The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 124

Chapter 73-1

Claim

Hospitals have their own kind of silence; not real silence, not what most people understand at the word.

There are machines beeping, rubber soles squeaking against polished floors, curtains being pulled around bays and nurses speaking in voices deliberately calm enough to hold everyone together.

But beneath all of it is the silence of people waiting. Waiting for blood results. Waiting for drugs. Waiting to find out whether the thing making them sick is killing the thing trying to kill them.

Locke sits beside me with his long legs stretched beneath the chair and one hand wrapped around a paper cup of coffee he hasn’t touched. He’s been holding it for twenty minutes.

“You know that’s going cold,”‘I say.

His eyes move immediately to my face. “I know.”

“You could drink it.”

“I could.”

“But you won’t.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It smells terrible.”

I look at my own cup of water. “Everything smells terrible.”

His mouth tightens. He tries to hide it, but I see it. I see the worry. It’s been there since we left the penthouse this morning. Quiet and controlled, visible only in the way he checks my face every few minutes, and the way his hand stays close to mine without assuming I want it held.

I turn my palm over on the arm of the chair. He threads his fingers through mine immediately.

The cannula is taped into the back of my other hand, and I hate looking at it. Not because I’m afraid of needles, but because it makes this real.

Again.

The nurse checks my name and date of birth for what feels like the hundredth time, then adjusts the line.

“All right, Zara?”

“Living the dream.”

She smiles. “I’ve heard better reviews.”

Time passes somehow both quickly and slowly, and soon, the first bag is empty. The second hangs beside me, clear fluid feeding steadily through the tube.

I try not to imagine it moving into my bloodstream. Try not to think of poison.

1/3

Chapter 73

Medicine, I remind myself. It’s medicine.

But the truth is that something meant to save me can still feel like an invasion.

Claim

My mouth tastes metallic. I suck on a mint, but the sweetness turns strange against my tongue, chemical and sharp. I spit it discreetly into a tissue.

Locke notices. “Feeling sick, baby?”

“Not yet.”

He studies me.

“What?” I ask, a bit unnerved at the intense look on his face. “Am I growing a second head, or something?”

“What you just said, it sounded like a lie.”

“It was more of a prediction.”

“Zara.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to be fine.”

The words are quiet, and I look away. Across from us, an older woman is knitting something yellow. Beside her, a man sleeps with his chin on his chest while his infusion pump clicks softly.

Life continues here in fragments.

A dry cookie. A blanket. A joke between strangers. A glass of ice chips. Locke’s thumb moves slowly across my knuckles.

“You can talk to me,” he says.

“I am talking.”

“You’ve force-fed me terrible coffee and lied about feeling sick.”

“That’s practically intimacy.”

His mouth curves, but his eyes remain serious. “How bad?”

I consider lying again, but don’t do it this time.

“My stomach feels unsettled,” I admit. “And I feel dizzy.”

“I’ll get the nurse.”

“Not yet.”

“They said to tell them if this exact thing happened.”

“I know.”

“Then why -”

23

Chapter 73-4

I

“Because once I say it aloud, it becomes the whole room.”

He stops. I can see him wanting to argue, wanting to call someone, fix something, make the feeling disappear.

Claim

Instead, he nods. “All right. No taking over, no deciding for me. He simply lifts my hand and presses his mouth to my fingers. “We tell her when you’re ready.”

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