Adapting Desires (Endangered Heart Series Book 3) Read online

  He shook the force off until it was gone completely.

  Some of the grogginess seemed to recede with the force, allowing Kasper to become more than just semi-conscious. Actually, as he became more responsive, Kasper thought for an instant he could make out the feel of soft fingers on his arm and even detect the faintest scent of lavender.

  Lastly, he heard that most annoying but melodious humming that had lured Kasper to his little peach in the first place.

  Kasper forced his eyes open, cursing and blinking them shut again at the harshness of the hospital light. In the shadows of his eyes a petite but clumsy shadow—presumably Emilia—fell over itself in moving across the room. From there the lights changed, dimming significantly until it was nearly pitch black in the room. Kasper tried to open his eyes again, relieved that the beeping lights of the machines and the hallway light were almost all that lit the room. Perhaps things were not so bright, and his eyes were merely that swollen.

  “Little Peach.”

  “Hi.” Admittedly, the smile through her tears confused him. “It’s good to see you.”

  Kasper attempted to roll his eyes and failed. “Oh, yes. I can tell.” The pain of trying to sit up kept him still. “I am even uglier than before?”

  Laughing, she shook her head. “No, you idiot, only more of a jerk.”

  “Well, we all knew that was a real possibility.”

  Smiling still, she sniffed and shook her head. “You should try and rest—”

  “No.” Trying to stay stern, Kasper’s voice croaked just slightly. “Why am I here and not at home? Has something gone wrong?”

  “Yes.” Emilia sighed, her silhouette moving to sit back down. “And to be perfectly honest, I’m very mad at you, but I don’t to fight while you’re here.”

  “Tell me,” he croaked. “I insist.”

  Emilia replied by gently scooping two small ice chips into the less swollen side of his mouth. The water was pure heaven, a cascade of relief in his mouth and throat.

  “Little more than halfway through, your blood pressure dropped. They had to keep you under while they closed you up but your vitals kept dropping, you went into shock―” He heard her sigh, and vaguely he wished his eyes were not so swollen. If he could see Emilia’s expression better it would be far easier to know the extent of the damage.

  “They had to resuscitate you before you flat-lined.” Again she sniffed, and his mind backtracked. What was she saying? They had not completed the procedure?

  “T-they did not complete the procedure?” Though painful, he raised his massively bandaged hand and examined it as though he had x-ray vision.

  “Kasper, I—”

  “A mirror!” Though he tried to demand, his voice ended up being a croak—a mere combination of a shout and cry. “Fetch me one right now!”

  “Stop it!” she nearly yelled back. “Your face is bandaged—you know that.” As a forethought she added, “Maybe when they change them tomorrow. But I can’t believe this is how you’re reacting to me telling you that you almost died, Kasper. For God sakes, no one will care about your face if you’re dead.”

  “How far did they get? Have they begun the ear graft? Much of my face is numb, so I cannot tell if the implant is—”

  “Stop it, Kasper.” He heard her sigh. “If you get yourself worked up they’ll sedate you. If your blood pressure…”

  Kasper sighed, leaning back on the pillows and removing the weight from his neck considerably. His blood pressure? Who cared about any of that if he was going to be trapped in the body of a monster? He wanted to scream. To yell out at Emilia, to make her understand how important this was. Unfortunately, his brief consciousness had exhausted him, forcing his eyes closed against his will.

  “Later then.”

  Though he could not see it, her shadow lingered over him, a protective silhouette as he drifted off.

  “Of course, sweetheart,” he heard her say. “Of course.”

  “Emilia?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I do love you terribly.”

  He sighed while pain and medication took over.

  “Good.” He could hear her smile. “Since you’re going to give me gray hair before I’m thirty, you’d damn well better.”

  ***

  A chest x-ray as well as an EKG confirmed the suspected heart murmur, and with a prescription and strict recommendation to give up cigars and drinking, Kasper was sent home—much to the relief of Emilia and the entire hospital staff.

