KIMBERLY

a bad feeling until it applied to waking up in a hospital with a fucking migraine.

Why does this always happen to me?

It wasn't often that I found myself waking up in a hospital, but each time was just as bad as the previous one. The mental distress typically matched the physical distress, making this one of my least favorite feelings.

I craved some well-needed comfort.

The last thing I remember was the impact of the car and the dream...

"Jace," I called out, my eyes adjusting to the light.

Instantly, a hand reached out to mine, holding it like it was life support. I trained my eyes on his face, seeing the worry lines on his forehead and the dark bags under his eyes.

How long was I out?

"Venus," Jace breathed out. His hand was already in mine when I woke up, but he began rubbing it soothingly, bringing it up to his lips for a kiss. "I should kill you for that."

Ignoring his murder threat, I asked, "What happened? How long have I been here?"

"You were hit by a car, Venus," he whispered as if he was still in disbelief over what happened. "You've been out for a little over a day. How are you feeling?"

"Like shit," I groaned. "Fuck, I wanted Mediterranean food."

"I hate you," he mumbled, keeping his lips pressed against my hand. "Do you know how scary that was? I was driving back to you when I got a call that you were in the hospital. I've never been that... petrified in my life. Not even when Mom..."

"I'm here, now," I replied, stroking his jaw with the hand he was holding. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you worried."

"Venus, don't apologize," he groaned. "Fuck, baby. I'm not mad at you for making me worried. I'm mad that I wasn't there for you."

"Don't you dare blame yourself," I chastised. "But what's the verdict? What's wrong with me?"

"Besides everything," he scoffed, earning an ear tug from my only good hand. "You have a pretty bad concussion, bruised ribs, your left wrist and ankle are sprained, and—"

"And?" I blurted. "There's more?"

"Well, drama queen, the rest are just scrapes and bruises from your body hitting the asphalt," he finished. "What the fuck were you thinking, going outside in shorts? It's fucking winter."

"I was hot," I mumbled. "And technically, it's not winter yet."

My body was weird. Different parts of it were different temperatures at certain times. Some days my upper body was on fire while my legs were fine and vice versa. This time, my upper body was cold while my legs could cook an egg to perfection.

"Sometimes, you really make me wish I went through with buying the collar," he admitted. "Do you want me to call them in?"

"Who's here?"

He thought about it for a second. "I think Ashton, Vivian, and your parents are the only ones here still. Everyone came the night of the accident, but Ashton and Liam told most of them to go home and wait for news. You have a lot of family."

"Remember what I said on Thanksgiving," I mused. "As long as you're married to me, they're yours too. So, get used to it."

"God, save me. A crazy wife and an equally crazy family," he muttered. "I'll go get them."

I nodded as Jace kissed my forehead before heading out the door.

Considering how much I instantly missed his presence, I should've asked him to call them instead. His aura became a comforting addiction for me in the last couple of months. Jace had this ability to soothe me as much as he riled me up.

Maybe he did have a point.

With the lack of my husband, I went for the other thing that had the ability to calm me down.

My good hand reached up to stroke the necklace, only to meet the bare skin of my chest.

Oh no.

I looked down to see the missing presence of the one object that never left my body for the past decade.

It wasn't there.

I craned my neck around, tears stinging my eyes, trying to find the lost necklace, hoping it was here... praying for it to be here.

It wasn't here.

At that moment, Jace walked in with the aforementioned family in tow, rushing to my side when he saw the tears lining my eyes. I couldn't make out the distressed faces of the people I cared the most about in the world through the tears, my mind was focused on one thing and one thing only.

"Venus, are you okay? Do you need me to call the doctor?" His eyes were rushing around my figure, trying to locate the source of the pain. But he wouldn't find it. Like most of the pain in my life, it was mental... emotional.

"Where is it?" I whispered, my voice lacking the ability to go louder than this. "Where's the necklace?"

Jace froze, discomfort oozing from his features. "I'm sorry, Venus. I was going to tell you, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with everything at once."

"Where is it?" I repeated, sounding more defeated than I thought was possible.

"The doctor said it wasn't on you when you were brought in," Jace explained.

No... I always had the necklace on. Hell, I never even took it off.

It couldn't be gone. It couldn't.

Ash continued, "I'm sorry, K. Dar and I spent most of yesterday searching for it on the streets near the accident. We couldn't find it."

My jaw started trembling as the tears began falling. I swear it was like seven years worth of tears decided the past couple months was the best time to come out. This is the most I've ever cried in my life and I was getting sick of it.

