‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ she replied, the wistful tone in her voice replaced with a sudden burst of bitterness, knocking him off balance yet again.

‘You don’t see at all. You won’t understand anything until you realise that the doctor who performed that surgery, the doctor who made my life worth living and inspired me to do medicine in the first place, was none other than the woman you set out to destroy. My miracle doctor, the person I believed to be so wonderful she had to be an angel, was none other than Grace.’

‘Della-Bosca!’

‘The very same. It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ she continued. ‘I idolised her. I begged her to let me work with her. She was my own personal hero, and yet she turned out to be so bad, so corrupt. And I was too stupid to see it. I was too stupid to see any of it.’

Guilt twisted Loukas’s gut and pulled down tight. What had he done to her? He hadn’t merely misjudged her, he’d damned her from the start. And she was right. He hadn’t understood a thing. It was like having blinkers suddenly removed—so much more about Jade made sense.

No wonder she’d been so intensely loyal.

No wonder she’d been so doggedly persistent in Della-Bosca’s defence.

No wonder she’d fought tooth and nail against his every attempt to undermine her.

‘Not stupid,’ he said, pushing himself from the doorway and moving close enough to use the pad of his thumb to wipe a trace of dampness from her cheek. ‘Never stupid. Fiercely loyal. Supremely protective. And now I understand why. Thank you for telling me.’

‘But I was so wrong,’ she remonstrated, her voice cracking, her face anguished. ‘All the time I was defending her she was working to destroy herself. And I never saw it coming. All the time I was protecting her—oh, my God, Loukas, how many patients did I leave at risk because I refused to see what was happening? How many more could there been? Because I was blind to everything—she could do nothing wrong in my eyes—it was unthinkable.’

He cupped her face in his hands. ‘Jade, don’t.’

‘And I never even saw it coming. If it hadn’t been for you coming along when you did, how long would it have taken me to realise what was going on? And at what cost? How many more lives might she have destroyed?’

‘Shh,’ he soothed, collecting her in his arms, pulling her close against his chest. ‘It’s over.’

‘How many more?’ Her voice sounded as fragile and hollow as the sea urchins that sometimes washed up on the shore, their spines broken off, their insides empty, and their shells easily smashed, and he sensed instinctively that that was how Jade felt. And, as much as he wanted to, he knew he couldn’t put all the blame down to Della-Bosca. He had more than his fair share to do with how she was feeling.

‘She can’t hurt anyone now.’

He held her like that, swaying gently in the morning sun against the backdrop of the constant flow of the tide, one hand stroking her back, the other caressing her neck, his fingers laced softly through her hair.

She’d fought against so much all her life, from such a tragic start, and against the odds she’d battled to make the most of herself. She was so brave, so fierce, so ready to defend those things she believed in—and she was suffering now because of it.

She was amazing. And he’d treated her as if she was a crook. He’d taken advantage of her and used her shamelessly in his quest to pull Della-Bosca down. But the hardest thing to take was that he had without question spoiled any chance he had at all to be with her.

So right now he would take what he could get. He could stay like this for ever, swaying gently in the sea breeze, holding a sun-kissed Jade in his arms. He wanted to lend her his strength, he wanted to see her fight again, he wanted to see her spirit.

And he wanted her for himself.

‘Don’t leave,’ he said, almost before he’d acknowledged to himself that he wanted her to stay.

He felt her breath catch, her body still.

Without moving her head from his chest she asked, ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay with me.’

Tags: Trish Morey Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net