Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,76
was seconds away from freaking out, but I managed to hold myself together while Carter took charge of the situation.
My brain shut down as I heard him calling for help. Eventually, he got me into the manager’s private car. He held me through it all, cradling me gently while stroking my hair and whispering things to me I couldn’t hear over the blood rushing in my ears.
The last time this had happened had been my last night on the stage—days before my diagnosis. Everything had changed for me after that night. My life as I’d known it had been snatched right out from under me, and I’d only recently found my balance again.
What’s going to change this time? The blood had drained from my face when I’d felt the tingling, but the last bit that had been left rushed out now. I felt dizzy. Nauseated.
Worry tightened every part of Carter’s handsome face when he looked down at me. “Talk to me, baby. How are you feeling?”
I shook my head, too afraid I’d vomit all over him if I tried opening my mouth. It might’ve just been the way the lights from outside hit his eyes, but I swore I saw the same kind of terror there that was ripping its way through me, and then everything went black.
When I came to again, I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm. The room was dark except for the ambient light coming in from the hallway and the window, as well as the tiny screen on the machine next to me.
A hulking frame paced the length of the room, and relief slammed into me when I realized Carter was still with me. He stayed. Just like he said he would.
That was when it hit me. He’d stayed.
My feet were bare but I didn’t remember the skates coming off. The last thing I remembered was Carter carrying me off the ice and flashes of him holding me in the back of a car. He wore paper hospital booties on his feet, which told me he hadn’t even stopped long enough to grab his own shoes or to ask someone to bring them for him.
It’s already happening. He was already taking care of me in the exact way I’d been afraid of. He’s here in the hospital with me when he could be home. He had to race me here and carry me when I couldn’t walk.
Closing my eyes against the pain that rushed at me when I realized everything I hadn’t wanted for him was happening, I let out a soft gasp when it felt like a heavy weight was crushing me from the inside out.
Carter’s head snapped up when he heard it, and he rushed to my side. Elation filled his eyes when they met mine and saw they were open, but there was so much tension in his posture that he practically vibrated with it.
“Rylee, baby. Thank fuck.” He captured my face in his large hands, his fingers stroking me everywhere like he was trying to reassure himself I was really here. “Look at me, Ry. Show me those gorgeous eyes.”
I heard the anguish in his voice, and a sob rose from deep down inside the heart I was about to break. “Just leave, Carter. Please, leave.”
“What? No. They’re giving you fluids. Your doctor’s on his way. I told you I’d—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you told me. I need you to leave.” Despite the hysteria bubbling up in my very soul, my voice was deceptively quiet. I was trying really hard to avoid the meltdown I felt coming on—at least until he was gone.
I can’t let him see that. “Go, Carter.”
“Ryl—”
My hand trembled when I lifted it to cut him off. “Just go. Call Jules for me, will you? I’m not doing the New Year’s thing. It was fucking stupid to even consider it.”
“No, it wasn’t.” The chair he dragged closer to the bed with his one hand scraped across the floor, the fingers of the other still stroking my face. “I know that was scary, but—”
“You don’t know anything,” I bit out, smacking his hand away from my face. “This was all a terrible idea. Getting involved with you included.”
Saying the words out loud slashed my heart right open, leaving me gasping for breath. But I had to do it. I couldn’t drag him down with me. I refused.
Agony crept into his eyes when they stayed on mine and he realized I was