Trust: Betrayed (63 page)

Sophia raised an elegant eyebrow at the woman, dismissing her and, with her heart hammering hard in her chest, she turned and walked to the door on trembling legs.

She pressed the handle down and pulled the door. And pushed.

Sophia rounded, facing Emma. “Open the door.”

Emma tut-tutted. “That’s the education your mother gave you?”

Screw you, bitch.
Sophia stiffened and pushed her shoulders back, narrowing her eyes at Emma. “Ever since I first saw you in Berkshire, I knew you were a debased woman.”

“A whore, you mean,” Emma smiled amused at the formal way Sophia spoke.

Whore, if you prefer.
“What do you want?”

“Me? Nothing. I just wanted to say hello,” she purred as she stepped closer, backing Sophia onto the wall, “and acquaint myself with the woman who had fucked up the head and the dick of the hottest man in the UK.”

Not me.
Sophia thinned her lips.
You and your sister, dammit.

“Alistair and I, we’ve been seeing each other,” Emma smiled when her half-lie made Sophia blink, surprised. “Oh! Don’t worry. I like real men. Not pussy whipped losers,” she snorted as she stepped closer. “I thought I’d taken away that nasty habit of his. But it seems that it’s back.”

Wait. What? What is she talking about? What does she know?
Sophia didn’t deign to answer.

“He’s so fucked up now that he didn’t even let me give him a little blow job. For old times’ sake.” Emma stretched her hand and her fingers traced the jagged scars on Sophia’s left arm.

Sophia pushed her back, hissing, “Do. Not. Touch. Me.”

“Oh! The little cat has claws.” A cruel smile opened slowly on Emma’s face as she examined Sophia’s arm carefully, clearly enjoying the situation. “He’ll tire of you, kitty-kitty. He’s a man with wild, hungry passions,” she ran her hands over her body and licked her lips in slow motion. “Wild like you couldn’t ever imagine; hungry in a way you will never be able to fulfill-”

Before she could even think about what she was doing, Sophia’s hand flew at Emma’s face. She used the moment to push Emma away, freeing herself from the corner. “Give me the damn key!”

“Oh! Now we’re having some fun,” Emma dabbed at the blood on her lip and licked it clean from her fingers.

She opened her purse and looked at Sophia with a dark grin and a strange gleam in her blue eyes, “Or what?”

“GIVE ME!” Sophia screamed.
Screw the press. Screw everything. I want out of here.
“NOW!”

Male, angry voices could be heard from the other side of the door and the handle shook.

They heard as Alistair shouted for Emma to open the door and ordered someone to get a spare key and call the police.

Yeah.
Sophia smiled confidently and stepped closer to take the purse from the woman. “The key, bitch!
Or
I’ll press charges.”

“Ah! Now we are talking, bitch,” she drawled and laughed, “I like how you say it!” Emma’s eyes flashed as she put her hand inside the purse and took out, not the key, but a beautiful mother-of-pearl butterfly knife. “You already have two scars.” With a flick of her wrist, she opened the blade. “How about I carve a few more?”

Oh, damn. Damn! DAMN!
Sophia’s adrenaline spiked. She put her hands up. “Okay, now. You don’t want to do this.”

“I do, kitty-kitty. He’ll remember me every time he fucks you.”

“You’ll be arrested.” She looked for something to defend herself with, but there was nothing in the modern luxury bathroom. Her eyes paused on a pair of tall, heavy Baccarat Spirale vases filled with purple Tulips on a table in the furthest corner. A few feet away.

“Will not, kitty. I have his photos. Fucking,” she gloated and left the threat hanging in the air.

Sophia considered her options.
Three, four paces max. It’s all I have.

“You need a prettier face, kitty,” Emma drawled as she got closer.

Concentrate, Sophia.
She tuned out the pounding on the door and Alistair’s shouted commands, blocking out everything but Emma’s movements and hers.

She angled her body and moved cautiously back, flexing her right hand, preparing to grab the spiral end of the crystal vase.
You can’t miss it, Sophia. You can’t.

