The Billionaire Ex-Wife's Return (Cynthia and Ethan) novel Chapter 159

Chapter 159

Cynthia's POV

I screamed, a raw, terrified sound that tore from my throat but it wasn't just my voice.

Behind me, another scream pierced the air.

Mrs. Daniels.

Time seemed to slow and speed up simultaneously. One moment I was falling, certain I was about to hit the ground beside Grace, and the next I realized I wasn't falling.

My hands had caught the railing.

Somehow, in the chaos and terror, my fingers had wrapped around the metal bars, and I was dangling there, one story up, arms screaming with the strain, feet kicking uselessly in empty air.

Grace hadn't been so lucky.

I looked down and saw her crumpled form on the stone patio below, twisted at an unnatural angle, completely still.

"Oh God," I gasped. "Oh God, oh God…"

"Misus!" Mrs. Daniels' voice came from above me, panicked and shrill. "Hold on! Just hold on!"

My arms were already shaking, muscles burning, fingers starting to slip against the smooth metal.

"I can't…" I started.

"Yes, you can!" Mrs. Daniels reached over the railing, her hands grasping for mine. "Give me your hand! Come on!"

With strength I didn't know I had, I managed to swing one hand up higher, and Mrs. Daniels caught my wrist in a grip that was surprisingly strong for a woman her age.

I did as she said, and together, with her pulling and me scrambling I managed to get one foot onto a decorative ledge, then the other, and finally hauled myself back over the railing.

I collapsed onto the veranda floor, gasping, my entire body trembling violently.

Mrs. Daniels dropped to her knees beside me, her face pale and terrified, her hands checking me over frantically.

"Are you hurt? Did you… oh my God, I thought… I saw…"

"I'm okay," I managed, though my voice was shaking so badly I could barely get the words out. "Grace…"

We both looked at each other for a frozen moment, the horror of what had just happened written clearly on both our faces.

Then we were moving.

Down the stairs, through the house, out the back door, running across the perfectly manicured lawn toward Grace's motionless form.

Please don't be dead, I thought desperately. Please, please don't be dead.

Not because I cared about Grace, not after everything she'd done, everything she'd tried to do but because I didn't want her death on my conscience. Didn't want to be responsible, even accidentally, for taking someone's life.

We reached her together, both of us dropping to our knees on the cold stone.

Grace was breathing.

Shallow, ragged breaths that rattled wetly in her chest, but breathing.

"She's alive," I said, relief flooding through me even as I took in the extent of her injuries.

Blood was pooling beneath her head, dark and spreading. Her left arm was bent at a wrong angle. Her eyes were closed, her face deathly pale.

"Call 911," I told Mrs. Daniels urgently. "Now!"

Mrs. Daniels fumbled for her phone, her hands shaking as she dialed.

I leaned closer to Grace, checking her pulse at her neck. It was there, thready and weak, but there.

"Stay with me," I said, though I wasn't sure she could hear me. "Help is coming. Just stay with me."

Mrs. Daniels was speaking rapidly into her phone, giving the address, describing the situation. "Yes, she fell from the veranda — one storey, she's bleeding heavily…please hurry…"

I pulled off my cardigan and pressed it gently against the wound on Grace's head, trying to slow the bleeding.

They moved with practiced precision, stabilizing her, preparing her for transport.

"Is she going to make it?" Mrs. Daniels asked, her voice small and scared.

"We're doing everything we can," one of the paramedics said, which wasn't really an answer at all.

They lifted Grace onto the stretcher and wheeled her quickly across the lawn toward the waiting ambulance.

Mrs. Daniels and I followed at a distance, both of us too shocked to do anything else.

The ambulance doors closed with a decisive thud, and then they were gone, sirens wailing as they sped away.

That's when the police arrived.

Two patrol cars pulled up to the front of the house, officers emerging and heading straight for us.

"Ma'am," one of them said, approaching me with his notepad already out. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Mrs. Daniels stepped forward. "I saw it," she said quickly. "I was in the kitchen and I heard shouting. When I looked out, I saw them struggling on the veranda. They were fighting and then… they both lost their balance and fell but the missus was able to hold the railing and I helped her up.."

The officer's eyes shifted to me. "Is that accurate?"

I hesitated.

Maybe it was shock or fear. Maybe it was the simple, terrible awareness that once I said those words out loud to the police, there would be no taking them back.

"Cynthia!"

The shout came from the front of the house.

I turned just in time to see Ethan burst around the corner.

Ethan's eyes found me immediately, scanning me head to toe, taking in the blood on my hands and clothes, the tear in my sleeve, the scratches on my arms.

"What happened?" he demanded, closing the distance between us in seconds.