101 Nights Box Set: Volume Two Page 26

  “For the record, I didn’t tell him about um … the baby. Layla did by accident,” I whisper for her ears only. “And honestly, I will never like EJ, but if you decide to marry him, I’m okay with that.”

  “We have some things to discuss first. I’m not sure what’ll happen, Alisha.” There’s a note of uncertainty in her answer that tears me a part.

  “Drop the hammer on that sumabitch,” I agree. “If he gives you any problems, I’ll hack his palace.”

  “Again,” EJ adds.

  “Yes, again.”

  Natalie offers a hoarse laugh. “I missed you. Both of you.” Her gaze goes to EJ for the first time, away, then back. I can sense her hesitation, her fear.

  EJ nears the bed and takes her hand. His features are tight, indecipherable once more. Their gazes lock, and I’m suddenly the third wheel.

  “Hello, farasha,” he whispers.

  “Hello, Elijah,” she replies in the same hushed tone.

  I want to cry even more at the intensity of emotion behind their simple exchange. “I’ll, uh, leave you alone. Gotta check on George,” I murmur and reluctantly slide out of my best friend’s grip. “I’ll come back when you’re … uh, well.”

  Awkward doesn’t describe the level of unspoken emotion and tension between them. For once, I’m not the person in the room with the ficklest mood.

  I leave them alone, joy replaced by worry as I consider what the doctor said about George. Flagging down a nurse, I ask for directions to where he might be and head to the second floor.

  There’s a waiting room outside the wide doors of the emergency surgery wing and ICU. I sit with my laptop and wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  For over two hours before it hits me that I might be able find out his progress by hacking their servers. It takes me another hour, and I make a mental note to tell EJ the security of the state run hospital is a hundred times better than that of his palace.

  Finally, the information I seek is on my screen.

  Serious condition.

  It’s an upgrade, I know, but still not good. He’s scheduled for another operation, a total of three before dawn.

  George is tough. I know he can pull through.

  I hope.

  If anything, I should be worried about what happens when he does pull through. What I tell him about … us.

  Chapter Nine: George

  I’m not an avid fan of hospitals, though I can appreciate them after the few times I’ve been shot, beaten or otherwise physically broken. The beep of the heart monitor is rhythmic and gently draws me from sleep. It’s cool and quiet with the lights above me extinguished, leaving the light of the bathroom to illuminate the far side of the room. The television is on mute and brightens another corner of the darkened room.

  Alisha is curled up on the chair beside my bed in a position that appears painful. Her laptop and pwn pad are tucked between her body and the back of the chair while her head lolls over the armrest.

  The meds they used to put me under make it harder to think thank usual, and I have a headache interfering with my usually sharp cognitive abilities. I can’t quite pinpoint what emotion it is I feel knowing she’s probably been beside me since I was brought in. Appreciation. Gratitude. Amusement. Something warm that makes me reconsider Natalie’s teasing words about how I’m only fooling myself if I think my relationship with Alisha is anything but serious already.

  I think Natalie’s right. I think I made that decision when I spent the night fucking Alisha like it was the first and last time we’d ever be together.

  “Alisha,” I murmur in a gravelly voice.

  She shifts and looks groggily at me, straightening quickly when she sees I’m awake. “Omigod! You’re alive! Are you okay? Do you need painkillers? A doctor? Any-”

  Her tense, distressed energy makes me want to wrap my arms around her until she’s calm once more. “I’m fine,” I tell her.

  “You don’t look fine!”

  My left hand is numbed and bandaged halfway to my elbow in a soft cast. I hadn’t realized how hard it was crunched in the door of the container, but it must’ve been bad enough for a cast. I can hardly move my abdomen from the bandages wrapped around my midsection.

  “They did three surgeries on you, George. Three!” She’s worried, the skin around her gorgeous eyes tight and her features drawn. “I had to hack the system because they wouldn’t tell me anything. I’m not family.”

  I almost smile. Any doubt I might have about her feelings melts in the face of her concern, and the knowledge she’s the one beside me at the end of everything. I want to tell her my own family never bothered showing up when I was in the hospital and reassure here there’s no part of me that disagrees with the idea of considering her family.

  I want to say a lot for once in my life, and I’m too weary, drugged and fatigued to say any of it.

  “I’m fine, Alisha.” I hold out my good hand to her.

  She takes it tightly. Her hands are cold whereas mine is warm. “You’re going to live, right?” She searches my gaze.

  “Yeah.” I chuckle and then grimace at the corresponding movement of my sore abdomen. “No more GPS tags in my shoes, if you please.”

  She blushes. “It kind of came in handy.”

  “You won’t need them.”

  “Really?” She brightens. “Because …”

  “I don’t plan on … being kidnapped again.” I know what she’s asking, and I can’t help playing with her a little. I’ve always enjoyed teasing her.

  “Wrong answer, George.” She frowns. “I have to tell you something.” She stands, agitated once more. “Okay … so, there’s room for you in my life. You have to tell me now if you want to be there.”

