Chapter 15

My head jerked up. I recognised Ashton. My ridiculously attractive neighbour. ‘I think... someone I know might’ve been in an accident.’ I swallowed my rising panic. ‘I need to get to the Grangers’.’ The second I got enough brain cells online to function, I fumbled for my phone and ordered an Uber. I stood up, wobbly, and made it two steps before Ashton caught my arm. ‘Let me drive you.’ ‘I’m fine, I can—’ ‘It’ll take ages to get a ride from here,’ he said, already pulling me towards the lift like I’d agreed. ‘My car’s downstairs. It’s faster.’ He wasn’t wrong. Also, I wasn’t in the mood to argue. Not when my nerves were having a full-blown seizure. As the lift descended, Ashton made a quick call—something low and calm in that velvet voice of his. When we reached the lobby, a sleek black car was already waiting at the kerb. A guy who looked like his assistant handed over the keys, then melted into the night. ‘Passenger side,’ Ashton said, nodding at the car. The night air slapped some sense back into me. I climbed in without a word. Ashton slid into the driver’s seat, took the wheel, and floored it. Only once we were barrelling through traffic did it occur to me I had zero clue where we were even going. I dug out my phone. ‘I need to call someone, figure out which hospital—’ Ashton tapped his Bluetooth earpiece and answered a call with a smooth, ‘Yeah.’ Before I could get through to Louisa, Rhys, or even Clive bloody Granger, he ended the call and said, ‘Louisa Granger’s at Eldergrove Private.’ I stared. ‘How the hell—?’ He kept his eyes on the road. ‘I had my assistant check emergency admissions in the area. You said car accident, mentioned the Granger name. It wasn’t exactly a needle in a haystack.’ I was too impressed to respond. Ashton went on, ‘Louisa Granger was admitted ten minutes ago. She was conscious when they brought her in, but she’s being treated now. Multiple injuries.’ I gripped my hands together in my lap. My whole body tensed, spine peeling away from the seat like I couldn’t sit still even if you superglued me down. She’d been rushed in for emergency care. That meant serious. That meant… it could be bad. Life-or-death bad. Ashton glanced at me, then tapped something on the touchscreen embedded in the dashboard. Soft, calming music began to play—something instrumental and mellow. ‘She’ll be okay,’ he said. The music helped. So did the subtle scent wafting through the car, something clean and woody that I was ninety-nine per cent sure was coming from Ashton himself. We drove in silence for a bit. Then he asked, ‘She means a lot to you?’ I nodded. ‘She’s probably the best parental figure I’ve got,’ I said, then threw in a dry little laugh. ‘Honestly, she’s been more of a mum to me than my actual mum.’ Saying it out loud felt weirdly comforting. Like I could finally exhale without choking on the panic. Something in me started to unclench, just a little. I couldn’t help thinking about when I was little and Mum used to make me wear Catherine’s hand-me-downs. Picture seven-year-old me drowning in a sparkly unicorn jumper two sizes too big, looking like I’d been mugged by a clearance rack. Aunt Louisa hated that. She’d whisk me off to hers for dinner, clock my tragic outfit, and the next thing I knew, we were in a department store and she was holding up dresses like we were auditioning for The Great Kiddie Style Intervention. Then she’d march straight over to my mum’s and start a row that could probably be heard in the next district. After I got engaged to Rhys, every time I got sick—which, to be fair, was no more than once a year—Aunt Louisa was the one sitting beside my hospital bed, feeding me soup and telling the nurses off like she owned the place. Even without her saying it out loud, I was starting to realise she didn’t just see me as a future daughter-in-law. She’d already decided I was hers. I lowered my head and wiped my eyes. Had I been selfish breaking things off? Maybe I should’ve just played along—married Rhys, become Mrs Rich-and-Repressed, and lived the rest of my life with perfectly curled hair and zero opinions. Ashton’s driving was fast and smooth. We pulled up outside the hospital in record time. The second the tyres kissed the kerb, I shoved the door open and jumped out. The cold slapped me right in the face. I hunched my shoulders but didn’t slow down. At the emergency desk, I asked for Louisa Granger. The nurse gave me the once-over—messy hair, red eyes, possibly a relative—and said, ‘Eighth floor. Trauma unit.’ When I got there, I saw Rhys pacing like he was about to challenge the vending machine to a fistfight. ‘How’s Louisa?’ I asked, bracing myself for the worst. ‘Still in surgery. She only went in a few minutes ago,’ he muttered, running a hand through his perfectly gelled hair like that would magically calm him down. ‘The doctor said she’s got a fractured arm, a busted knee, and some internal bleeding they need to sort. Nothing life-threatening, but they’ve got to operate.’ My shoulders dropped half a centimetre, just enough to register non-catastrophic relief. But then the guilt swanned in. Louisa had been on the phone with me when the car hit her. I wasn’t the one behind the wheel, obviously, but I couldn’t exactly claim full innocence either. Rhys clearly shared the same thought, because he turned and glared at me balefully. ‘She was upset when she found out you weren’t coming to dinner,’ he snapped. ‘She insisted on calling you. Went outside to do it. If she hadn’t—’ ‘If she hadn’t called me, she wouldn’t have been hit, is that where we’re going?’ I crossed my arms, already feeling the heat rise behind my ears. ‘Well, guess what? If you’d had the balls to tell her I wasn’t showing up and cancel the dinner, she wouldn’t have needed to call me in the first place.’ His jaw clenched. His fists did too. For a second, I thought we were about to put the ‘emergency’ in ‘emergency room’. Experience—fresh and unwanted—had taught me that Rhys wasn’t always a pacifist when things didn’t go his way. I stepped back, on guard.