”
Kidney failure, brain swelling...
She plastered on a bright smile. “You’re going to be just fine.”

“What is wrong with me?”

“Nothing serious,” she said. “You were just dehydrated. From the flu.” But it didn’t sound right. It didn’t sound like
enough.
Not coming from the kindly doctor and certainly not from David.

Julian nodded and drifted off again. Natalie curled up beside him on the bed, one arm over him, like a shield, and watched over him as he slept.
Something isn’t right about this,
she thought, listening to the
beep beep
of the machine that monitored Julian’s pulse.

Not right at all.

David left the hospital without speaking a word to anyone for fear he’d burst into tears. He saved that for the privacy of his car. He tore out of the parking lot and pulled over onto 22
nd
Street. There, he leaned his head on the steering wheel and sobbed for a good fifteen minutes.

I almost killed him.

Yes,
agreed another voice,
and the hospital is going to run some tests. When they do they’ll come to the same conclusion.

David was thankful he’d had the foresight to incorrectly fill out Julian’s hospital admissions paperwork but it didn’t matter. The guilt and pain of Julian’s suffering overshadowed everything.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him so badly.” He raised his head and wiped his tear-streaked face in the crook of his arm. “It was an accident. I just wanted him home safe with me.” He heaved a tremulous breath. “I’ll tell Julian everything. He won’t care about the money. He didn’t even notice it was gone. He’ll care that I’ve been suffering, putting myself in danger, trying to protect him. We’ll figure out a plan to get out from under Cliff. We will. Together.”

#

Julian was released the next day but much to David’s irritation, Natalie stuck to him like a burr. She was always over, taking care of him, spending the night, taking time off from work and school. Julian said fondly that she was nursing him back to health.

She’s not nursing him
, David thought,
she’s standing guard. From me. She knows.

His confession to Julian was prepared and ready, but giving it in front of Natalie was not in the plans. Finally, after four agonized days later, he couldn’t stay away. The hospital’s test results would catch up to him any minute. David needed Julian alone, to tell him everything before he heard it elsewhere and got the wrong idea.

David took a steadying breath and keyed open the door.

She was here.

He smelled her perfume again, stronger now, wavering in the air like the stink of rotting flowers. Muffled noises—laughter, and the pop of a champagne cork, unmistakable—came from Julian’s bedroom. They hadn’t heard him come in. The little beep of the security console had been drowned in their celebratory noises. But what celebration? David moved slowly, hardly daring to breathe, towards the bedroom.

The door was cracked open just wide enough for him to peer in, beckoning him to come and see. He couldn’t resist. The blinds had been drawn and the room was cast in a warm, yellow glow from one lamp by the bedside. In the dimness, two figures knelt on the bed, facing one another, naked and laughing and grappling lustily.

Natalie had a champagne glass in her hand—David couldn’t see a bottle from his vantage but he just knew it was Dom Perignon or something equally precious that she was carelessly sloshing on Julian’s bedspread. Julian didn’t seem to care, but laughed as he kissed her.

David’s breath hitched. He forgot about his confession and the old familiar, guilty thrill raced through him.

The pall of sickness was gone from Julian already. He was there, naked and hale, his lean body warm and brown in the dim lights, with shadows playing over his skin, delving into the sharp lines of his muscles. It had been a long time since David had had something to take home to his own bed. It was the one advantage to Julian having a woman around: images burned into his memory to be altered later. Mental Photoshop he called it.

David prepared for the lust that tightened his groin and made it throb with a dull ache. Instead it was his heart that ached as he watched the pair of them, oblivious to his presence, become lost in each other.

Natalie took a sip of the champagne, and bent her head to kiss Julian. It poured into his mouth and in the ignited fervor of their kiss, a trickle of it escaped. One shimmering trail leaked from the corner of Julian’s beautiful mouth and began a slow journey to his chin. David watched, transfixed, as this phenomenon that went unheeded by Natalie.

The unfairness of it all was like a kick to his stomach.