Emma followed, smirking, brandishing the knife.

She lost her balance when her hurt leg faltered and her heel caught in a small indentation between the marble slabs. The blade pierced Sophia’s dress and pricked her left arm.

Sophia gasped in pain. Warm blood trickled down slowly.

Focus. Don’t look down.
She rightened herself and hauled in a gulp of air, struggling not to black out.

Sophia’s hand groped the wall for the table. Emma’s arm shot forward again. A gash opened on the Sophia’s left forearm and a piercing cry left her mouth.

“You scream like a dying pig,” Emma smirked.

Sophia turned and snatched the vase.

With a hard yank, her right arm sliced the air with the vase.

Emma smiled darkly and flung the knife in the direction of Sophia’s navel as the vase slipped from Sophia’s hand and flew through the air.

Both women cried out loud.

Nerves wound tight and seething, Alistair paced the corridor outside the bathroom as they waited for the spare key. Sophia’s first scream robbed him of the last of his patience.

“Get out of my way,” he shouted and crashed his shoulder against the door. It rattled, but didn’t give.

“Wait,” Tavish’s hand stopped him from throwing himself against the door a second time. “Let’s do it together. On three.”

Alistair heaved when both women cried one last time, but paced away taking distance and giving his brother his back. “Ready?”

Tavish nodded and counted, “One. Two. Three.”

The brothers threw themselves against the door, flinging it off its hinges.

Alistair looked around horrified.

In the middle of the bathroom floor among water, purple tulips and the broken Baccarat vase, Emma was lying in a pool of blood that was gushing from her face.

“Call an ambulance,” he shouted over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping the room.
Fuck! Where is she? Breathe, Alistair Connor! It’s not the time for panic.
“Sophia!” He stepped over Emma and his heart stopped for a second when he saw her.

“Sophia!!” He fell on his knees in front of a very pale Sophia, sitting with back against the wall. His eyes and hands hovered over her bloodied dress and the knife stuck on her stomach not knowing exactly what to do.
Fuck, fuck!
“
Mo gradh,
don’t worry. Everything will be okay,
”
he said resolutely.

“Cold,” she whispered through blue lips, a loud roar filling her ears. Her wide dark eyes roamed over him as he immediately took off his jacket. “I’m cold.”

“Lay her down after you put your jacket on her,” Tavish ordered calmly, kneeling beside her with a first aid kit.

“How?” He eyed pointedly at the blade protruding from between her fingers.

“Right, Alistair Connor, keep her calm. Keep her warm. Lay her down, but be careful not to jolt her. I’ll put a dressing around the wound, and apply pressure. Any doubts?” Tavish didn’t even look at him and kept his voice soothingly calm. “Do it. Quickly and calmly. The shock will have lowered her blood pressure and body temperature.”

Oh, Christ! Let it not be as bad as it looks.
“All right,” he gently put his jacket over her and laid her down. Neither his hands, nor his face betrayed the guilt and shock he was feeling inside.
I’ve brought this on her.

“Let me,” Tavish took her fingers from her belly and put his handkerchief around the blade, pressing down firmly. He looked up at an ashen Edward on the threshold. “Give me your jacket too.”

Sophia’s gaze shifted to Tavish as a giddy, floating sensation took hold of her.
Am I going to die?
“Numb.”

He squinted at the blade and back at her face. “The wound doesn’t seem deep. The cold is from the shock, okay? Don’t move.”

As if I would go dancing, you moron.
The thought seemed so out of place that her lips curled up.

Leonard entered the room with two police officers. His face was taut and he stepped over Emma to squat near them. “The ambulance is coming. How is she?”

“Mostly superficial cuts. Nothing to worry about,” Tavish said soothingly, smiling back at her, covering her legs with Edward’s jacket and directing Alistair’s fingers to substitute his.

A strange calm had fallen over Sophia as she observed Tavish’s sure movements. She couldn’t see the woman on the floor, but her presence was grating on her nerves. Her gaze moved back to Alistair’s face. Apart from a slight darkening in his eyes, he maintained a calmness that helped keep at bay the panic that was threatening to pull her down.
Did I kill...?
“Is she...” She couldn’t say the word or bear the thought of one more death hanging over her head.

