The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 127

Chapter 75-2

“Your partner and the other lady are foNowing behind us.”

The other lady. Willow.

The air disappears from my lungs. “No.”

Leah leans closer. “What is it?”

“I don’t want them there. I don’t even want to see them.” My voice cracks. “I don’t want either of them near

me.”

Leah and Tom exchange another glance, and this one lasts longer. I know exactly what they’re thinking: that I’m confused, that I’m ill, that people say strange things after fainting.

“I know what I’m saying,” I tell them. “And I mean every word.”

Leah’s expression doesn’t change. “I believe you.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She adjusts the blanket over me again. “If you don’t want visitors, we’ll tell the hospital staff.”

“He’ll try to come in.”

“Then they won’t let him.”

“He’ll say he has to stay.” My breathing won’t slow down, the straps across my chest suddenly feel too tight. “I don’t want him to stay.”

“You don’t have to see him, Zara.”

“What if they let him in anyway?”

Leah shakes her head immediately. “They won’t.”

“He’ll tell them I’m confused.”

“He might, yes.”

“And they’ll believe him.”

“They won’t.”

“You don’t know him.”

“No, I don’t.” Her voice remains impossibly calm. “But I know you.”

I stare at her.

“You’ve told me very clearly that you don’t want to see him.” She holds my hand lightly. “So that’s all I need to know You’re my patient, not him, and I advocate for you.”

But I say. What if the doctors think I don’t know what I’m saying?”

Leah kneels beside the stretcher so we’re almost eye level despite the cramped ambulance. Then they’ll

ask me.”

I blink. “What?”

“They’ll ask us what happened, me and Tom. And we’ll tell them that you were alert, that you understood every question we asked, and that you’ve consistently told us you don’t want him near you.”

Tom nods. “You’ve made your wishes very clear.”

“I just don’t want to have to explain, over and over.” I feel tears spilling sideways into my hair. “I don’t have the energy.”

“You don’t have to explain jack,” Tom says. “We will. Okay? Our job isn’t just getting you to hospital, Zara. It’s making sure your voice gets there too.”

A sob catches unexpectedly in my throat, because in the whole of my life, nobody has ever put it like that before.

My voice. Getting there. Being carried by somebody else because I’m too exhausted to carry it myself.

Leah gives my hand a gentle squeeze, lets go. “We’ve got you.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Both of you.”

The ambulance sways around a corner, and my stomach lurches again, but not enough to make me throw up. I close my eyes, trying to regain some control – but the kitchen is waiting for me in the dark.

Willow with her wine.

Willow smiling.

Willow touching him.

The memory keeps replaying, refusing to leave me alone.

I barely heard a word they were saying, but then again, I hadn’t needed to. I stood there in the hallway, watching them through the doorway, seeing only pieces of a conversation that I wasn’t part of.

Willow standing far too close, one hand resting lightly on Locke’s wrist as though she’d known him for years instead of hours. Locke didn’t touched her back and I know that. My head knows it, but…

But he didn’t step away either.

That hurts in ways that I can’t even begin to explain.

Locke notices everything, after all. He’s always known exactly when someone stands too close to me, he’s the man who quietly shifts between me and a stranger without making it obvious. The man who can read the tiniest change in my expression from all the way across a room.

He would’ve known Willow was inside his space; he would’ve known she was touching him. And still… he stayed where he was.

Chapter 75-2

Claim

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she reached for everyone, maybe she’d have done exactly the same thing to Tacker or Diesel.

Maybe.

But trauma and suspicions don’t deal in maybes.

They deal in snapshots, and in half-seen moments, and in fears that grow larger every time you replay them.

Yesterday, I’d been trying to learn my sister. Trying to understand the strange, colorful whirlwind who’d walked unannounced into our lives, wearing feathers in her hair and talking to motorcycles.

I’d laughed with her. I’d hugged her. I’d wanted so desperately to believe that I’d found something wonderful.

Instead, all I can remember at this moment is her hand on the man I care about, the one who claims to

care about me.

I spent twenty-eight years not knowing she existed. Less than a day wishing I’d found her sooner. Now, with the siren screaming above me and bile burning my throat, I realize something far uglier:

I’m sorry to have a sister.

5

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