A hero and one of the crowd. Every single girl had wanted him to ask her out and every guy had wanted to be his buddy. The whole world had loved him.
And they still did. Including the crack team of nurses who kept zapping into her airspace like killer flies, patently ignoring Stacey while directing all their queries to him. It was as if he was some kind of deity, while she was completely invisible, or too stupid to know and understand what was happening to her. And it was sending that prickle of anger up her spine again.
‘Where is Mr Borsatto?’ asked Lydia, bustling in briskly for the third time.
‘I don’t know,’ drawled Stacey, deliberately feigning interest in her magazine. ‘Down the hallway doing some brain surgery?’
She ignored the tutting sound and continued to flick through the magazine. Everyone was getting on her nerves. The pain in her back had eased, but her head was pounding mercilessly and a purple bruise had begun to bloom along her thigh. That wasn’t their fault—she knew that—and if she was hostile to them it was because they were the kind of people who judged a person by net worth. It didn’t seem to matter what you brought to the table—it was all down to how much you had in the bank.
And pay-cheques didn’t write themselves, she reminded herself grimly. Her cheques from Decker’s were overdue and her fairy godmother was still AWOL. And this fabulous new job in New York City wasn’t going to happen by magic.
She had to go and find it herself. She’d wasted too much time here already.
She swung herself round and tried to stand up. Pain shot up her spine and her head throbbed and pulsed. Nausea heaved in her stomach and she gripped her brow and closed her eyes. She hadn’t slept in over eighteen hours and it was beginning to take its toll.
From the corridor came the unmistakably commanding voice of Marco. She could hear the dreaded word ‘concussion’ as the conversation moved itself towards her. That was the last thing she needed to know. She didn’t have time for it. She had a life to get on with.
‘Ready?’ he said, appearing round the door, with not-a-hair-out-of-place Lydia beside him.
‘Always,’ she said, swallowing down some bile and trying to stand as still as possible so as not to hurt her head.
They continued their conversation, still ignoring her.
Her head continued to pound. She needed to get out of here...lie down. Go and die quietly somewhere she didn’t need to listen to the vowels of the super-rich.
Marco picked up his jacket, still ignoring her. He held it out—an unasked-for modesty cloak in case her bare flesh offended any of the nice patients or staff in the hospital.
The prickle of anger became a surge that she couldn’t ignore. She stepped away from the bed and stood as upright as she could.
‘Hello! Over here! Anyone planning to tell me what’s happening? Or is it the kind of news that’s only shared with rich people?’
Marco turned to stare. He frowned, lowered the jacket.
‘Your scans are clear. Everything’s fine apart from the bruising.’
His eyes slid over her face, her neck and chest, and rested fleetingly on the slashes of fabric across her breasts. Just that, even now, still made her body pulse in anticipation.
‘You’re quite badly bruised.’
They both stared at her as if she was something the cat had dragged in. Dragged in to their state-of-the-art uptown hospital. What did they care about the person under the stupid dress? The working girl who’d ended up here because she’d had enough of being leered over and bullied? Who’d had enough and made one of her trademark escapes—right into the path of Mr Hotshot’s limo?
‘Yes, the bruises are from where I got hit on the leg, Marco,’ she said, and tugged at the thigh-length split in her skirt to expose the red and blue bruises. ‘By you.’
He stared. She bent her knee and twisted her leg like the best showgirl Vegas could offer.
Lydia tutted and bustled off out of sight.
‘Seen enough?’ she asked, staring right into his eyes.
‘I’ve seen far too much,’ he flashed right back.
‘Yeah, but you never got to touch—did you, Marco?’
‘One of the few who didn’t, Stacey. Let’s not forget that.’
Only once before in her life had Stacey felt a punch of pain so hard that tears had sprung and she hadn’t been able to hold them back. And it hadn’t been when her father had left and never come back. It hadn’t been when none of the girls had wanted to be her roommate at summer camp. And it hadn’t been when she’d hitched her way to Philly, to her dad’s new house, to find that he had a new wife and a new family and thought it would be better she didn’t visit, if it was all the same to her.
No, she’d managed to hold herself together each of those times. But then she’d returned from Philly and headed straight to the Meadows—longing to see Marco, longing to tell him she’d lied, that her anger had made her say those stupid things. Longing to tell him what she’d found out about her dad.
But Marco Borsatto had had his own troubles. That same day he’d been evicted. He’d had no time for a stupid girl who had caused the community such pain. That was when she’d first learned the true meaning of ‘breakdown’.
Now, just like then, her throat burned, her eyes burned and her chin wobbled uncontrollably. Her hand flew to her mouth and she stepped back—once, then twice. He would not see her like this—nobody would. She spun on her heel, looked for the door. Getting away from Marco Borsatto for a second time became the most important thing in her life.
‘No, you don’t—not again.’
She saw his reflection in the glass and felt his hand slide round her waist. He grabbed her against his side and without losing stride walked her right out of the room, along the corridor and through the sliding doors.
Her bruised leg bumped against his, and her neck seared with pain as she tried to wrench away, but the more she pulled the closer he held her.
Two beeps and she was back in the car. Two seconds and she was being driven away.
‘Make no mistake—I don’t want to spend any more time with you than you do with me. But for the next ten hours you’re a high-risk concussion patient. And, much as I would rather leave you in the capable hands of the staff at St Bart’s, I think they’ve had more than enough of your nonsense for one day.’
She said nothing. She saw nothing. A sob welled like lava in her chest. Her eyes burned like molten glass.
‘So you’ll come to my home for the night. You’ll stay there until I know you’re in the clear. And then you’ll get a cab to wherever you want. You might not have any shred of a conscience, Stacey, but I’ll be damned if I’ll have you on mine a second time. Got that?’
‘Consider yourself absolved,’ she spat, but her burning throat, aching head and lack of sleep coupled with her whole collapsing world dumbed it down to one thick sob that she stifled with her fist. She wiped her eyes
