Be With Me: Chapter 27

“Mia. Mia, can you hear me?”

She was completely limp. Her forehead pressed against my chest as I held her upright, her arms hanging slack at her sides.

Panic thundered in my ears, drowning out the music.

I shook her lightly. “Mia.”

She didn’t respond.

“Fuck.” I had to get her out of here. To a doctor. To someone who could help her and tell me what the fuck had just happened.

My hands tightened on her waist, ready to haul her over my shoulder so I could carry her through the crowd fireman style, but then she stirred.

“Hey. You okay?”

She tipped her head back, looking at me with unfocused eyes through her mask. Her skin was paler than usual, her forehead glistening with a thin layer of sweat. She blinked at me, confused.

“Say something,” I pleaded. My heart felt like it was on the brink of stopping. What was this? Not exhaustion. She was fine seconds ago when she was negotiating with me. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was unconscious.

This wasn’t normal. Was she sick?

“Get me out of here.” Her voice was weak. She clasped my shoulder with one hand. “I need air.”

“I’ve got you.”

I led her through the crowd, my arm wrapped securely around her waist. The people around us scattered the moment they saw the murderous look on my face. We moved quickly, weaving through the galleries filled with milling guests until we reached the exit and stepped out into the cool evening air.

Mia ripped off her mask and sucked in a deep breath. She was still tucked against me, and I wasn’t planning on letting go of her anytime soon.

She’d said not to let her fall. Like she’d known what was coming. Whatever this was, it hadn’t been a surprise to her the way it’d been to me.

We sat down on the front steps of the museum. Her color was slowly returning. I rubbed my palm against her hip. “Better?”

“Yeah.” She pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead and sighed. “It always happens at the worst time.”

It. What the fuck was it, exactly? I wanted to interrogate her and demand a full review of her medical history, but since I was the guy who’d just told her he wanted to fuck her out of his system a few minutes ago, it didn’t feel like I’d earned the right.

I didn’t just want to fuck her. But it was the one thing I thought she might actually give me.

And she’d been ready to.

Until “it”happened.

Funny how the only fucking thing I wanted now was for her to be okay.

“Is ‘it’ curable?” I asked, watching her closely.

“No.”

My stomach plummeted. I refused to believe that. She just needed a better doctor. I doubted Morales had gone out of his way to get his daughter the best care she could get, given how busy he was showing his fucking face on every TV network in the city. Obviously, she wasn’t a priority.

Mia twisted under my arm, her gaze meeting mine. “Kassandra. Is she… Please tell me she’s okay.”

“She’s in Vermont. Opening a new studio.” I needed to get someone to hack into Mia’s medical records so that I could have the full picture. We had people on our team who could do it—Jimmy. Clive. If needed, I’d even ask fucking Messero for some help.

She exhaled in relief. “Next time—although I pray there is no next time—lead with that, would you? The words ‘dealt with Kassandra’ coming from someone like you could mean a variety of things.”

“Yeah. Fine,” I said, distracted. I couldn’t give a fuck about Kassandra, but of course, Mia, who’d just fucking collapsed, was worried more about others than herself.

She rolled her head, sighed, and straightened out her back. “Okay. Let’s go.”

We did need to go. To a doctor who could examine her and run every test there was to run.

I made a signal to the guy behind the valet stand. He nodded and broke into a light jog to get my car. It wasn’t far from the entrance. I’d handed him a bill when I arrived to park it up front.

“I’ll text you my address.”

I gave her a sharp look. Her address? “What for?”

A blush colored her cheeks. “We’re going to my place, right? Like we…discussed.”

My face twitched. Was she crazy? She still wanted to fuck tonight?

Yeah. No. Not until I knew what was happening to her and had a detailed plan for how to fix it.

“Wanna tell me what’s wrong with you first?”

She dropped her hands in her lap and stared out into the street. “I don’t see why I should.”

Un-fucking-believable. “How about because I want to be sure you don’t have another episode like that while I’m inside you?”

The blush deepened. “That’s not how it works.”

My Aston Martin appeared in front of us. I helped her to her feet, deposited her into the passenger seat, and went around to the driver’s side.

I untied my mask and tossed it into the center console while the car’s engine purred to life. Doc lived in Midtown, not far from here. I didn’t make a habit of showing up at his place—he usually came to us—but it would be faster that way.

My foot pressed on the gas.

“I live in East Village,” she said.

“I know where you live.”

“Uh, okay. We’ll come back to how you know that after you tell me why you’re taking us the wrong way.”

“I’m taking you to a doctor.” And I was going to be in the same room where I could hear everything being said. Whatever this was, there was bound to be some clinical trial somewhere that would get her all back to good.

“Romolo, I don’t need to see a doctor. I told you, I’m fine.”

“And I’ve decided to ignore you, since you’re obviously not. People don’t just pass out like that while in the middle of a dance,” I ground out, frustrated by her nonchalance.

She rubbed her temples. “I can’t risk being seen with you at a hospital.”

“I’m not taking you to a hospital. I’m taking you to my family’s doctor. He’s on our payroll, and he won’t say a word to anyone.”

“That’s unnecessary. You need to calm down.”

“I am calm.” The fuck I was. I was angry at her for being so cagey and at the world for making her sick in the first place.

“It’s called vasovagal syncope.”

Panic gripped my chest. That sounded bad. Terrible, really. Did it have something to do with seizures? Was it a brain condition? Fuck.

She huffed. “God, you look like I just told you I’m dying.”

“Are you?”

“No. It’s a condition where the vagus nerve overreacts to certain triggers. It makes your heart rate and blood pressure drop suddenly, causing you to faint.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I just try to manage it. It’s not a big deal.”

That was objectively untrue. “What if you were behind the wheel?”

“I rarely drive. I don’t even own a car.”

“And if you’re alone somewhere? With no one there to catch you?”

She hesitated. “Yeah…that could be dangerous. But it’s never happened when I’m alone. It usually happens when I get some surprising news.” She shot me a look. “Like when someone tells me they ran my rival out of town.”

My shoulders squared. I caused this?

“Why did you do that, Romolo?”

I stopped at a red light and closed my eyes for a second. Jesus fucking Christ. She’d just cost me a decade of my life—first from worrying that this was some incurable disease that would put her in an early grave, and now from realizing that I was the one who’d triggered the episode.

“Because I fucking felt like it, all right?” I snapped. I couldn’t tell her it was because taking care of her problems gave me some sick sense of satisfaction. Because I’d derived pleasure from putting someone who’d hurt her in their place. These urges, these feelings, were all so fucking new to me, and I was still figuring out how to deal with them all.

At the next intersection, I took a right turn in the direction of her apartment.

“I’m sorry,” I bit out. “For making you pass out.”

Her stare warmed my cheek. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.” A beat passed. “You can make it up to me.”

My gaze sliced her way. “I’m not convinced you’re well enough to handle what I want to do to you.”

“I can handle it,” she said coyly.

I scanned her for any sign she wasn’t fine.

Her color had fully returned. She was biting lightly on her bottom lip as she stared ahead, like she had something on her mind.

I’d bet my entire fucking fortune that something was me and her destroying her bed.

My cock thickened. If she was game, who was I to deny her? And based on where we’d left our negotiation, all she was giving me was this one night.

Of course, I planned to use the night to convince her to give me another.

Then another.

Then another.

I’d take whatever scraps she gave me until the inevitable wave of destruction that always followed me got too close to the shore.

And when it did, I’d walk away. For good.