Julian was turned on—duped, David thought—by Natalie’s kiss, and he flung her onto her back. She squealed with laughter; the champagne flew from her hand to stain the bed sheets, and then Julian covered her body with his. He drove into her with a fury and David was afforded an unobstructed view of Julian’s thrusting form, his ass clenching and unclenching, while Natalie was buried, practically unseen beneath him but for her legs wrapped around his waist. At any other time it would have been the perfect scenario; hardly any Mental Photoshop needed.

But David stepped away from the door like a sleepwalker. He closed his eyes as tears stung them and gripped the back of a chair in the living room to keep from sinking to his knees.

It should be me…

David’s breath came in ragged gasps and he opened his eyes. The apartment was a blur through his tears and he struggled to breathe.
I’m drowning
, he thought and whirled around, searching for the door. He made his way over and stumbled from the apartment. In the hallway, he caught his breath and the agony twisted in his gut, simmered in the hot acid and boiled into a rage. Julian loved
her.

The thought careened around his mind, popping and bubbling until his face burned. He realized his blindness. He had blamed Cliff, blamed
himself
for the awful predicament when all the while it was Natalie’s fault. She’d seduced Julian and convinced him to reveal himself. He’d said so himself. Hadn’t he told Len it was Natalie who’d convinced him to go public? She didn’t love him. She wanted his money and she fucked him without appreciating who he was, and left David standing on the sidelines, watching her squander little moments of pure beauty in favor of her own satisfaction.

His confession forgotten, its reasons burnt to ash by his fury, David strode with a purpose toward the elevator. His earlier confusion and fear seemed silly
.
It was all so simple now.

#

Natalie was pleased her champagne kiss had fired Julian up as it had. He attacked her, pinned her to the bed and let his passion have free rein. And she accepted him fully, eagerly, clutching him as he rode her with animal lust, all remnants of his frightening illness having vanished.

His face was buried in her neck, the harsh, hot gasps of his breath sounded loud and she added her own until they were in harmony, a perfect rhythm and unison that extended far deeper than the motions of their bodies. And in the short space between their shared breaths, she heard it. A tinny little
beep.
Her eyes flew open in time to see the security console flash red and then back to orange.

David…

The ecstasy that had been building in her subsided with shocking immediacy. She gasped at the ugly, hollow feeling that remained, even as Julian shuddered with pleasure. She held him tightly. Over his shoulder noticed that the bedroom door was ajar. Not a lot but enough.

After a few moments spent catching his breath, Julian retrieved her fallen glass and filled it with the champagne—a celebration of the news that she would graduate with honors this June. He brushed the hair from her eyes and bent to kiss her, but stopped, frowning. She’d tried to keep the ugly feeling in her gut from showing on her face, but he must have seen a shadow of it.

“Everything all right?”

She nearly told him she suspected David had spied on them but the gray days of their argument came back to her.
You have no proof. David might have realized what was happening and fled out of discretion. He didn’t spy on us.

Except that he did. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

She smiled. “Everything’s fine.

The rain fell steadily into the late afternoon. It tapped on Natalie’s apartment windows, streaking them with crystalline rivulets. She packed a few more items of clothing in her bag, and her laptop. She had plans to spend the weekend with Julian, and work on her accounting coursework while he edited and transcribed his book. He had thought it a nice idea to spend time together and didn’t see it for what it really was: protection. When she was around, David stayed away, and that’s all that mattered to her.

Her cell phone rang just as she was zipping her bag. Her heart ached to see the number.

“Liberty…”

“Hi, Nat. How’s tricks?”

“Oh, Liberty, I’m so sorry—”

“No, forget it. I’m the asshole. Marshall told me everything. I should’ve believed you.”

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have said what I said. About you and Marshall.”

“Maybe not. Or maybe it was totally spot on. Anyway, I only have a minute before my client shows up and just wanted to make plans to hang out, catch up, and hear all about your famous millionaire boyfriend. As one does.”