Kisses for the Billionaire: Final Kiss

C
opyright © 2016 by M.G
. Morgan

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

B
right lights flashed
past my eyes making my already dizzy head worse. It had been like this since David had scooped me up in his arms and ran with me from Taylor’s house.

Slipping in and out of consciousness seemed like a good thing but every time I fought to the surface of my consciousness it was because of the pain that flared through my body.

It felt as though I was being ripped apart from the inside.

Clinging to David I tried to lift myself up off the bed as another wave of agony washed through me.

What was happening?

Instinctively I knew it was the baby, there was something wrong and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

“David, please, you have to help the baby…”

My eyes rolled back in my head once more as another spasm of pain wracked my frame.

The spasm passed and I fought my way back to myself. David’s hand was wrapped around mine as he raced alongside the gurney the paramedics had laid me out on.

The lights flashed over my head and I fought the urge to roll around. Heat poured out through my skin, as though I was baking from the inside out. And if I felt like this, then how was the baby managing?

I felt the wave of pain swell within me and I had just enough time to see David’s panic stricken face as the doctor’s pushed him out of the way.

His hand left mine and I grabbed out at nothing but air. I needed him, needed to know he was with me throughout this.

The pain crashed into me and the world went dark once more.

T
he pain was gone
.

But I kept my eyes clamped shut. What if it was nothing but a trick? What if when I opened my eyes what awaited me was worse than any physical pain I had endured.

The sound of a chair creaking made me curious and I peered out from beneath my eyelashes.

It hadn’t been a nightmare.

It was real.

David sat with his face buried in his hands and bile rose up the back of my throat.

“David…” I said, my voice hoarse.

He sat up in the chair, automatically reaching out to me and wrapping his hand around mine.

“Carrie, thank Christ, I…” he trailed off and the fear in his eyes set my already frayed nerves on edge.

“The baby, how is the baby?”

He dropped his gaze to the floor and my stomach lurched.

“David, the baby, is the baby all right?” I knew my voice was borderline hysterical but what did it matter.

I needed him to answer me, to tell me the truth.

“They don’t know, they need to run some more tests…” he kept his gaze averted, his eyes looking anywhere else but at me.

Did he blame me?

Why wouldn’t he? It was my fault this was happening, I should have been more careful, I should have protected our child better…

There was a hollow ache in my chest as I tugged my hands away from David and pressed my fingers to my still rounded belly.

I couldn’t feel anything, there wasn’t even a flicker and despair washed over me, my heart breaking.

Taylor had sworn he would take my child.

I would never get to hold her in my arms, never get to feel her soft skin beneath my finger tips.

I had one job in this world, to protect her, to keep her safe and I had failed.

A sob tore from my throat and I tried to swallow it back but it was no use, my tears flowed hot and heavy.

“Mrs Ashcroft?” The strange voice pulled me from the hollow ache that wanted to swallow me whole.

Scrubbing my hands across my face I dashed away the tears and drew myself up in the bed as the doctor stepped into the room.

“I’m glad to see you awake, there was a moment where you had us all worried,” he said, the ghost of a smile hovering around his lips.

“Is the baby, is she…” I couldn’t finish the sentence and it took all my strength not to simply break down.

“We need to run some further tests but from what we can tell she’s alive,” he said.

I stared at him, my brain refusing to comprehend what he was telling me. How was it possible, after everything I’d done to her how had she survived? I’d felt the pain of losing her. My body had fought to protect her, to keep her but I had known I was losing the war…

“How?” It ripped from my throat in a hoarse plea. It was the only word I could get out and I knew it was woefully inadequate. There was so much I needed to know, so many questions I wanted to ask.

“She must be a fighter. The blood work came back and you were injected with a powerful sedative, it’s more of an anaesthetic and the baby reacted badly to it. You both did. You’re both lucky to even still be here.”

My mind instantly reeled back to the moment Andy had jabbed the needle in my neck.

It was just a warning…

He’d planned all of this.

“Because the amount was so low you responded to the drugs we gave to counter its effects.”

He hadn’t wanted to kill my baby but he had planned on pushing it to the edge, he’d wanted me to suffer. He’d wanted us both to suffer. I glanced over at David, his face was pale and drawn, the circles beneath his eyes told me he hadn’t slept in some time.

“And the baby? Will she make a full recovery?”

“Well we’re hopeful, things seem to have stabilised for now but as I said, we still have a few tests to run to make sure everything is as it should be… It’s still early days.”

“I can’t feel her moving,” I said, fear plain in my voice.