  “Couldn’t wait until I’d had breakfast?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Her face grows crimson. “You probably want to recover first, before we start talking … serious stuff.”

  I want to laugh but know it’ll hurt. She’s probably been rehearsing her speech for hours now, pushing herself into another tizzy like she’s known for. Emotional, brilliant and sweet, Alisha is everything I can imagine in the woman I want to spend my life with.

  I also know there’s quite a bit of distance to cover between here and something more permanent. We’re both slow to trust, and even slower to let down our guards.

  “No, you know what? You have to answer now,” she decides and crosses her arm. “If you say no, I’ve gotta leave the country soon, because EJ wants to send me to the guillotine.”

  I do laugh at that and immediately grab my midsection. I feel something tear, probably stitches or staples. The sensation is followed by a stinging burn around my wound. “I might need a nurse.”

  Alisha smacks the button on the wall meant to summon a nurse in the case of emergency. She’s about to back down again; I can see it in her features.

  “We have plenty of time to talk about it,” I assure her. “I’ll ask EJ to spare you in the meantime.”

  “Okay,” she murmurs unhappily. “I didn’t mean to stress you.” Sinking into her chair, she takes my hand.

  “How’s Natalie?”

  “Good. Recovering. I think EJ was more of a wreck than she was.”

  “Fitting. They have some issues to work through, but I know they will.”

  “No doubt in my mind,” she replies with a more relaxed smile. “Are you okay? Really okay?”

  “I will be,” I reply. “Not my first time being shot. It’s never an enjoyable experience, but I’ll recover.”

  Her eyes are on my face. Quiet falls between us, and I study her beautiful features, the full lower lip she’s nibbling on, her long eyelashes, the erratic curls of her hair.

  “Are you okay?” I ask finally.

  “Happy to be here. Happy my two favorite people are alive and soon to be healthy,” she replies. “You scared the hell out of me, George. I don’t ever want …” she stops, uncertain, then begins again. “I want there to be an us.
It might sound stupid or … I don’t know. Whatever. But it’s what I want, even though it terrifies me to say the words and to know I might screw up everything.”

  I squeeze her hand, wishing I could do more but aware of my temporary physical limitations. “Alisha.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It would be my pleasure to accept a position in your life,” I say.

  She starts to smile.

  “We have to take it slow, and we have a few obstacles to overcome,” I add firmly. “This has to be right, because it’s meant to last.”

  Her smile turns into a grin.

  “It won’t be easy,” I warn, my insides twisting with apprehension about what this means and also excitement about the idea of there being an us as she says.

  “I don’t care. Just promise not to walk out if I get scared because I’m already kind of terrified.”

  “I won’t. And you promise to tell me if what I reveal to you of my past bothers you.”

  “Promise.”

  There’s more I want to say. I don’t think she yet understands how deep my secrets run, and I’m afraid of her reaction, her rejection, despite her promise. I need to take care of Tony and identify anyone else who might be after her … topics she’s not going to want to discuss. And then there’s my past, my family …

  I’m in no shape for the kind of marathon conversation we need to have. Thinking about it exhausts me.

  “Not to disturb the mood, love,” I murmur. “But I’m bleeding, and I don’t think the nurse is coming.”

  Alarm crosses her features. Alisha hops to her feet. “I will shut this place down!” She strides to the door. “Hey! You!”

  Smiling, I watch her disappear. There’s a small part of me that’s as terrified as she admits to being. Another part acknowledges that, along with a potential new life with her, I have a decision to make about the offer EJ once made me long ago, when we joked about the scenario of him becoming king one day, before it became the reality it is now. He won’t have forgotten, just as I haven’t. I’m not sure I’m any more ready to take on the position as the chief of the Nijalan Security Bureau than EJ is to become king.

  I’m standing at the crossroads where I can choose an entirely new life. A new start. And it’s not just me. Alisha, Elijah, Natalie and little Layla all have the same choice to make about their respective futures.

  First things first: we all need to heal before we can start to move forward.

  101 Nights – erotic serial

  Elijah and Natalie

  Claimed (Amazon, Amazon UK)

  Tainted (Amazon, Amazon UK)

  Crushed (Amazon, Amazon UK)

  Volume One Box Set (Serials 1-3) (Amazon, Amazon UK)

  George and Alisha

  Tempted (Amazon, Amazon UK)

  Captured (Amazon, Amazon UK)

  Twisted (Amazon, Amazon UK)

  Volume Two Box Set (Serials 4-6)

  Elijah and Natalie

  Cornered

  Torn

  Freed

  Volume Three Box Set (Serials 7-9)

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  Exclusive excerpt: “West” (time travel romance!)

  “West,” (History, Interrupted standalone!), a time travel romance by Lizzy Ford, available now! For fans of “Outlander” and “Doctor Who.”

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  If you could change history, would you?

  Chapter One

  Take a survey while you wait!

  Only three questions!

  Free $50 gift card!

  Fifty dollars was a lot when my bank account was close to zero.

