It was a horrible sight, a heartbreaking sight, and it tore him apart.
Why?
Why did someone like Fawn have to suffer this much?
“I need to see him, Grant.” The wet, dark stains spread on the bandages. “Please help me.”
Grant nodded jerkily, and looking away, he mumbled. “I’ll do my best.” But it was another lie.
From the very first day, he had been trying his best to get the prince to come.
And he had failed.
Again and again.
When Fawn finally succumbed into an exhausted sleep, Grant left the hospital and went straight to the prince’s compound. The guards stationed on the parapet above nodded to him in greeting, and he managed a strained smile as he slowly backed his car to block anyone from entering through the gates.
When he stepped out of his car, he saw the speaker box mounted next to the side door light up just before a sound came out of it, a voice asking soberly, “Making an ultimatum?”
Recognizing the voice as belonging to Reid Chalkias’ security chief, Grant muttered in explanation, “I h-have no choice.”
Still inside the guardhouse, Noah frowned as he had the CCTV zoom in on Grant Bennett’s face. The man looked all too pale, and he asked sharply, “What’s happened to the signorina?” Everyone knew that Bennett had been coming every night to plead with their employer to visit Fawn, just as everyone knew that the prince had coldly turned Bennett’s request down without hesitation.
“It’s b-bad.” Grant swallowed. “She’s never cried since she was rescued, you k-know? But today, she c-cried when she a-asked me to help her see him.”
“In that case...” Noah’s face became grim. “We’ll back you up.”
“T-thank you.”
Noah’s voice became gruff. “You’re a good man, Bennett. You were an ass before, but you’re a good man now.”
“You, too, Noah. It t-took a while f-for me to see p-past the shady stuff, but you’re a good man, too.” And if Grant wasn’t feeling like Fawn’s emotional stability was hanging by a thread, he might even have managed a laugh at the very irony of it.
Noah and the other guards had all been there when he had taken a gun in his mouth like a cocksucker. And yet here he was, feeling a sense of camaraderie with them—-
Because that was what Fawn had always been good at doing.
Making people feel.
His eyes started to burn as he suddenly remembered all the times she had quietly stood by his side, never losing her temper, always with the right words to say—-
In the years that they had been together, she had always been the one to give, and he had always been the one to take.
But now—-
He remembered Fawn’s bandaged face and swallowed.
He hadn’t been able to do anything for her in the past, but this time it would be different.
He would do everything for her now.
Hours passed, and Grant found himself falling asleep in the driver’s seat until a honking horn finally woke him up. When he saw it was the prince’s limousine honking behind his car, he nearly tumbled out of the car in his haste.
Even now, fear clung to him like a shameful odor he couldn’t get rid of, one he knew that everyone would notice, but even so, the need to help Fawn drove him forward, and when he reached the limousine, he started knocking on the window behind the driver’s seat.
“Please j-just hear me out. It’s all I ask.”
“Fawn...she needs you.”
“I l-lied, I s-said her mom’s n-not letting you in—-” But then realizing that his words could be misconstrued, Grant said in a rush, “B-but you can go there a-anytime. N-no one’s g-gonna stop you.”
He didn’t stop knocking on the window as he spoke, a part of him hoping that the nonstop rapping sound just might convey his desperation. That, or annoy the hell out of Reid Chalkias until the other guy was forced to speak to him directly.
“S-she asks for you every day.”
His knuckles started to feel tender, but Grant kept knocking on the window.
“Please. She needs you.”
More minutes passed, and his knuckles were now raw, his voice hoarse. “Please. She doesn’t d-deserve to suffer more than she already has. So p-please. Come.”
****
He appeared by her doorway, looking every inch the Prince of Darkness. Hand-tousled ebony black hair, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, and his lean, powerful body sheathed in a black leather jacket, white shirt, and jeans.
He started to walk towards her bed, and her heart, which was ironically the least bruised part of her body, started to squeeze until it was even more painful than the stinging wounds on her face.
The distance between them continued to shrink, and the more her heart wept.
She watched him slide into the vacant chair next to her bed with exquisite grace, watched him turn to her, his gaze still hidden behind his glasses.
He was so, so close to her now.
And yet—-
Why wouldn’t her heart stop weeping?
A full minute passed, neither of them speaking.
Finally, the prince reached for his glasses, slowly, gracefully pulling them away from his beautiful face—-
Ah.
She saw his eyes.
And knew.
Fawn quickly turned her back. “I’m tired.” Her voice was thin and pinched, like someone unable to breathe. And it was hard, oxygen unable to find a way to get past the tears.
Behind her, the prince said softly, “I warned Bennett this would happen, but he didn’t believe me.”
She didn’t speak, only squeezing her eyes shut.
You’re such an idiot, Fawn Cornwall.
“But now that I’m here – may I ask...if you’re alright?”
She raised her arm, giving him a thumbs-up in the air without turning back.
The prince chuckled.
It was a husky, sexy sound, a familiar sound, and her heart continued to weep.
Four days. It had taken him four days to visit.
You’re such an idiot, Fawn Cornwall.
This was the part where her other self would usually come to drive her crazy, playing the devil’s advocate, but this
