Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 101872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Opal didn’t know why.
Probably worried you’d freak out if you went there.
Maybe she would. It was hard to know until she tried going back there. But perhaps not today. That was a worry for tomorrow.
“Yeah, baby. You were discharged from the hospital yesterday afternoon. You’ve been sleeping a lot. Do you remember me bringing you here?”
Uh huh.
Sure, she did.
Not really, though.
“Vaguely,” she said, coughing slightly. “I wasn’t sure where I was when I woke up.”
Renard’s face tightened. “You thought you were back there? With that fucking bastard?”
“Yeah. My throat hurts. Is there any water?”
He walked over to the nightstand where she’d failed to see a glass of water sitting.
“Sorry, didn’t see it there.”
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
He helped her sit up, putting some pillows behind her. Then he held the glass of water to her lips while she sipped.
“You need to take your pills.” He picked up a pill bottle and shook two out onto the palm of his hand. “I’m also going to make you a smoothie as you’ve barely eaten. Here you are. Open up.”
She grimaced as she tried to open her mouth wide. God, her lip hurt.
Well, who was she kidding? Everything hurt.
He put the pills on her tongue and she felt her throat close up. But before she could protest, he placed the glass of water against her lips and tilted it so she had no choice but to swallow.
Water went down the side of her mouth, which was embarrassing. But he simply used his fingers to gently wipe it away.
“I’ll go get that smoothie started. Unless you feel like something else?”
“No, I’m not really hungry.” At least she was feeling more alert now.
“All right. I’ll be back soon,” he told her.
She sat up further in the bed, trying to ignore the pain in her body. Hey, at least she had experience with recovering from beatings, right?
When Renard returned, he had a tall glass with the smoothie in it, along with a straw. She forced herself to take a few sips as he held the glass for her.
“I’m good, thanks,” she said, sitting back.
He frowned. “You need more, baby. It will help with your recovery.”
Right. Her recovery. God, she must look like hell.
She hadn’t had a chance to look at herself in the mirror, yet. And suddenly, it became imperative that she did that.
“I don’t have any of my stuff here. I need to get my clothes.” She stared down at herself. “What am I dressed in?”
He studied her for a moment. “One of my T-shirts. Lilac and Ryleigh brought you some things, though.”
Relief filled her. She remembered them visiting her in the hospital after she’d given her statement to Jake. But by that stage, she’d been kind of out of it.
“They did? Can I have it? I need a mirror,” she told him. “And my makeup. Did Ryleigh and Lilac bring my makeup?”
There was panic in her voice that he didn’t understand. How could she think about makeup right now?
She had just gotten out of the fucking hospital. They’d kept her in a couple of nights, but she’d begged them to let her go home and they hadn’t had a real reason to keep her. Not a physical reason, anyway.
Not when he planned to give her round-the-clock care.
Understandably, she’d been sleeping a lot and not in any state to make good decisions about her care. So he’d brought her back to his place.
He looked her over. One eye was swollen shut and the other wasn’t much better. Her lip was busted and if she wasn’t careful it kept cracking open and bleeding. There were bruises down her back and hips from where that bastard had kicked her and shoved her into a wall.
Fucking kicked her!
Both of her wrists were bandaged, they’d been rubbed raw from the rope and she had two badly broken fingers on her left hand. She was lucky he hadn’t broken her hand, but the entire thing was swollen and bandaged. And she had more marks around her throat from where he’d shoved her against a wall and choked her.
And she was worried about makeup? That was something he did not understand.
“Baby, you are not putting makeup on,” he told her gently. “You can’t. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I need it.”
“You don’t need it.”
“You don’t understand. I do,” she cried.
“Why?” he asked, walking over to the bed. “Why would you want to put makeup on?”
She shuffled around as though trying to get comfortable. But all she did was wince in pain. God, he hated that so much.
“Gem, stop. You’re hurting yourself.” And Renard would do anything to make sure she never hurt again. It was a burning need inside his gut.
“I need a mirror. Do you have one or do I need to go to the bathroom?”
“You don’t need a mirror.”
“I do,” she insisted.
“You should be resting and healing. Not worrying about this.”