“That’s to be expected, the baby was completely sedated, you fought it but the baby wasn’t fit to. The drugs we gave you to counter balance it have worked to an extent but we need to give it a little more time to make sure there is a full recovery.”

I wanted to feel happy. He’d reassured me the baby was alive and yet I knew from the way he was speaking that it wasn’t something to celebrate just yet… She wasn’t yet out of the woods.

“When will we know?” I said.

I didn’t want to ask the question, if everything went wrong and I ended up losing the baby then I didn’t really want a time limit on it.

But I still needed to know.

“We should have a clearer picture in the next few hours and over the next few days all going to plan you should start to stabilise. You should be fit to go home tomorrow but you’ll need to rest.”

I nodded and swallowed past the lump in my throat.

Days, it would take days to finally know the outcome.

I didn’t want to wait days, I wanted to know now but it wasn’t possible.

“Thank you, Doctor,” David said, his voice strained.

He stood and held his hand out and the two men shook hands across the bed.

Did David feel the same as I did? Was he as anxious to know the truth and if he was, then how was he hiding his true feelings so well?

The doctor turned and strode from the room, leaving me to sit in silence with David.

What was I supposed to say to him? He knew this was all my fault, he knew I’d failed our child so why wasn’t he blaming me?

“I want you to tell me everything that happened on the island,” he said finally, his voice breaking the silence between us.

I bit down on my lip and shook my head. The last thing I wanted to do was relive my failure.

“Carrie, I need to know what they did to you. I need to know everything…”

Closing my eyes I sucked in a deep breath.

He was right of course, he deserved to know the truth even if that meant he would never look at me with love in his eyes ever again.

He gripped my hand in his and lifted it to his mouth, the kiss he pressed against my palm was soft and the emotion in his expression…

I drank it in. It would be my last chance to feel this close to the man I loved because once he knew the truth he wouldn’t ever want to look me in the eye like that again.

How could he? How could he love me, when I wasn’t even sure if I would be fit to look at my own reflection without feeling disgust.

“Fine,” I said, wrapping my fingers a little tighter around his.

I
studied his face
, searching for any signs of the revulsion I knew I would find there.

And yet, he just seemed blank.

There was nothing, no hatred, no disgust…

It wasn’t possible. He should hate me, hate me for the risks I took, for the way I endangered our child.

“Carrie, I’m so sorry…” he said, the words tripped from his tongue but I couldn’t make sense of them.

Why was he apologising to me?

“If I could have protected you, I should have done more to keep you safe… I let you down, I let you both down.”

I shook my head and cupped his face with my hand.

“You did nothing wrong, this is all on me. I was the one who went to the Sovereign Club, if I hadn’t then…”

It was David’s turn to shake his head.

“No, they were coming for you anyway. Dominic and Andy had already made up their minds. Their father’s orders were clear and they weren’t pleased with my hesitation.”

“David, not wanting to kill someone is a pretty good reason to hesitate.”

“Not when your life and Jenson’s hang in the balance it’s not. I failed you, I failed you both and now…” He trailed off and buried his face against my belly.

It broke my heart to see him so destroyed, so broken.

I wanted to gather him into my arms and hold him until all the pieces of his broken soul were put back together.

He didn’t deserve this, he didn’t deserve to carry the blame for something that wasn’t his fault at all.

“You didn’t fail us, we’re still here. We’re all still here and nothing is going to change that. You heard the doctor, she’s a fighter…”

“How can you be so sure she’s a she, I thought we were going to wait until…” David trailed off and nodded. “He told you didn’t he? He already knew.”

“Taylor told me, I didn’t ask him how he could be sure but I figured seeing as he knew so much of everything else it wasn’t a stretch to imagine him knowing the sex of the baby. And well the doctor pretty much confirmed it.”

David smiled and pressed his lips to my bump.

“A little girl…” he said, tears glistening in his eyes.

The depth of his emotion brought my own tears trickling down my cheeks. But it also brought something else.

They’d stolen something from us, the joy of discovering the gender of our baby, they’d taken it and ripped it apart. They’d tried to take her life…

Taylor had wanted to rob me of the opportunity of being this little one’s mother.

He’d failed but it didn’t change the fact that he had tried.

“We’re going to make them pay for this, David.”

He glanced up at me, his expression growing colder at the mention of the one’s who had tried to rob us of our joy.

“I can’t let them get away with it, I can’t let them come so close to taking her from me and not make them suffer in return.”

David nodded and brushed his fingers against my cheek.

“I will make them pay, all you need to do now is rest.”

“No, this is not something I want you doing on your own. We need to start working together, we need to be a united front against them. If we’re not then Andy will just use it to his advantage. He will find a way in and he will destroy us from the inside out.

