Chapter 22
The next morning Hannah was on the phone and scheduling an appointment with her doctor. I sat on a stool at her tiny kitchen counter literally twiddling my thumbs, an empty bowl of cereal in front of me. I wanted to do something to help—anything—but what? Nicolas and Dimitri were cooling their heels in the parking lot of Hannah’s apartment. The rest of my staff was again ensconced atthe Commonwealth Hotel & Casino. So far our return to the U.S. had gone unobserved, but we could only fly under the radar for so long. Eventually a neighbor or someone in a doctor’s waiting room would sell us out to the tabloids. I had to come up with a plan.
“Okay, I have to be at Dr. Ledbetter’s office in an hour. Crap, I hope my car’s okay. I haven’t used it in weeks.” Hannah seemed to bemuttering to herself as she paced around the apartment poking at her phone screen.
“Why would you drive yourself? We’ll take the SUV with Dimitri.”
Hannah looked up at me with a frown. “I don’t want you there. I’m going by myself.”
“Hannah, that’s ridiculous. The doctor is going to say a bunch of medical mumbo jumbo, half of which you won’t be able to absorb. You need someone there with you.If not me, then your parents. You can’t do this by yourself. You don’t have to. Let us help you through this.”
“I don’t want you there, Luc. I don’t want you here for any of this. You were just supposed to be a weekend fling. How did we get here? This is ridiculous.”
“Hannah, you don’t mean that.”
“No, I do. This isn’t going to be fun, Luc. Endless doctor appointments, hospital visits, my hairfalling out. I don’t want you here watching it all. You are the living embodiment of the life I wish I could have—that I now know I’ll never have. It was fun, but I think we can both agree this has run its course.”
“I agree to nothing. I’m here. I’m staying here, and short of calling the police you can’t make me leave. I am here for you. I will be here for you always. You can say whatever uglything you want to throw at me, but I know it’s just your fear talking. I’m here and I’m staying.”
Hannah shook her head with a mutinous expression on her face.
I shrugged. “Fine. If you won’t let me ride with you to the doctor appointment, at least take the car and Dimitri. You shouldn’t be driving with everything that’s going on.”
“Fine. But he’s staying in the parking lot. It’s a doctor’soffice. I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Agreed.”
We sounded more like bargaining politicians than lovers, but if this was the most Hannah was willing to give me right now, I’d take it.
I watched as she gathered her things, then paused at the door. She turned and looked at me over her shoulder. Her eyes welled with tears and she swiped at them in frustration. “I just…This is hard. I know you wantto help, but I need to do this my way.”
I crossed the room to hug her. Holding her tight in my arms, I wished for the millionth time that this wasn’t happening. That this beautiful woman wasn’t so scared. That I could wave my hand and make the cancer disappear. I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her forehead. “You are going to be fine. We will get through this together.”
Hannah smiledtremulously at me. “I hope so.”
It killed me to watch her walk out the door, but I did. Then I got on my phone and made some calls.
—
To say she was surprised when she found me sitting in her doctor’s waiting room would be an understatement. It was her gasp that first drew my attention away from my mobile. I had a second to wonder if I’d been recognized, but the lack of tension in Nicolas’sbody language where he sat next to me clued me in. My head came up and I met Hannah’s shocked eyes.
Aside from her surprised expression, Hannah looked…worn, like she was hanging on by a thread. She had lines bracketing her mouth, and her eyes were shining and red like she’d spent the hour we’d been apart crying. Her surprise turned to determination as she looked away and marched to the receptionist’swindow like she didn’t know me.
Fuck that.
After a quiet conversation with the receptionist, Hannah took a clipboard and sat in a chair as far away from me as possible.
Like that would stop me.
Without a word to Nicolas, I walked across the room and took a seat next to Hannah. She didn’t look up or acknowledge my presence. I huffed an irritated breath and folded my hands across my stomach.If she wanted to play games, that was fine by me. I had all the time in the world.
As I sat there, again literally twiddling my thumbs, it occurred to me that Hannah was here all by herself. No parents. No siblings. No friends. Considering how she had such a huge network of people who cared about her, where the hell were they? Had she not told anyone about what she was going through? Why wouldshe do that?
I let out another irritated sigh as Hannah’s pen audibly scratched across the paper. She still didn’t look at me. Settling in, I leaned back into the chair and looked around the waiting room. The décor was what I’d expect at a regular clinic in the middle of the Vegas Valley—beige and soulless. Clinical and depressing. A middle-aged woman across the way talked quietly to the manwho sat beside her. Nicolas still sat in the same spot I’d vacated a few minutes ago, his eyes constantly roving the occupants in the room while studiously avoiding being too obvious. Three seats over from Hannah, a woman in her twenties sniffled into a tissue as she worked on her paperwork. Aside from those people, the other fifteen or so chairs were empty, which wasn’t surprising given that it wasbarely nine o’clock.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I huffed out an annoyed breath. “Are you seriously not going to acknowledge my presence?”
“I’m sorry, do I know you, sir?” Hannah tried for an innocent expression, but she couldn’t make the ire in her eyes disappear.
