can you tell me how your pain is?”
Alexis tried to focus. Things hurt, but she was still too fuzzy to know where and what and how badly. “Six, seven. I don’t know.”
“We’re going to take care of that for you, okay?” Nina said.
“Elliott?” Her voice was a croak.
“He’s good. Everything went fine.”
She winced at a sharp pain in her gut.
“Okay, honey,” Nina said. “I’ve given you some more pain medication.”
“Noah . . . ,” Alexis whispered.
The warm, dark water washed over her again. But just before she went under, she heard Nina’s voice. “He’s here, and he loves you.”
* * *
* * *
The next time she woke up, she was in a private room and alone. Long shadows stretched along the wall and bathed her white blanket in an orange glow from the sinking sun.
The fire in her throat had eased only to be replaced by a painful cramp in her gut. Both paled, however, to the ache in her heart. He’s here, and he loves you. Nina’s message had been a dream. Her imagination. Wishful thinking.
Alexis let her eyes drift closed again, not from the pull of pain medications but the tug of regret.
They flew open again at the sound of a toilet flushing. Alexis turned her head to the right as the bathroom door opened. A man emerged, silhouetted in the bathroom light. Alexis squinted and tried but failed to sit up. Who the hell—
He stopped short. “Shit. I’m sorry. Did I—Did I wake you up?”
The heart monitor recorded the skip of her heartbeat. “Noah?”
He stepped out of the shadows, and Alexis gasped. It was Noah.
But not.
His beard was gone, revealing a youthful smile and baby soft skin. And his long hair was now short, cropped and styled tightly against his scalp. But his eyes were the same—warm and soft—as he stopped at the edge of her bed and gazed at her.
A tear rolled toward her temple. “Oh my God.”
His smile slipped. “That bad, huh?”
“No,” she choked. “You were right. It is too much male beauty.” A suppressed sob broke free, and she clutched her stomach against the assault of emotion on tender incisions.
“Shit.” Noah looked panicked. “Did I hurt you? Should I get the nurse?”
Alexis shot out her hand and grabbed his arm. “No. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll just think I’m dreaming.”
Noah bent over the arm of the bed and lowered his brow to rest on hers. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted you to see the real me when I groveled for forgiveness.”
A watery laugh escaped her sandpaper throat. It quickly became a cough, which caused another sharp pain in her stomach. Alexis winced. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“I wasn’t trying to.” Noah stood and reached for a disposable cup with a lid on the table next to her bed. He brought the straw to her lips. “Here. The nurse said you’d need it.”
She sucked down the cool drink with a sigh. “Thank you.” She blinked. “What happened to your cheek?”
“It’s a long story that I’ll save for another time.” Noah returned the cup to the table, and then his finger traced a gentle line from her ear to her jaw. “How do you feel?”
“Better now that I know you’re really here and I’m not just hallucinating.”
His eyes pinched at the corners. “I’m so sorry, Lexa. I tried to get here. I had a big grand gesture planned to swoop in just in time and tell you how sorry I was before you went in, but I was too late.” His throat worked against a swallow. “I didn’t know . . . I didn’t think you were going through with the surgery. I should have been here with you.”
“You’re here now.”
His lips thinned. “That’s not good enough.”
Alexis turned her face into his hand and kissed the tip of his thumb. “It is.”
“You’re interrupting my groveling.”
She met his eyes. “You don’t need to grovel, and I don’t want you to grovel. I want you to kiss me.”
Noah lowered the arm of the bed and gingerly sat down next to her. He reached one arm across her body and pressed his hand into the mattress. “I have to say this first.”
Alexis sighed and settled into the pillow beneath her head. “You really don’t.”
“The things I said to you were cruel and inexcusable.”
“Are you forgetting what I said before that?”
“It doesn’t matter. You tried to apologize, and I threw it back in your face. And when I did that, I not only betrayed you, I betrayed our