“I can’t let him do that, I can’t let him win like that.”

David studied my expression a little longer, his scrutiny seemed to penetrate to my very soul. But nothing was going to change me from the course of action.

I was determined, they had robbed us of a piece of our joy, tried to steal the life that grew within me.

They’d nearly cost David a daughter and Jenson his little sister.

I couldn’t let it stand, wouldn’t let it stand.

Andy had warned me that this was simply a warning. That the next time it would be far worse but there wouldn’t be a next time for him.

He wouldn’t get close enough to hurt anyone I loved ever again, I was going to make sure of that.

Andy had wanted David to just submit to them, to give them exactly what they wanted? Well he had another thing coming, David would never submit and neither would I.

“You can’t take any risks, Carrie, not now…”

“I’m not going to, but I won’t have you leaving me in the dark again. I want to know everything that’s happening from now on. You won’t leave me out of the loop again.”

“Why are you so determined to do this? Why won’t you let me handle it, I can do this… For both of us.” There was an edge to David’s voice that told me I needed to tread carefully.

That whatever I would say next would either push us further apart or draw us together, closer than ever.

“I know you can but, David, can’t you see? They tried to take something from me, she’s your daughter but it’s my body that is nurturing her, giving her life and they tried to quench it. If they had succeeded…” I trailed off the thought was almost too much to even contemplate.

And the fear of her loss still hung over my head. The doctor’s words rang in my ears, we weren’t out of the woods yet… She wasn’t safe yet…

“All the more reason to let me do it.”

I shook my head and stared down at the place where our hands were joined together.

This was the man I loved, the man I wanted to spend my life with, the man I had pledged my very soul to. If I couldn’t make him understand my reasoning for wanting to get the revenge myself then how could I ever hope to achieve beating the Banks?

“If something had happened to the baby, David, I would be the one to blame it would have been my body that failed her.”

“It would have been their fault,” he said, interrupting me.

“But that’s not how I see it. This is what I feel, it might not be particularly logical, and it might not even be accurate but it’s what I feel deep down inside and nothing is going to change that.”

“And I don’t suppose anything is going to change your mind either?”

Giving him a wry smile I shook my head. “You know I can’t be swayed, this is what I want. I want to destroy them and I want to do it right alongside you.”

David fell silent and I knew from the faraway look in his eyes that he was deep in thought.

He wouldn’t share his thoughts with me, I knew him well enough to be certain about that fact. But once he was good and ready his true intentions would become clear.

“Fine, we’ll do this together. None of this was your fault, and I don’t really understand how you could blame yourself for something you couldn’t control but…” he trailed off and turned in his seat to meet my gaze. “I know what it’s like to feel compelled to do something and I won’t take that away from you.”

“Thank you,” I said, tears making my vision blurry.

“Anyway, I know if I said no, you’d just go and do it regardless. At least this way I can help protect you. I can finally do my job.”

His voice had a bitter tone to it.

I knew he blamed himself and no matter how unfounded that belief was I knew no amount of me trying to persuade him would change his mind on the matter.

David had a one track mind, and there was nothing on this earth that would knock him from it once he locked onto his target.

“So where do we start?” I asked, sliding a little higher in the bed.

“Well, you start with rest, I’ll get onto my contacts and see if they have any information on the Banks’ whereabouts.”

“David, I…” He cut me off and pressed his finger to my lips.

“I know, we’re doing this together but nothing much is going to happen straight away so you may as well take this opportunity to recover. To give our little fighter a chance to catch her breath. I promise as soon as I know something I will tell you.”

I peered into his eyes, searching for some sign that maybe he wasn’t being completely honest with me but I couldn’t see any signs of deception.

Finally I nodded and dropped back against the pillows, a long sigh escaping me as I let my eyes drift shut.

The last thing I wanted to do was rest. Whatever the doctors had given me to counteract the effects of the sedative was coursing through my veins making me feel as though sleep was nothing more than a state of mind.

I had so much energy I wanted to bound out of the bed…

Pressing my hand against my belly I willed the baby to move, to give me even the smallest indication that she was safe, that she would be all right.

But there was nothing.

I listened to David leaving the room and bit back a sob.

It was easy to pretend to be strong when he was holding my hand, I could feel his strength pouring from him and into me but once I was on my own again, my hand pressed to my belly and no sign of life from the baby…

Tears coursed down my cheeks as I curled into a ball.

I needed to believe she would be all right, I needed to believe in her.

But after everything I’d witnessed, after everything I’d been through. Believing in things I couldn’t see was getting harder with every passing moment.