Easton

Easton nodded.

“Go and get dressed.”

Liam went to follow him, and Scarlett held his hand. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He will be. I won’t let anything happen to him.” He kissed Scarlett on the lips and followed Easton upstairs.

There was no way he was going to let the other man run, and he had a feeling Easton would run the first chance he got.

Not on his watch.

On his watch, Easton was going to stick around a whole long time.

Easton didn’t talk to him as they got dressed, or on the way to the hospital.

Liam and Scarlett sat with him as he explained everything to the doctor.

“I know she’s not real. I know she doesn’t exist.”

“I think it’s best we do some tests, just to make sure you’re okay, Easton.”

“This is crazy and a waste of time.”

“Not to us, it’s not,” Liam said.

He and Scarlett couldn’t wait with Easton, and so had no choice but to sit in the waiting room.

Liam wasn’t exactly a patient man. Not with something like this.

“What if there’s something wrong with him?” she asked.

Tears were in her eyes, and Liam knelt before her, not caring that people watched them.

“If he is, we’ll be here to help him fight it.” He gripped her thighs, offering her as much comfort as possible.

“Do you like him?” she asked.

She whispered the words, and he nodded.

“I do too.”

“I know you do. It’s one of the reasons why I know this with all of us will work. I can see us being happy for a really long time.”

“Do you think we should call his friends?”

“The rest of the Four Kings?” Liam asked.

“It might help him, in case there is something more serious.”

He had no desire to bring the Four Kings to Easton’s side, but he also didn’t want to be accused of trying to hurt the competition in any way.

“I’ll make the call,” he said.

“I can make it if you want.”

“No, I can.” He kissed her head, and left the room, putting the call through to Axton.

He didn’t have anything against the Four Kings, but none of them had noticed Easton talking to himself, and because of that, Liam wasn’t happy to be working with them in any way.

Chapter Fourteen

Over eleven years ago

She’d had sex.

Scarlett had been with a guy.

Glancing over at Easton, she saw the blanket they had used to try to warm them from the cold was pushed down to his waist.

He looked so handsome, especially in sleep.

All she wanted to do was to take care of him. She’d noticed the sadness in his gaze from the first moment he arrived, and it had made her want to ward off all the pain and fear he might be feeling.

Reaching out, she pushed some hair off his forehead.

He didn’t wake, but he did move a little, getting comfortable.

This wasn’t supposed to happen between them. She’d come to camp to help out. The final hold of a childhood she would no longer have when she got home. Her family already had a fiancé lined up for her.

A life she didn’t want. A man she hated. She had no control, and she’d been told many times a woman like her didn’t have a chance at her own life. She had to learn to do as she was told and to deal with the consequences of it.

She hated it, every single day.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” she said.

Easton wasn’t like any of the men in her life. They didn’t try to make her smile or to figure out what was bothering her. Easton did all of those things. He gave her a voice, a reason, an opinion, and he even cared about it as well.

In the twenty-first century, her parents believed her place was to look pretty. They had told her there would be a makeover, and the woman she was now would no longer be acceptable in their house.

Her long hair would go. Her clothes would be changed. She would have no choice but to look like the proper wife of the man they had picked.

Tears filled her eyes as she thought about what she was going to have to do. Unless she admitted the truth to Easton and took a chance with him.

She didn’t want to spoil their summer. The time they had together was so short, and even though he’d made love to her, taken her cherry that had been meant for someone else, she couldn’t let him go.

Soon, she’d tell him what she felt, but until then, she was going to enjoy him.

****

Present day

Easton hated waiting for anything. Tests pissed him off. Gossiping nurses irritated him. Bossy doctors made him want to throat-punch them.

When he pulled off the pulse ox monitor on his finger, the machine beeped, and he ignored it.

He’d been forced to wear one of the hospital gowns, and again, he wasn’t fucking impressed with that either.