Page 6 of Awakened On Her Royal Wedding Night
“I’ll call the nurse to help,” Dr. Esposito offered.
“I can manage,” Felipe insisted.
“I think he was talking to me,” Claudine said, annoyed that one light brush of the Prince’s hand was all it took to swing her legs off the bed while his other arm effortlessly slid behind her back, bringing her to sit on the edge facing him.
The abrupt move made her head swim so she wound up bracing a hand against his chest and clinging to his sleeve, waiting for her equilibrium to catch up to the rest of her.
“He was not,” Felipe assured her. His firm hand on her waist ensured she didn’t topple forward off the bed. “The nurse is also a man, so there’s no difference in who helps you except that Dr. Esposito suffered a back injury last year, so he should not.”
There was every difference, she wanted to grouse. She didn’t want to be near him anymore than his brother.
She slid off the bed and her knees almost gave out.
Felipe caught her.
DearLord, she hurt. How was it possible to be this wrecked and still be alive?
She clung to his arms, needing his support to stand. She felt a thousand years old as she shuffled to the bathroom, every footstep sending a lightning bolt through her stiff muscles.
His arm stayed firm across her back while his fingers dug into her waist. Heat radiated off his torso through his shirt and the hospital gown she’d been put into. She could have cried at that invasion, being stripped and touched by strangers.
One glance at his indifferent profile and she doubted he had stuck around to watch. His brother might have leered in that circumstance, but Felipe didn’t seem to see her as a woman at all.
“Can you manage?” he asked briskly as he lowered her onto a velvet bench beside the toilet.
“Yes.”
Even this bathroom, which was clearly still part of the medical wing, was beautifully appointed with gold fixtures, a claw-foot tub, and a huge shower stall tiled in dark blue. On the back wall of the shower tiles, a landscape of a coastal village sat inside a painted frame of golden grape vines.
“Don’t eventhinkof going through that window.” He pointed to the panel of stained glass inserted into a modern casement that allowed it to swing outward. “You’ll land on the guard stationed below.”
She had absolutely been thinking of doing that. He probably knew it from the belligerent dismay that came into her face at his warning.
“Call if you need me.” He left her alone.
She used the toilet since she’d come all this way, then washed her hands before she took inventory of her injuries. Four scrapes had bled enough to need covering, two on her shins, one on her shoulder and one on her forearm. The rest were scuffs that had been painted with something that had stained her skin yellow. There was even a small bruise on her cheekbone.
As she met the appalled disbelief in her reflection, all she could think was,I can’t do the photo shoot.I can’t win.
She had been in the top three in every portion of the contest so far. She was the frontrunner who was expected to win.
Not anymore.
It’s over.
Mom...
As long as Claudine could remember, her mother had had good spells and bad spells, but her symptoms had always receded. This time, they were more severe and weren’t going away. Ann-Marie was in a lot of pain and having trouble walking. She seemed to be losing vision in one eye.
After two decades of coping with it, Ann-Marie had exhausted all the conventional treatments. She had gone into a secondary progressive phase, her doctor had told her. There were experimental treatments that were showing promise, like stem cell transplants, but they were expensive and held out no guarantees. However, without any sort of treatment, she would definitely suffer more pain, keep losing function, and her life span would be shortened.
Claudine’s gamble on winning the prize money hadn’t been a sure bet, but it had been a strong one. Even something like being chosen for the calendar would have given her enough money to hire her mother a specialized home care worker.
What would she do now?
With a sob of despair, Claudine sank back onto the bench, hands covering her face only to discover there was still enough sand in her hair to rain onto her knees. Her feet were filthy, her pedicure a disaster.
She didn’t think about whether it made sense to shower, only rose to start the water. She dropped the gown and stepped under the spray, reaching for the shampoo. She washed her hair, then rubbed the silky body wash all over her skin, trying to remove salt and dirt and this whole wretched experience.
