Chapter 25
Chapter 25:
He ran. She felt the impact of his boots against the pavement, heard his breathing turn ragged with effort as he called out for people to clear the way. He reached his Audi and got her into the backseat.
There was no time for a seatbelt. He threw himself into the driver’s seat and slammed the car into gear.
The engine roared. The force of acceleration pressed her back into the leather.
June’s eyes fluttered shut despite everything she had left. Through the narrowing haze, her last conscious image was the faint outline of the courthouse dome, its white marble receding into the distance as Miles drove hard in the opposite direction.
T𝗁𝗈us𝘢ո𝘥s 𝘰f 𝗿𝖾аdе𝗿ѕ 𝘰𝗇
“Sorry,” she whispered. No sound came out. “I’m late p>
The emergency room at New York Presbyterian was controlled chaos.
“Trauma One!” a paramedic shouted, kicking the doors open and wheeling June in on a gurney. Miles Prescott ran alongside, his hand wrapped around hers. “Female, twenty-four. Suspected post-operative internal bleeding and severe infection. BP is sixty over forty. She’s crashing p>
Nurses swarmed the gurney. They transferred her to a hospital bed. Her hand slipped limply off the side, her knuckles grazing the linoleum.
“Get a central line,” the attending physician ordered, his voice shifting from measured to urgent. “Start broad-spectrum antibiotics and pressors. I want a stat CT of the abdomen and a surgical consult — now p>
“Dr. Prescott.” A nurse closed a firm hand around his arm. “You’ll have to wait outside p>
“I’m her emergency contact,” Miles said, his eyes locked on June’s pale face.
“Then wait in the waiting room. We have it from here. Move p>
They wheeled her away. The white curtain snapped shut.
Julian Thorne sat in a plastic chair with the expression of a man who considered boredom a personal offense.
He was wearing a suit that cost more than most people’s cars and was currently holding a bag of ice against the ankle of a Victoria’s Secret model named Kandy — or Candy with a C. He hadn’t asked.
“Ow, Julian, be gentle,” she whined.
“I am being gentle, babe,” Julian muttered, his eyes drifting across the room out of habit.
He despised hospitals. They smelled of sickness and fluorescent lighting.
Then he saw it.
A gurney moved fast through the corridor. A flash of pale skin. A profile he recognized better than he probably should. Julian sat up straighter.
Even with her hair matted with sweat and her face the color of ash, he knew her. She was the only woman Cole had ever looked at for longer than a month.
And running beside the gurney — before a nurse cut him off — was a man. Tall, intense, rumpled suit. Definitely not Cole.
“Holy hell,” Julian whispered.
He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture just as they turned the corner into the trauma bay. It came out blurry, but June’s face was visible, and so was the other man’s hand gripping her shoulder.
He opened his messages and tapped Cole’s name.
He began to type: You won’t believe this. Your ex is at Presby. Looks like she collapsed. And she’s got a new boyfriend playing hero.
His thumb hovered over the send button.