Sinful Pleasures

“Yes,” the doctor said. “It’s a very good thing you brought her in when you did, because she’s still in a treatable stage and her kidney function is still sound. Luckily we found no evidence of hemolysis, which is blood cell destruction, so she doesn’t need a blood transfusion. However, we’ve started her on a high dose of chelation therapy, which is a drug that selectively binds and inactivates these kinds of substances, then excretes them through urine. If you had waited another day or so, the outcome might have been much more dire and deadly.”

The realization that he’d come so close to possibly losing Elle was the equivalent of a giant fist twisting his heart in his chest, and he focused on the fact that she was going to be okay, which was all that mattered to him.

The doctor’s brows drew together as she regarded him curiously. “Do you know how she came into contact with the poison?”

Hunter battled on how to best answer that question and ultimately decided to keep Helena’s involvement quiet until he had more concrete answers. And when he did, then he’d let Elle determine how she wanted to handle the situation with her stepmother, because pressing any charges against Helena was her choice to make.

“I’m not sure,” he said, shaking his head.

The doctor knew he was skirting the truth, and he was surprised she didn’t counter with Then how did you know it was arsenic that poisoned her? But Dr. Hansen didn’t push the issue. She wasn’t law enforcement and it wasn’t her job to investigate cases, but to treat the patient accordingly. As far as Hunter knew, this wasn’t a reportable issue.

“When can I see her?” he asked impatiently. He didn’t want her to be alone any longer than necessary.

“I can take you back to her room now. We just got her settled. She’s under sedation for the pain and probably will be for the next twenty-four hours. We’ll also need to keep her a few days for observation and repeated blood tests before releasing her.”

Hunter followed the doctor down the long hallway until she indicated a room near the end. He stepped inside and the sight of Elle lying on the hospital bed, eyes closed and completely still, hooked up to IVs and other monitors, sent shock waves through his system at the realization of what could have happened if he hadn’t insisted on staying with her last night. He exhaled a deep, stressed breath, and reminding himself that she was going to be fine, thank God, he approached the side of her bed. She looked so pale, so incredibly frail and defenseless, and all those protective emotions inside of him clamored to the surface. As far as he was concerned, no one would ever hurt Elle again.

He dragged a chair over to the bed, picked up her hand in his, and prepared to keep vigil over her for the rest of the early-morning hours.

Elle gained consciousness in slow, gradual degrees, as if she was coming out of a deep, hibernating kind of sleep. Her eyes remained closed as, one by one, her senses woke up, too, subliminally cataloguing all the discernable information filtering its way through her system. First, she heard the soft beeping of a machine, then the scent of disinfectant tickled her nose. She tried to swallow past the medicinal taste in her mouth, which was difficult since her throat was so dry, and she felt the slow, rhythmic stroke of someone caressing the back of one of her hands.

With a soft groan, she lifted her heavy eyelids, and the first thing she saw was Hunter, who quickly popped up from the chair he’d been sitting in at the side of the bed and loomed over her, his handsome expression a combination of concern and profound relief. A day’s growth of stubble covered his jaw, his hair was a tousled mess, and he looked utterly exhausted.

Despite all that, he clasped her hand tighter in his, a smile finding its way across his lips. “Hey, it’s nice to see you awake, sleeping beauty.”

“Cinderella. The crystal shoe, remember?” she automatically corrected him in a teasing raspy voice. “You’re mixing your fairy tales.”

He laughed. “You’re right. How are you feeling?”

“Okay, I think?” She wasn’t sure, considering how fuzzy her mind felt, but that awful pain she’d experienced in her midsection was now gone, thank God. “I could use something to drink, like water.”

Hunter sprang into action. He pressed a button on a side panel that lifted the upper portion of the bed so she was sitting up a bit more, then poured water into a cup and brought the straw to her mouth for her to sip. The liquid was delicious, so cool and soothing sliding down her parched throat.

When she was done, she glanced around the room as he set the cup back down on the side table. She felt so confused and disoriented and couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten to where she currently was.

She met Hunter’s gaze. “Why am I in a hospital and hooked up to all this stuff? And how long have I been here?”

Surprise flashed across his face. “You were admitted about twenty-four hours ago. You don’t remember what happened last night?”

She searched her memory bank, which took effort. “The last thing I can recall is me throwing up in the bathroom and feeling like I was going to die.”

Hunter’s lips flattened into a look of barely leashed rage. “That was most likely Helena’s plan.”

His harsh comment startled her. “What?”

“Sweetheart . . . Helena was putting arsenic in your tea and sugar. It’s a poison that’s odorless, colorless, and tasteless, so you had no idea you were consuming it, which is usually the point with arsenic poisoning. But if I hadn’t brought you to the hospital, you could have . . . died.” The last word left him on a choked sound, and the look in his eyes was pure torment.

Shock rippled through Elle as she stared at Hunter in disbelief, but she didn’t have to ask him why her stepmother would do something so evil. Without a doubt, Helena’s motives were somehow tied up into the house equity she wouldn’t budge on, the business, and just plain greed.

“How did you find out she was poisoning me?” Elle couldn’t imagine that Helena had divulged the information herself.

“Your stepsister

Claire told me last night right before I brought you to the hospital. She saw your mother putting it into your tea and sugar.” Hunter scrubbed a hand along the dark stubble on his jaw and sighed. “Claire came by today because she was legitimately worried about you . . . and because Helena had sent her to find out if you and I knew about the arsenic poisoning. I asked her not to tell your stepmother anything until you and I talked and you decided how you wanted to handle the situation. Because if it was up to me, she’d already be arrested and sitting in a goddamn jail cell.”

Elle tried to wrap her mind around everything Hunter was telling her, but for as vindictive and cruel as Helena was, Elle had never been the spiteful type. “Can I think about it?”

“Not for long. Something needs to be done, one way or another,” he told her, his fingers feathering gently over the back of her hand. “The doctor said if your test results come back tomorrow with everything in the normal range, you’ll be discharged and you are not going back to your house. You’re coming to my place and staying with me until everything is resolved with Helena because I don’t trust her to be anywhere near you.”