Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 35

Chapter 35 Trust Her

Fitushed

Geon moved to block them, and Nora stepped in front of him. “Don’t let me stop you, Dr. Vance. Keep putting on your show.”

“You…” He turned to Constance. “Madam Weston, don’t you trust my teacher’s medicine?”

Constance hadn’t answered when a wet, shallow cough came from across the room, and she turned toward it.

Two of the bodyguards had Julian half upright, and the coughing tore through him until something came up with it.

A mouthful of blood spilled out of him, so dark it was almost black, and then he went boneless, like everything holding him together had quit at once.

“Julian!” Constance stumbled to him and took his white face in both hands, and her voice shook. “Julian, don’t do this to me.

“Open your eyes. Look at your grandmother.

“If you die, what am I supposed to do? Julian, open your eyes! Look at me!”

Constance had spent years preparing herself to outlive him, and it tore her apart anyway. She’d have traded places with him on the spot.

Maybe it was the sound of her crying that reached him.

Julian’s eyes came open. He lifted one hand, barely, and pointed at Nora, and his lips worked until two words got out. “Trust her.”

His hand dropped, and he was gone again.

Constance went still. She’d had no idea her grandson trusted Nora that much, and she wasn’t losing another second. “Move him to Nora’s room. Now. Whatever she tells you to do, you do it.”

Gideon stared at her. “Madam Weston, you still believe her nonsense? You’re putting his life in her hands?”

Constance wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked at Nora. “Julian told me to trust you, so I trust you.”

Nora looked down at him. His eyes were shut, his color was gone, and his lips had started to go blue.

He’d surfaced out of a coma deep enough to look like death, held on long enough to get out two words, and gone back under. It told her everything about how much fight he had left in him.

Nora’s face was dead serious. “What he brought up was the poisoned blood, and it buys us a little time. Keep everyone out of that room, Grandma, and I won’t let you down.”

She turned and followed them next door.

Gideon still couldn’t accept it. “Madam Weston…”

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Chapter 35 Trust Her

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Finched “Leave it,” Constance said, and the words came out bitter. “If it really comes to that… then I’ll accept it. It was always coming. I won’t hold it against either of you.”

Then, she went out after them.

Gideon called Olivia the moment the room emptied and told her everything.

Olivia was just as stunned. “Constance didn’t call me? She didn’t call my grandmother? She’s actually letting Nora treat him?”

Olivia had her own training, and beyond that she had Cordelia, the only woman in the country anyone called a miracle worker.

And Constance had passed over both of them for someone she’d known two days who couldn’t read a pulse. That’s insane.

“She did,” Gideon said.

Olivia’s voice climbed. “Get in there and watch her! Don’t let her kill him! I’m already in the car. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

She hung up and turned to Cordelia. “Grandma…”

Cordelia produced a small glass vial and put it in her hand. “I heard all of it. Go, get this into him, and he’ll be fine.”

“What is it?” Olivia said.

“The antidote for ghostbloom pollen,” Cordelia said. “Go on. Stop wasting time.”

Olivia took the vial, got into her car, and turned the key. A thought surfaced as the engine caught.

Why would Grandma be carrying an antidote for ghostbloom pollen?

Next door, the bedroom had been cleared out for her.

Nora got Julian’s shirt off him and looked at the open door. Hattie still wasn’t there. “Has Hattie come up yet?”

One of the bodyguards checked the hallway, which was empty. “No, ma’am.”

Nora frowned and called her. “Hattie, what’s keeping you?”

Hattie was in tears. “Ma’am, they’re saying I look suspicious! They won’t let me upstairs, and now they’re trying to throw me out of the house!”

“Hold on.” Nora glanced up as Constance appeared in the doorway. “Grandma, my needles and my medicine are all with Hattie, and they’ve stopped her downstairs.”

“Understood.” Constance’s face went dark. “He’s yours. I’m going down there.”

It had to be the other two branches of the family. They wanted Julian gone, so they’d invented a reason to

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Chapter 35 Trust Her

Fed

stall and run the clock out on him.

right.” Nora thought for a second and looked up again. “Don’t let anyone in here. That includes Olivia and her grandmother.”

Constance blinked, then nodded. “Done.”

Two words from Julian had settled it. She trusted Nora now, and every hope she had left was riding on her.

Constance had aged years in the last hour. Nora looked at her and thought about the night in that other life when Constance had held an umbrella over her head in the rain.

She smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Grandma. Nothing is going to happen to him. If he dies today, you can bury me next to him.”

Constance managed something close to a smile and went.

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