All I've been feeling is a surplus of uncontrollable emotions, threatening their way out at every inconvenience.

"Mama," I called out, seeking the comfort of my mother.

She immediately wrapped her arms around me, letting me cry into her shoulder. "Chiquitita, let it all out. You're going to be okay, nena. You're going to be okay."

But I didn't feel like I was going to be okay.

If anything, I felt like the exact opposite of the word.

First the dream and now the necklace...

Even though it happened years ago, the loss of Marcel was becoming permanent.

The memory of him I kept alive for so long was fading, taking everything I felt for him and had left of him with it.

♕♕♕

A few days have passed since the accident, and I was finally allowed to come back home last night. Even with all the shit going on within the company, Jace hasn't left my side once over the last few days, taking care of my every need.

Once news broke out that I woke and was—to a certain extent—okay, everyone started trickling into the hospital room to check up on me. It reminded me of what happened when I overdosed, everyone staying by my side, reminding me that I'd always have them.

It made me emotional, to say the least, but it somehow made the pain that came from losing my necklace easier.

I told Vivi about the dream after I finally finished crying, and my logic-driven soulmate just said, "It's a sign from him."

She was right.

Even though it hurt to admit, I knew that everything Marcel said in the dream was true. Somehow, during this arranged marriage, I started seeing Jace in a different light.

He went from being the man I was forced to marry to someone I genuinely cared for.

And it was scary.

When you're turned off from love for so long, suddenly feeling an influx of those emotions is daunting and overwhelming, especially when you spent the duration of the relationship suppressing those feelings.

But how could I keep suppressing it?

Especially when Jace did stuff like this.

The car accident was painful, but I was thankfully not too injured since I moved out of the way. I had years of doing martial arts and strengthening my reflexes in case of shit like this to thank.

Still, my left wrist and ankle being sprained from falling onto my side hurt like a bitch and was wrapped up with a brace that I couldn't get wet.

So, showering was practically impossible, which is why Jace was currently kneeling to the side of the bathtub, gingerly scrubbing my body.

"You can go harder than that, you know," I teased.

"As if," he snorted. "Your punishment for scaring me like that is this."

"What's this?"

"Gentle touches," he finished. "Only gentle touches."

It didn't take a genius to realize what he meant. As someone who liked having rough sex, this was definitely a torturous punishment.

He emphasized his point by lifting the leg that was hanging against the side of the tub up higher and softly bringing the cloth to my inner thigh. In smooth, tantalizing strokes, he rubbed against my skin, his fingers lightly grazing over my core.

"Jace," I moaned, inclining my body for more.

"Nope," he answered, pulling his hand back. "You're not tempting me, Venus."

"Are you sure about that?" I replied, snaking my arms around his neck, being careful of the sprained wrist.

He dropped the cloth in the water, his hands coming up to hold my face as he kissed me the way he was washing me: tenderly.

I was right when I said I would never get used to the feeling of his lips.

Every single time, they managed to take my breath away with their softness and expertise. The flutters in my stomach weren't ones of anxiety or reluctance, they were merely the parts of me that felt utterly dazed by the fact that he was mine.

Jace may never know how significant he is to me and that pain kills me.

He'll never know how deeply he has a hold on my heart.

He'll never know how long such a thing was considered impossible.

He'll just never know.

I sighed as his tongue ran along the seam of my lips, deciding to pull back.

"If you continue that, I'll have you the way I want you," I warned as he picked the cloth back up with a laugh, cleaning the rest of me.

"Trust me, Kimberly," he muttered. "You already have me."

Oh Jace, don't say stuff like that. I'll get too attached.

I can already feel how I would never be able to recover from losing him too. It would be my tipping point, and I couldn't—I wouldn't—go through that again.

"What are you doing today?" I asked, changing the subject.

He placed himself behind my body, taking extra precaution with how he was washing my hair. In the past few weeks, I was getting a glimpse of just how obsessed he was with my hair. His mere compliment in Brazil did nothing to express the affection he had for my natural waves.

Anytime I would go to straighten it or give it a blow out, he would immediately unplug the device and take it out of my hand.

'When I'm fucking you on my bed, I want to see this sprawled all over my pillow,' was what he said the first time I asked.

Needless to say, I obliged... to all of it.

It was time for me to take care of my natural hair anyway.

"I'm taking you to work with me," he asserted. "This is what I mean by you fucking me up. Leaving Mom in Philadelphia to come to New York was a lot fucking easier than leaving you twenty minutes away from me."

