He squeezed her hand. “Then it’s about time someone did.”
Alex stared down at Tara as lay sleeping on the hospital bed. He could have lost her. She’d been shot. It may have only hit her in the arm, but that was awfully close to her heart.
She could have died.
He’d very nearly failed her and she thanked him for taking care of her. If he had been taking care of her properly then she would never have been in harm’s way. Enough was enough. He couldn’t take this anymore. If he had to tie her to the bed then he would. But she would be safe.
***
“Knock, knock.” Tara looked over with a frown as Tim walked into her hospital room, a huge bunch of flowers in his hands.
“Hi,” he said sheepishly. “How are you?”
Tara just glared at him.
“Umm, I’ll just put these down here, ok?” he said, placing them on the windowsill. “They’ll need some water soon.”
“What do you want, Tim?” she asked after a moment of awkward silence. She was not in the mood to talk to her old boss, not after the shit he’d put her through. Plus, Alex was due back any moment. He’d gone home to shower and get some fresh clothes and he would not appreciate Tim being here when he returned.
“I wanted to come and tell you that I’m sorry you got, you know, shot. I didn’t mean for you to get mixed up in this.”
She nodded. She wasn’t really in a forgiving mood.
“I swear I never thought you would bring that stuff in that night. I figured you’d wait until Monday.”
“Yeah, that was pretty stupid of me,” she admitted. “You wanted to catch Eloise on camera trying to look at my laptop and the pen drive?”
“Yes,” he said. “I never thought she’d figure out that we were on to her.”
Tara frowned. “That was a bit risky, wasn’t it? What if she’d managed to send off the information before you caught her?”
“The Henderson bid information wasn’t on there. I just wanted to catch her in the act of snooping. Turns out I didn’t need to bother.”
“So did Eloise create a lot of problems for you?”
“Nah, when we started to suspect her we made sure to move all our important documents. It was all false information she sent out.” Tim grinned. “She did us a favor.”
He stood there awkwardly for a long moment. She didn’t offer him a seat.
“Anyway, I’d better go. If you want your old job back then call me.”
He left before Tara could tell him exactly where to shove his job.
Chapter Twelve
Tara was going insane.
After spending a week in the hospital, Alex had brought her back to his apartment. Even though the gunshot hadn’t been particularly serious, it was still going to be a while before she could work. Thankfully, Reagan was holding her position. Reagan’s current assistant had agreed to stay on until Tara was cleared for work.
Meanwhile, Alex had been waiting on her hand and foot. He’d treated her like a princess, even taking time off work to look after her.
She was totally confused.
Hadn’t she ended things? Was he just looking after her out of pity? He certainly hadn’t made any move to touch her, and he slept in the spare room, despite her protests.
Now that she was feeling better, she knew it was time to leave. Being around him was torturous. Her arm was still stiff and sore, but at least she could use the bathroom on her own now.
“What are you doing?”