Mastered (The Enforcers 1)

“How much does it pain you?” he asked quietly.

“Enough,” Evangeline muttered. “I just want to go home. It’s not that bad and it certainly doesn’t warrant a visit to Drake’s doctor who also conveniently has a practice in Drake’s building. Hell, Drake probably owns the entire building.”

“He does,” Silas said in his somber voice.

Evangeline closed her eyes. She shouldn’t have gone there. It was her own fault for opening herself up for that.

Silas squeezed her, giving her silent reassurance. She wasn’t so sure why the others seemed to have a healthy fear of and respect for this man. Well, the respect he had no doubt earned, and it was owed. But the fear she didn’t understand, nor did she understand why they would think she would be afraid of him when he’d been nothing but gentle, kind and compassionate with her.

And because she was thinking those things and because whatever she thought always seemed to make its way out of her mouth, she put it out there before she could think better of it.

“W-would you go with me to the doctor?” she whispered so the others wouldn’t hear. “Zander seems to think you frighten me, but truthfully he scares me more than any of the others, and I would feel more comfortable, if I must go see this doctor, if you were with me instead of him.”

Silas went completely rigid, and she realized she’d just made a huge mistake. Damn her and her propensity for saying what was on her mind. She needed a gag stuffed into her mouth on a permanent basis.

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I’ve already interrupted your day with what is not anything remotely resembling a serious accident. I really should just go back to Drake’s apartment and clean it up. Band-Aids are miracle cures, you know.”

“It would make me very unhappy to ever know that a woman like you ever feared me,” Silas said, as sincerely as she had spoken. “The fact that you don’t fear me and in fact defend me to the others raises you in my esteem considerably. If having me with you makes you more comfortable, then I’ll go. No further explanations are warranted or necessary. Now, I’m going to help you to the car. Zander can get back to the apartment with your bags on his own dime while Justice and I take you to the clinic.”

“You aren’t a bad person, Silas,” she whispered. “In fact, I think you are a perfect gentleman. You’ll never persuade me otherwise.”

A shadow fell over his eyes before he blinked it away, but in that shadow she saw past pain, memories, things that had shaped the man he was now. And then just because it seemed like the right thing to do, she hugged him, trapping his much larger frame against her smaller one, and squeezed hard.

“Thank you for coming so quickly. I’d rather Drake not know about this, but if we don’t get moving, the dinner I’m supposed to prepare won’t get done on time and I don’t want Drake to be even more unhappy with me than he already is.”

Silas frowned. “I’m sure he will be more than understanding if you don’t cook dinner at all, considering you injured your knee and who knows what else in your fall.”

Evangeline shook her head. “I don’t even want him to know about this. Any of it. The day already started all wrong, and this will just ruin the entire evening. Can we just go and get it over with?”

In response, Silas merely picked her up, cradling her in his arms, and then ducked into the backseat of the car. Once he was settled, with her still on his lap, he put a pillow beneath the knee she’d injured and urged her to relax, saying that they were only a few minutes from Drake’s apartment.

Evangeline sighed. Welcome to Drake’s world should read more like Welcome to Drake’s insane world where nothing makes sense.

Because there was nothing normal about being sprawled on the lap of a man who obviously inspired fear in others while being rushed to a private clinic, owned by Drake, an enormously wealthy and extremely secretive, mysterious man who now, according to him—and, well, acknowledged by her—owned her.

Crazy. It was the only word to describe her previously boring, uneventful, predictably dull existence.

Things like this just didn’t happen to ordinary girls from small towns like the one she grew up in. Only it was happening, and it was all too real for her comfort level.

To Dr. McInnis’s credit, he seemed to pick up on Evangeline’s distress and agitation, though her constant muttering of this not being necessary probably clued him in more than anything.

He gave her a reassuring smile and told her he would have her in and out in no time at all and not to worry. But when he’d said she really needed a few sutures because the cut was quite deep and she risked infection if it was left open to bacteria, germs and God only knew what else, her anxiety soared.