  Once at home, Kasper was no better, terrorizing everyone whether he had a good reason or not. Emilia did her best to excuse him, of course, knowing she could not possibly understand the physical pain he was going through, nor his disappointment at being told his condition made him a risky patient for non-essential procedures. As much as it pained her, Emilia was strangely grateful for Dr. Taylor’s frankness about Kasper’s health. By telling them that he would not operate on Kasper again and likely nor would any other respectable plastic surgeon, she had hoped the ideas Kasper had about the radical surgeries would cease and desist. It may have hurt him on a temporary scale, but at least he would be alive to feel the hurt.

  Therefore, Emilia did her best to put herself in his place, ignoring the cruel words he flung at her and Mrs. Levkin. Neither of the women could blame Mr. Shiraz for staying away altogether, not picking up the phone when Kasper called or even Mrs. Levkin in an attempt to gain reinforcements. Tut also learned to stay away, quickly growing tired of having pill bottles thrown at him and even the remainder of untouched meals.

  It was perhaps three or four days into the healing process when Emilia felt her impatience begin to truly run out. She hardly minded playing nurse, nor the lack of gratitude for it, yet the maltreatment of her dog and Mrs. Levkin bothered her immensely, and somewhere between all of that and Kasper wanting her to inquire about the growing skin graft for his “new” ear for the one hundredth time that she lost her temper.

  “If you ask me about that ear one more time, I swear I’m going to beat the life from you while you’re in your own bed!”

  “Oh, please,” Kasper chuckled. “I—”

  “No, ‘oh please’ me!” Emilia chucked a pillow at him to make sure she had his full attention. “Oh please, enough of your whining and ordering everyone around like some dictator. I’ve tried to make the best of a bad situation here, but you’re challenging me at every turn and I’ve had enough of it.”

  Sulking like a disciplined child, he crossed his arms over himself and looked away. “You have no idea what this is like!”

  “How could I?” she shouted back. “All you ever do is name call and pout like a child instead of talking to me about it like an adult.”

  Kasper opened his mouth to speak, but quickly shut it again. Maybe, Emilia guessed unsure of how to reply. Finally, she watched while he stared down at his bruised hand, still, unused to seeing it without some of the excessive skin between his fingers, he thought perhaps it was the only thing that could draw him away from Emilia’s face.

  “I—I keep forgetting how these things are supposed to be.”

  “They aren’t supposed to be anything.” Cautiously, Emilia moved to sit at the end of the bed, the change in his tone encouraging her to give their conversation a try. “I think relationships, marriage in particular, is whatever you make it out to be. I just know that I want you to talk to me about things. I don’t feel comfortable trying to guess everything, and let’s be honest,” she said smiling. “I’m not as good at it as I’d like to be.”

  “Y-you have to understand,” Kasper said after a while. “I was alone for so long.”

  “I know that.” Emilia nodded seriously. “I was too, remember?”

  “Y-yes, but you had opportunities. You could have dated anyone you wanted really, you had acquaintances, classmates, and colleagues…I often went days locked in my office working, without speaking to another human being. It is not in me to communicate with other people, not even you, I’m afraid.” />
  Emilia nodded. As much as it pained her to think about it, she could easily picture Kasper barricading himself in his office and over his drafting table, slaving away over those beautiful designs of his. If Emilia had felt lonely with her life, trapped and unable to talk with anyone, how lonesome had Kasper been in his luscious one? “Oh.”

  “I’ll learn!” As quickly as he reached for her hand, she could see his panic. Wide-eyed and frantic, Kasper did his best to clutch her hand to his chest, giving Emilia her own bout of fear as she could feel the unusual beat through his thick robe. “I swear to God, Emilia, I’ll learn! I’ve learned so much from you already, if you’d only be willing to teach me—”

  “Easy now,” she soothed. “Don’t get so worked up over nothing.” Coaxing him until his head was in her lap, she brushed at his hair in a consistent motion until he had calmed down. “I just wanted you to be a little nicer to the lot of us, that’s all—especially it being Christmas time and everything.”