Alistair understood the question, but he couldn’t care less if Emma was dead or not.

Tavish grinned, shaking his head at her. “Only you, Sophia.”

But, for her, there was nothing funny in the possibility.

Alistair noticed Emma’s chest expand and deflate. “Unfortunately, she’s still alive.”

“The ambulance must be arriving at any moment,” Tavish said rising.

“Tavish Uilleam.” Alistair’s growl was full of menace and anger.

Tavish stopped. “Brother?”

“Let her rot.”
In hell.

London, Marylebone. The London Clinic Main Hospital.

Wednesday, June 2
^nd
, 2010.

3.17 p.m.

Whispered voices shrieked inside her ears. Bright lights sucked her away from the darkness. She was feeling dizzy and weak. And her fuzzy brain couldn’t tell her why.

She shivered and slowly opened her eyes. Gravity suddenly weighted on her and she hurt. Everywhere.

Oh, God. Emma.
She closed her eyes and moaned.

A door closed and soft steps approached her.

“I’m here,” Alistair bent down and pressed his lips tight on her forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Hurt. All over. Lights, please,” she whispered. When the brightness diminished, she peered at him through half open eyelids, only to close them again.
I’m so tired. Take me home,
meu amor
.

She can’t even bear to look at me.
He sat on the edge of the bed beside her.

“Can I go home?”

“I believe so. The nurse just left and said everything looks good. He even took you off the IV, but you were sleeping so profoundly that you only sighed. The doctor has been here twice. She will come back later. She said it’s a normal reaction. You blood pressure lowered and you lost some blood. But the wound wasn’t too deep. She said that the best medicine for you is to rest now.” He spoke every thought that came to his mind to scare away the frustration with his inability to protect her.

It was weird to listen to Alistair’s babbling. He was never nervous. In her fuzzy state, she gave it the briefest passing thought and let it go.

All she wanted was to go home and sleep for days until all this had dissolved into nothing more than a horrible nightmare.

“Gabriela?”

“With Alice. Safe and sound. And happy. We didn’t tell her what happened.”

All she could do was nod. She ached in so many places that she couldn’t have done more.

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her pale face with dark shadows under her eyes. His gaze hovered over her shoulders and arms. Two white dressings on her arm was all he could see now. Tavish said she had been very lucky. And the doctors confirmed. A couple of inches to the side and farther into her stomach and the blade would have hit the femoral artery. She could have died. And he was responsible. “Sophia.”

She opened her eyes, astounded by the stern way he said her name.
Is he mad at me? Or...
“Is she okay?”

Really?
He snorted. “The vase hit her temple and broke the skin. That’s why there was so much blood. She had some stitches and her face is badly swollen and bruised. That’s all.”
And a concussion that will keep her in hospital for a day or so. You hit hard, my love.

Oh, God, thank you.
Tears of relief filled her eyes and she turned her face into the pillow trying to hide her angst and horror at what the situation that could have been.

“Don’t cry,
mo cridhe.
Emma deserved it.”
And much more.

Maybe. But I don’t want any more deaths on my CV.
Guilt, confusion and anger wedged their ways into her mind and a dam of tears broke loose.

Oh, Christ.
He leaned over her and cradled her gently onto his chest, comforting her. “Hush, sweetheart, hush.”

And what if she comes after you next time?
Sophia wrapped her arms around his broad back and cried.

Believing he was the main cause of her distress, her disheartened tears compressed around his heart. He ran his hand over her back, saying tender words, but nothing seemed to calm her. He understood it was the psychological trauma. However, he couldn’t deny that the stabbing had come from his past.

She’s young, gentle and beautiful. She needs a better man.
He had dragged her into his complicated life and she deserved much more than he could possibly offer her.
Without her, you’ll be a hollow shell. Don’t even think about the alternative.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered with a last shuddered sob. She let her arms fall on the bed. He lowered her and she wiped her face dry with the sheet.