out so spectacularly, failing to protect her. But to be downgraded from potential lover to feeble patient? No. He couldn’t bear it. Better to break things off now.
“I think maybe our journey together ends here, Duchess.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head back and forth as she clasped her hands together beside him on the white sheets. “No, it doesn’t.”
“You told me once that you came back to Philly because you wanted someone to anchor you, to protect you, to make you feel safe.”
“You do those things for me,” she said. “I’ve felt more anchored, more protected, and more safe since the moment I ran into you that nigh—”
“How can you say that?” he demanded angrily, raising his voice, feeling his face twist into a sneer. “I’m a blind man! How can I be an anchor for you? How can I protect you or keep you safe, woman? You saw what happened when I tried!”
“We’re not cave people!” she yelled back. “I don’t need a Neanderthal goon to follow me around with a club beating photographers away! What I need is—”
“Some sightless joke of a—”
He supposed she did what she did next because she couldn’t bear to hit his injured face, so she went for the next most vulnerable spot…per his instruction. She slapped him as hard as she could in the nuts.
“Ahhhhk! Arrrrr. Gah!” he groaned, reaching down under the sheet to cover his penis before looking up at her in horror. “Merde! Pourquoi?”
Shit! Why?
Her eyes were narrowed to slits of green, and her voice was low and lethal. “Don’t you ever call yourself a joke again. Not to me. Not ever. Do you understand?”
If he’d thought her fierce before, when she’d grabbed his chin, she was downright scary now. Thank God the blankets over his body had absorbed some the shock of her smack, but his balls still ached.
He frowned at her, growling between clenched teeth, “Oui.”
“I’m sorry I hit you,” she said softly, glancing at his groin with guilty eyes.
He grumbled, “Kinda gettin’ used to it, Duchess.”
“Can I please finish what I was saying?”
He nodded.
“I don’t need you to be my personal policeman. I can protect myself. You’re teaching me how, remember? Don’t you see? Before I ran into you that night, I had no idea what I was doing with my life, what came next. No plan. Just a frightened girl hiding away in her childhood home. Now? I’ve found a script I love. I’m trying to figure out how to produce it. I have a meeting later this week, did I tell you that?”
He shook his head, his heart swelling with love for her as she told him the ways that his presence in her life had already improved it for the better.
“As for feeling safe?” She took his hand and pressed it to her lips again. “You do make me feel safe. You take the loneliness away. You make me feel beautiful. And grounded. And maybe that’s because you’re a gardener…” She sniffled, laughing weakly at her own bad joke. “…but I think it’s because I’m falling in love with you.” She gulped, dropping his eyes and clasping his hand in hers.
After a long second—the exact amount of time it took for him to process her beautiful words, to fully understand and accept their meaning and let them settle into his heart—he took a deep breath and said, “What’s the first rule?”
She raised her chin and her eyes found his. “Don’t ever look away.”
“That’s right,” he said, searching her face and knowing that if he didn’t turn her away right now, right here, he was choosing her, choosing to give them a chance. He nodded, unable to keep his lips from wobbling into a small, grateful smile. “Now kiss me, cher.”
Tears brightened her eyes as she stared at him for just a moment before giggling softly with a look of surprise and relief and then leaned forward as he had asked, pressing her lips to his.
***
Two days later, after a concussion had been ruled out and Gard had seen a surgical ophthalmologist to ensure his eyes hadn’t suffered further as a result of his fall, he was permitted to leave the hospital with Jax, who pulled up in her mother’s Mercedes and grinned at him as a nurse wheeled him out to the curb.
Standing up with a growl of annoyance as soon as the chair stopped moving, he practically leapt into the car. “Please get me out of here.”
“With pleasure!” she said, stepping on the