  He sighed dramatically. “I suppose this means you’ll be going forward with your carols and mechanical snowmen then?”

  Emilia laughed loudly. A sound, she confessed, she missed making in the last few days. “I was planning on going out later and getting a tree just to get away from you.”

  “Always the strategist, my darling. I should hate to genuinely get on your bad side.”

  “As well you should.”

  She leaned down to kiss him then, the first real kiss that wasn’t a peck on the forehead or lips since his near miss. Just as her tongue began to explore his, and Kasper was getting his hopes up—among other things—there was a loud knock on the door. And before either of them could tell whomever it was to go away, Aasif walked in, instantly looking embarrassed at the compromising position of the newlyweds.

  “It seems I’ve come at a bad time.” He coughed and looked away awkwardly.

  Kasper swore, quickly throwing a blanket over his lap. “The unwanted never arrive at a good time.”

  Stepping over him, Emilia shot him a warning glare before forcing a smile in Aasif’s direction. “It’s good to see you. We were beginning to think you had abandoned the ship altogether.”

  Kasper tapped his hand on the nightstand and smiled wryly. “Isn’t that what rats do?”

  Pretending to pick the petals off a flower, Emilia bit her lip to prevent herself from laughing.

  “How are you feeling then? I take it you have begun to recover from that nasty business last week?”

  “Yes, quite, but I seriously doubt you have interrupted us for that. Nor have you avoided us all week simply to inquire about my health now.”

  Aasif sighed and seated himself in the side lounge chair, removing his hat and crossing his legs as though the movement tired him greatly. This weary movement attracted Emilia’s attention, prompting her to a slight panic of her own.

  “Is something the matter?” she asked. “All the clients knew he was going to be on vacation, right? Is someone complaining? Unhappy with the work?”

  “Oh, no,” Aasif was quick to answer, doing nothing to sway Emilia’s concern. “Nothing like that. I, ah, do however have some rather…unfortunate news.”

  “Well, do you intend to stall with more adjectives or are you going to enlighten the rest of us?”

  “Marcy Correctional Facility had a rather serious combustion of their sewage system. They had to evacuate the lower three levels of the prison and transport the prisoners to several facilities—”

  Emilia sat herself down, preparing herself for the worst. After his expedited sentencing, Marcy Correctional had been the facility where Cyrus was supposed to spend the next twenty or so years of his life. Just bringing up the topic of the prison made a chill run through Emilia’s limbs. She felt her fingers twitch and her fists clench as she tried to make the feeling disappear.

  “Why haven’t they deported him yet?” she managed to croak.

  “I imagine,” Kasper said between clenched teeth, “because they are a bunch of incompetent morons!”

  Aasif sighed, running a hand through his hair nervously. “His student visa was authentic. Normally committing a crime would violate that, but he has some lawyer who has petitioned mental illness—”

  “And?” Emilia was the impatient one now, more interested in getting to the point instead of walking around it.

  “Between the chaos of transport and the hazmat team, there was a miscount of the prisoners. Somehow, Cyrus managed to escape their custody—”

  Emilia barely heard the rest of it, the distinct sound of a buzzer in her head going off as though her mind had called “game over” or a “time out.” Strangely enough, she didn’t feel afraid, not exactly, anyway. Though she replayed the memory of the last time she saw the man she knew as Andrew, and the way his hands felt around her neck, she was more numb than anything else—unable to feel fear after being so worn out from it. Only when she heard the repeated call of her name did she snap out of her spell, shaking her head and releasing the twitching fingers she tried so desperately to hide.

  “Emilia?”

  “Huh?”

  “Please don’t worry, darling—”

  “Certainly not.” Insulated with fear, Aasif did his best to reassure the both of them. “The police—”

  “I’m surprised those fools can dress themselves in the morning!” Emilia watched the visibly startled lawyer close his mouth and sit back down. The moment he did, Kasper turned his attentions back to Emilia, his panic outranking that of everyone. Funny, she thought to herself, wasn’t she the one who had almost been killed by that psycho? Why were they the ones freaking out?