  I stepped out of the stream of tourists strolling along the covered wooden sidewalks of Tombstone, Arizona, and paused before the table with an iPad laying next to the propped up sign. It was over a hundred and twenty degrees in the shade and even hotter in the brilliant midafternoon sun. The stores were packed. The beverage sellers at each corner of the tourist district wore heavy period clothing that made me feel sorry for them, as evidenced by the collection of overpriced water bottles weighing down my purse.

  The first page of the survey was pulled on the iPad’s screen, just waiting for someone to stop and fill it out.

  “Why isn’t this place crowded?” No one even glanced this way. Either it was my lucky day or I was the only person wondering how I was going to pay off student loans after graduating college. “My lucky day!” I placed my purse down on the table, picked up the tablet and glanced at the window of the store behind the survey.

  It wasn’t a souvenir or jewelry shop or western-themed eatery like every other business lining the sidewalks of the popular tourist spot. The pictures in the window were sad – of Old West pioneers burying their dead and Native Americans being marched in chains while flanked by cavalry members on horseback. It was a stark reminder of how gritty life back then had been.

  Every kid who was ever forced to take an American History class knew how the Old West was won and the natives suppressed, and I had read every book about the era I was able to find when I was in high school. I wasn’t certain why this store was in the heart of a tourist trap, unless the city was trying to keep things more authentic than the Old West souvenirs made in China.

  Seeing the photos made my heart hurt for the long dead people.

  “Are you interested in the history of the Wild West?” asked a male voice.

  I looked over, not expecting the stranger to be as stunning as he was.

  He smiled. Tall, trim and sexy, with sparkling blue eyes and dark hair, he wasn’t much older than I was, maybe the age of the Masters students in the university where I had recently graduated with my Bachelors in a field unrelated to the Old West: modern languages. He had charming dimples in both cheeks that gave him a boyish appearance, exotically high cheekbones and a tilt to his almond-shaped eyes.

  Déjà vu. I knew I’d never seen him before, but the sense we had met at some point was strong. Never one to pass up talking to a man stunning enough to be a Hollywood A Lister, I lowered the tablet and smiled.

  “I’m not really into American history anymore. I was obsessed with the Old West when I was in high school, but I grew out of it,” I answered. “I minored in European History in college.”

  “So you do like history?”

  “Yeah. Civilized history, I guess.”

  “Civilized?” He laughed. “Tell that to Genghis Khan when you meet him! I mean … if you meet him.” He blushed. “If you go back in time and …”

  He reminded me of my youngest cousin, a super brain who was awkward around women. It didn’t seem possible this man had issues with women, though, because he was absolutely hot. The fact I resembled the perfect blond haired, blue eyed, bubbly cheerleader drew all kinds of attention from men, but none had blushed quite like this.

  “It’s okay if you want to try that again,” I said, struggling not to laugh.

  “Thanks.” His cheeks were almost purple with embarrassment. “I meant to say, I don’t think there’s such a thing. If we were to go back in time, I think we’d find the past anything but civilized.”

  “Good thing we’re in the here and now.” I glanced at his nametag. Carter, History Interrupted, Inc. “You’re the one doing the survey?”

  “Yeah. It’s nice to meet you, Josie.” He stuck out his hand.

  “I’m …” I trailed off, realizing he’d already said my name. “… not wearing a nametag.”

  “Oh.” He turned red once more. “You look like a … Josie.”

  “No one looks like a Josie,” I said with a laugh.

  “Fits the p
eriod.” He appeared relieved I wasn’t freaked out, his smile large and dimples larger. “Lucky guess.”

  This is strange. “Nice to meet you, Carter, I think.” I picked up the tablet again. “Is this one of those surveys where you try to sell me a timeshare before you give me my gift card?” I was cute, petite and quick to smile; it was how I always managed to get away with talking to people the way I did.

  “It’s an absolute honor to meet you, Josie. And no, there’s no timeshare involved. Can I at least give you my pitch?” he asked hopefully. “I’ve always wanted to talk to you. To someone like you. To someone who …” He was flustered again.

  “Wait, stop there! Let me put you out of your misery.” I smiled, taking pity on the socially awkward man. “Tell me about the survey or your project or whatever it is you’re doing.”

  There’s something odd about this guy. Not in a bad way, just like a lost puppy that clung to the first human to show it kindness. The combination of Hollywood looks – but no clue how to talk to women – and his over the top enthusiasm about meeting me were endearing. I liked him almost immediately.

  “What if I told you that all this,” he waved at the pictures on the window, “could’ve been prevented? That one man started a chain of events that ended with the near destruction of the native peoples of North America?” His eyes glowed, and he became animated, his hands complementing his words with flourishes. “Just one man. Someone who may not have known the impact of what he did? Maybe he made one tiny choice, like you did this morning when you put on black yoga pants instead of jeans.”

  I wasn’t able to stop my smile. His passion was apparent. “I’d say that’s an amazing discovery. But … does it matter now?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Have you ever seen Doctor Who?”

  I laughed. “Yeah.”

  “Just … pretend I’m the Doctor and you’re my companion and we can go back to any point in time. Okay?”