“First of all,” Andie said. “Don’t get all negative and pessimistic on me. Of course you’ll be able to walk again, because you’re going to have the best medical team known to man working with you. Not to mention me.”
Mariela gave a small snort.
“You may laugh, but I can be a little stubborn. Just ask Fulton.”
Mariela knew that for a fact.
“And since I’m so stubborn, I’m going to do everything in my power to get you up and walking. In fact,” Andie’s eyes sparkled and Mariela knew she was in trouble then. “I’m going to bet you’ll be up walking and dancing at the Holiday Ball.”
Mariela did laugh then. “Now I know you’ve lost it. Lennox said they’re not sure when I’ll be able to walk and you’re saying I’ll be dancing by the end of the year?”
“Crazier things have happened.”
“Not many.”
There was a knock on the door and Fulton stuck his head in. “Ready, Andie?” He glanced over to Mariela. “Nurse said we needed to let you re
st, so we’re going to go for now. We booked a room in the city for tonight, so we’ll be back tomorrow.”
“You guys don’t have to do that.” Mariela hated the thought of her friends going out of their way for her. Especially since they would be staying on the mainland. Granted, not everyone felt the way she did about that.
“It’s okay, really,” Andie said with a knowing glance at Fulton. “This is like a little mini escape for us.”
“We don’t need to hear the details.” Lennox came up behind Fulton and slapped him on the shoulder. He passed him and stepped into the room. “You two go on and get out of here. I’ve got things covered.”
Mariela waited until the couple left before she talked to Lennox. “I thought the nurse wanted me to rest?”
“She does.”
“Then why are you staying?”
He settled into the chair and closed his eyes. “Because I am.”
Damn stubborn man. She huffed and pulled the covers up, willing herself to sleep and surprised when it came so quickly.
WINNIE’S JOURNAL
Oh god, what have I gotten myself into?
CHAPTER
Nine
Lennox was there when Mariela was released from the hospital a few days later. She frowned when she saw him.
“I thought Fulton and Andie were coming,” she said.
“Change of plans.”
The look she gave him suggested she thought there was more to it than that. “I would have thought Andie would have called me in that case.”
He shrugged. He sure as hell wasn’t going to mention that he’d told Fulton to forbid Andie from calling Marie. Lennox feared that if Andie had told her he was picking her up, Marie would have found some excuse not to be released. She’d never said it in so many words, but he couldn’t help but think she’d blame him for the accident. It was for the best she didn’t know that he had manipulated things in order to be the one who took her home. Whether she liked him or not had no bearing on the fact that he was the reason she was in the shape she was in.
“I’ll get you to the island and get you settled.” He didn’t want to bring up how they needed to talk about her rehabilitation. There was time for that conversation later, after she rested.
He found, once they got in the car and headed out on the highway, that he wasn’t sure what to talk about. Small talk seemed too light. Silence would be preferable. Anything heavy he didn’t feel ready to discuss with her. He wasn’t going to talk about them, the crazy wonderful night at the cottage, or her future at the academy.
He decided he might try his hand at gossip. There were rumors floating around the school about Master Nader and his supposed new girlfriend. Marie would want to know. But when he glanced to his side, he discovered she was snoring softly.
He couldn’t help but smile at the sight. She was such a firecracker. He needed to remember that no matter what front she put on, she’d been in the hospital and needed to take it easy.
Unbidden, the scene came back to him.
“But we’re going slow and easy this time.”
“Blah. I’ve never been a fan of slow and easy. I think I’ll go back to sleep.”
“Roll back over and I promise you’ll never say ‘blah’ to slow and easy again.”
Forget that. He wasn’t going to mention any kind of easy anytime soon.
She was still sleeping when they made it to the docks. If it hadn’t been for how sheepish she looked when he woke her, he would have thought she did it on purpose.
“Sorry I’m such rotten company.” She yawned. “Who would have thought sitting in a wheelchair would be so tiring?”
Once they were on the boat, she stayed inside while he piloted them to the island. He’d asked that no one be at the docks when they pulled up. Marie only liked to be the center of attention while doing a scene. Outside of that, she preferred to disappear into the crowds.
So unlike Winnie. He’d found himself comparing them more and more lately. Since they were so close, some might have assumed them to be similar in many ways. But what struck him lately was how different they were.
Although he’d never admit it, the comparison started with sex. Marie had been free in her submission—she owned her submissive nature, and she made no excuses for it. Winnie, after the first few years anyway, saw it as degrading and said it made her feel weak. She didn’t understand that hearing that made him feel weak, too.
Because what kind of Dominant makes his submissive feel worse?
“Thank goodness there’s no one here,” Marie said, when they arrived at the empty dock. “I was so afraid everyone was going to be out to greet us.”
Thank goodness, he’d finally gotten something right. About damn time. “By order of the headmaster,” he said. “I know you well enough to know you only want to be the center of attention when you’re naked.”
She laughed and he smiled. He didn’t think he’d heard her laugh the entire time she was in the hospital. Maybe being back on the island would be good for her and allow her jovial personality to come back.
“God, that sounds awful, doesn’t it?” she asked, still giggling. “But how very, very true.”
He helped her out of the boat and into the waiting golf cart. But if he thought the return to the island would lighten her mood, he was wrong. She grew more and more somber the closer they got to her residence. By the time they arrived at her door, she was completely pale.
“Marie?” he asked.
“I can’t do this,” she said, and for the first time since he’d known her, she looked scared.
“Can’t do what?”
“Any of it. I can’t be here like this. I can’t teach. And . . .”
“Marie?”
She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I can’t be here with you and act like that night never happened.”
That was the crux of it. The lack of mobility and the teaching were ancillary. It was the fact that they’d dropped all their boundaries and had sex. Though even he knew it went much deeper than mere sex. Somewhere deep inside, he’d known that night if he didn’t stop and send her back to the island before things progressed any further that they would end up like this.
As many times as he’d told himself it was only one night, that one night didn’t mean anything and nothing had changed, he had known. Deep down, he’d known that he’d never be satisfied with only one night with Marie. It meant a hell of a lot, and it’d changed everything.
But now, sitting outside her place in a golf cart, on the day she got released from the hospital, was not the time to have the needed conversation.
He took her hand and she looked at him in surprise. “I know we need to talk, but I think we both can agree that now is not the best time. You’ve gone through a very rough ordeal and you have a hard road ahead of you. Let’s take it one step at a time.”
He hated to admit it, but that was probably the most honest he’d been with her and it shamed him to no end. Somehow, she must have heard and understood the truth in what he said because she simply nodded.
He gave her hand a squeeze before letting it go. “Thank you. I think the one step we’ll do today is get you settled. How does that