  “Emilia, I’ll take care of this.” Swinging his legs out of bed, the nervousness in Kasper’s voice rang in every note she knew. Unsure how to react, she turned back to the bouquet of get well soon flowers on the table. She circled her thumbnail around the black dot on a tiger-lily.

  “Why are you still here?” Kasper shouted in Aasif’s direction. “S-see what the police know! Get me a meeting with the US Marshals! Get Frankford on the phone and ask him about personal security companies—”

  All of those phrases caught her attention, though none more so than the one of personal and security. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed.

  “Personal security? Like a bodyguard?”

  “Until he’s…apprehended.” Kasper emphasized the last word like the obvious cover it was. “Certainly.”

  Aasif wrung his hat in his hand. “I will call the security company and have them come over today, install more cameras before the end of the week. I’ll get in touch with the US Marshals, or whomever is in charge of apprehending him and see about a bail enforcement agent.”

  She nodded, more interested in watching Kasper pace than anything else. “I—okay.”

  “You understand you’ll have to stay here until he’s caught. Withdraw from the next semester and—”

  Surely, she thought, Emilia had heard wrong. Nothing would keep her from completing her education, not even postponing it. Kasper of all people understood that. “What?”

  “Only postponing, really,” Kasper insisted desperately. “Entirely temporary.”

  “No.”

  “Pardon?” Looking back and forth from her to Aasif, he scoffed, gripping his hands dangerously tight on his desk chair. Emilia knew certainly that Kasper would never hurt her, wouldn’t even have the inkling to try. Yet if he were provoked to the right extent, how safe would that chair be? Or poor Aasif, for that matter?

  “No.” Looking away from both Kasper and the flowers, Emilia walked to the window, resting her head against the cold pane. “I don’t mind being cautious, but there is a difference between caution and paranoia. I won’t put my life on hold just because someone out there may or may not want to hurt me. If I did that I’d never do anything.”

  “This is not up for discussion! There is a madman on the loose who was once hell bent on not just hurting me, but used you to do it. If there is even the slight
est chance it could happen again I will not risk it! You will stay here until he is dead and I see his rotting corpse with my own two eyes!”

  Just as resolute, but twice as patient as him, Emilia literally dug her foot into the ground. “No.”

  “Why must you be so childish? So foolish, when your own safety is at risk?” Rushed and fretting, his eyes looked desperate as they darted around the room. “If I have to I’ll—I’ll cancel the lease on the apartment!” Kasper’s voice was panicked, pathetic even. If Emilia wasn’t so mad at him she would have easily felt pity for him. “You’ll hardly be able to attend school without a place to live!”

  “Fine, I’ll just sleep in my car then. I knew I kept it for a reason,” she added with an eye roll. “My car, until the term is through. I’ll use my money, my money, to pay tuition.”

  With a curse, the papers on Kasper’s desk went flying. Half amused, she watched while they floated to the ground and she did her best not to smile. “Why won’t you be reasonable about this?”

  “I don’t think I’m being completely unreasonable,” she said, feeling surprisingly confident. “As much as you don’t want to admit it, Cyrus is intelligent. I seriously doubt he’s going to come anywhere near either one of us if he values his freedom.”

  Her logic was only rewarded with an eye roll and the whitening of Kasper’s knuckles as he gripped a nearby newspaper. “His intelligence is precisely what makes him dangerous. And do they not say addictive behaviors are genetic? I would not be surprised if he was just as obsessed at getting his revenge as he was intelligent!”

  “How do I explain this?” Sighing, Emilia clicked her nails together and bent to pick up some of the papers on the floor. “It’s scary, I know. I’m scared too, but I’ve spent so much time being afraid and holding back because of it. The first twenty years of my life…I almost didn’t have you because of it. I’m not going to postpone my education just because the correctional department of New York isn’t up to par. If there—”

  “You’re foolish!” he yelled. “I cannot even talk to you when you are like this!”