The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 23

Chapter 23-1

Zara

“So,” Locke says. “You’re Zara Callahan again, are you?”

My name sounds different in his mouth, like it’s something worth saying.

I try to answer, but breathing is suddenly difficult every inhale catching against the pain that pulses deep and sharp where my body is still healing. I press one hand against my stomach without thinking.

His gaze drops, and something in his face changes.

“Where?” he asks.

“My stomach,” I manage, the words thin.

He crouches in front of me, not too close, not crowding, his hands resting loosely on his knees as his eyes move over my face in a way that feels careful rather than invasive.

“Did Knox do this to you?” he asks.

The question catches me off guard, not because of the assumption, but because of the anger underneath it, which is cold and controlled. Dangerous enough that I suddenly understand exactly what kind of man Locke Tanner becomes when he cares about something.

Or someone.

I shake my head slowly. “No. It wasn’t him.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “OK. So then tell me what’s going on with you.”

“I was in a car accident,” I say reluctantly. “A bad one.”

“When?”

“A couple of months ago.”

“How bad is ‘bad’?”

I look down at my hand still pressed over my stomach, at the place beneath the sweater where stitches and bruises and healing skin mark the line between the life I had, and the one I’m trying to enter.

“I was trapped in the car,” I say. “They had to cut me out, and I had some really serious internal injuries.”

His gaze drops again, not to look in a way that makes me feel exposed, but as if he can somehow understand the damage through the layers between us.

“You just got out of the hospital?”

“About a week ago.”

For the first time since he walked into the clubhouse, Locke looks genuinely displeased. Not at me, exactly, more at whoever let me stand in a crowded bar with stitches still healing while a fight broke out

Chapter 21.

three feet away.

“You shouldn’t be out at a fucking bar, Zara. You should be resting.”

“I was resting,” I say indignantly. “There was whiskey.”

“That’s not resting.”

“It was emotional resting. The best kind.”

His mouth twitches. “The medical community is going to be fascinated by that diagnosis.”

“I can assure you that it was very therapeutic.”

The smile finally appears; small, brief, dangerous. God. The man should not be allowed to smile.

Then another pulse of pain catches me off guard, and I inhale sharply.

Locke rises immediately. “I’m getting Jade.”

“No!” The word comes out much louder than I intended. “Not yet. Please.”

Clam

Something flickers across his face: calculation, the instinct to ignore my wishes battling the instinct to respect them.

Eventually, he nods. “Fine. But if that happens again, I’m getting Jade.”

“Locke -”

“And your brother.”

“Absolutely not.”

“And your father.”

“Oh, my God.”

“And probably a doctor too, if you really piss me off.”

I stare at him. “That’s excessive.”

“It’s exactly the right amount of excessive.”

Despite myself, I laugh. The sound surprises both of us, and for a second neither of us says anything.

We just look at each other, and something shifts. Not dramatically, not enough to name. Just enough to feel.

Locke sits beside me now, close enough that I’m suddenly aware of every inch of space separating us… and how little of it there is.

“You need anything?” he asks.

I take a breath, letting the pain fade again. “No, thanks. I’m OK.”

“Then stay still.”

23

Chapter 23+

e**k my head at him. “For how long?”

Until I say otherwise.”

Bossy.”

Smart.”

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