Chapter 4

I blinked up at the ceiling panels, listening to the steady beeping of the heart monitor next to my head. My chest felt like someone had used it as a launching pad for a bowling ball, and every time I took a deep breath, I got a faint whiff of burnt toast.

I turned my head  to look at Cyrus.

He was still sitting in the visitor's chair, unbothered by the fact that I had just taken fifty thousand volts of pure electricity straight to the ribs. He didn't look guilty or look like a man who felt bad that his dedicated travel agent had been reduced to a human lightning rod.

Instead, he was looking at me with that dark, possessive, arrogant frown. The kind of look that said he was somehow right all along.

"You look like a drowned rat," I said, my voice raspy as I cleared my throat. "And your tie is crooked."

He didn't even flinch. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his eyes locking onto mine with the intensity of a laser pointer.

"I told you to get in the car, Erin," he said, his voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register. "This is what happens when you decide to be stubborn and ignore me."

I stared at him, genuinely amazed by the absolute mental gymnastics happening inside his head.

"Are you serious right now?" I asked, pushing myself up an inch on the thin mattress, wincing as my chest muscles protested. "You're blaming me for getting struck by lightning? What, do you control the weather now? Did you order a localized thunderstorm just to prove a point?"

"If you had simply gotten into the SUV when I told you to, you would be dry and sipping coffee at my office," he said, in all seriousness, there wasn’t a single trace of irony in his voice. "Instead, you decided to throw a tantrum on the sidewalk. You brought this on yourself."

Bro, back off, we met yesterday.

I let my head fall back onto the pillow with a dramatic groan. "You are unhinged. You know that, right? Like, clinically. If I had a whiteboard right now, I'd draw you a diagram on how cloud-to-ground static charges work, because I promise you, God didn't throw a bolt of lightning down from the heavens just to enforce your commute requirements."

"I don't care about the science," he said, standing up from the chair. He towered over the side of the hospital bed, his massive frame blocking out half the light above us. "I care about results and the result is that you are stuck in this bed until I say otherwise."

I looked around the room properly for the first time. This wasn't a standard emergency room with a pulled blue curtain and a squeaky wheel chart. It was a massive, high-end private suite. There was a leather sofa in the corner, a massive flat-screen television on the wall, a fresh vase of white lilies sitting on the windowsill, and hardwood flooring.

"Where the hell are we?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. "Did you put me in a hotel?"

"I bought out the entire private VIP wing of the hospital for the evening," he said casually, adjusting his cufflinks. "I require privacy and I don't want underpaid medical staff hovering around my travel agent."

"Cool, can you buy out my student loans next or are we just doing weird side quests?" I asked, rolling my eyes so hard I almost gave myself a headache.

Before he could deliver another one of his over-the-top dark romance monologues, the door to the room slammed open.

"Erin!"

Lana burst into the room like a bat out of hell, holding a paper bag from the bakery she and my female lead loved to go to. She had an iced matcha latte with a green straw. She was still wearing her work outfit, but her hair was a little frizzy from the rain, and her eyes were wide and filled with sheer panic.

She took three steps into the room, spotted Cyrus standing by my bed like a brooding shadow, and froze.

"What the fuck," he whispered, her gaze darting from me in my scratchy hospital gown, to the heart monitor, and then over to Cyrus's custom suit. "Erin, what the fuck happened? Greg said you had an accident and this guy brought you to the hospital”.

"I got smited by the plot, Lana," I said, holding out my hands lazily. "The universe really hates when I refuse rides from men in tinted SUVs."

“Huh, what Plot?” Lana asked, looking confused. 

"She was reckless," Cyrus interrupted, his tone cold and dismissive as he barely even glanced at Lana. "She refused a simple instruction and paid the price."

Lana’s jaw dropped. She looked at Cyrus like he had just spoken in ancient code, then looked at me, pointing her straw at him. "Is he... is he for real? Who talks like that? He sounds like a medieval lord who just lost a peasant."

"I know," I wheezed, letting out a small laugh that made my sore ribs ache. "I'm telling you, his brain is built differently. Sarcasm just bounces off his skull like rubber bullets."

"Miss... Lana, was it?" Cyrus said, turning his heavy gaze toward her. His jaw ticked with that sharp, rhythmic rage I’d written into his profile when he was annoyed.

Someone get this man a night guard, his TMJ must be lethal.

"You may leave," Cyrus said, pointing toward the door with an absolute lack of manners. "Erin needs rest, and I have matters to discuss with her privately."

Lana didn't budge. She walked straight past him, her sneakers squeaking on the floor, and dropped the bakery bag onto my bedside table. She popped the top off her matcha, handed me a paper napkin, and looked Cyrus up and down with absolute disgust.

"Listen here, Mr. Monopoly," Lana said, placing her hands on her hips. "I've known Erin since we were wearing diapers. You've known her for, what, three weeks? You don't get to kick me out of a hospital room when she literally just survived a lightning strike."

"She is my dedicated agent," Cyrus growled softly, stepping closer to the bed, trying to use his height to intimidate her.

"Okay, well I am her best friend, so sit down," Lana snapped back without missing a beat.