"I warned you," I hummed. "But why do you need to go to work today?"

"I have a meeting with Nathan Laurent," he replied, not seeing the way my eyes bulged.

My silence must've been a clue because he waited for my reaction. "Do you think he knew?"

"I don't know him well enough to determine that," he admitted. "Do you think he was involved?"

In the last couple of weeks, I definitely put a decent amount of thought into this. Nathan was Addison's age and the two of them went to Bellevue together before he transferred a couple years before David Shaw's death.

I never formally met him until the night of the gala when he touched Vivi, but I definitely knew about him. He was a cocky asshole for sure, but I didn't think he was capable of being an accomplice to murder or at least have some knowledge about it.

After all, he was only sixteen or seventeen at the time.

"Truthfully, I don't think he was," I replied. "I may not like him, but I don't think he's as bad as his dad."

"I guess we're about to find out."

♕♕♕

The Nathan Laurent standing before me wasn't the dipshit that I was used to.

He looked so... defeated.

I almost felt bad for him.

"Is it true?" He had a certain rigidity to his tone. The cocky, laidback, carefree playboy was no longer present. In his place was a boy who just found out how evil his father really is. "Did my father kill Dave?"

"That's more of a question for you to be answered," I muttered, flinching when his hand slammed against the table.

"This isn't a fucking joke, Astor," he growled out. "Just answer the fucking question."

Jace shot him a cold glare. "Don't speak to her like that."

"Spare me of this shitty display of affection," he retorted sarcastically. "I don't need it when my life has gone to pure and utter shit in the last few weeks."

Deciding that getting him out of here as fast as possible was the better option, I answered his question, "A source of mine had evidence that your father was one of the possible suspects in Shaw's death."

"Did he do it?" Nathan gritted out.

"The evidence about your father's ownership over the car from the accident was sealed, so he was never convicted," I explained, slightly annoyed with his tone. "I assume you would know something about it."

"Fuck off, Astor," he spat.

"Excuse me?" I raised an eyebrow.

"You act like you're so much better than me," he seethed. "News flash, we're the same fucked up person. The only difference if you have a family that gives a fuck about you. I may be genetically similar to that man, but he did not have a single fucking hand in raising me. Now, I'm just finding out that the only man who did give a shit about me was murdered by my fucking father. So, give me a fucking break from your judgment."

I'd be lying if I said his words didn't hit me like tiny tranquilizers.

He had a point. As much as I was ashamed to admit it, he had a really good point.

Deep down, I think it's why I disliked Nathan Laurent so much.

It was like looking into a fucking mirror sometimes and I didn't like what I saw.

And, given from both of their facial expressions, neither was expecting the next few words to come out of my mouth. "I apologize. I didn't mean to... I had a feeling you didn't know. I'm sorry for implying otherwise."

Maybe this was the first step to forgiving myself and finally moving forward.

Even though there were many differences between us, we were fundamentally the same.

Nathan took time to recover from my apology, as if he was imagining it happened in the first place. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat, avoiding my gaze. "I think I might have a clue as to where my father hides his shit. I'll send whatever I find your way."

"Thank you," Jace replied for the both of us.

Nathan turned back around, heading for the door. When his hand touched the handle, he looked back. "For what it's worth, I may be a little worse than you, but you're still kinda fucked up."

Without another word, he left. I scoffed, shaking my head. "Sometimes I really want to punch that guy... again."

"Don't take what he says to heart," Jace said, picking my legs up and putting them onto his lap.

I rested against the arms of the couch, breathing deeply.

"You never read the tabloids, Jace," I reasoned. "You don't know how bad it got. I was known for sleeping around, getting drunk or high, causing a scene... I may not be as much of an inappropriate, disturbing asshole as Nathan, but there's barely any shit that he's done that I haven't done. You would've hated me if you knew me back then."

"Not possible," Jace muttered. "You're like a contagious disease. I can't resist you no matter how many precautions I take."

"If being a CEO doesn't work out, you have a budding career in delivering back-handed compliments."

"With you as my subject," he laughed. "I have endless material."

I kicked him off the couch with my good leg, biting my cheek to prevent the smile from breaking out.

***

emotional damage.

also, nathan is def getting a redemption arc. (can y'all guess with whoooo?)

the way i have so many books planned for this series is wild. like who tf do i think i am?

anywho, i hope y'all enjoyed!

love, zia.