Stealing Cinderella(76)
“Where is she?” I demand. “I need to see her now.”
Charlotte’s jaw drops, and she stares at me in stunned silence before she reacts. “Oh, my God. Thorsen, as in Thorsen Lykken, the latest crowned King of Norway? That’s who I’ve been talking to? You were who Ella was working for?”
I glance around, looking for someone who can give me information.
“They came out five minutes ago and said she’s awake,” Olivia informs me. “They’ll come back to update us soon.”
“Awake?” I repeat in disbelief. How is that possible?
In a daze, I move toward the nurses’ station, and the woman behind the desk is scribbling something onto a notepad, not bothering to look up. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to see Ella Laurent, immediately. Show me where she is.”
“The doctor will be out soon enough to give you an update—”
“He’s the King of Norway.” Charlotte comes up beside me and hisses over the desk. “You better do what he says.”
The nurse lifts her chin, recognition dawning in her eyes, and she blinks several times before she seems to recover from her shock.
“Oh my God.” She discards her pen and stands up immediately. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness. I didn’t realize.”
“Take me to Ella,” I clip out. “I need to see her right now.”
She nods and walks around the desk, gesturing for us to follow her. Charlotte trails beside me, and Olivia joins us on the way down the hall. It feels like the longest walk of my life before the nurse finally pulls a curtain aside, and I see her.
She’s propped up on the bed with pillows behind her, struggling to keep her eyes open as the doctor asks her questions. When he sees us, his eyes narrow in on me.
“You aren’t allowed back here right now.”
“I’m not leaving.” I glare at him as I stalk toward Ella.
“He’s the King of Norway,” the nurse whispers.
The doctor’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline, and a moment later, he’s shaking his head in resignation. He knows better than to make a scene. This may not be my country, but I could royally fuck his whole world up with a few simple phone calls.
I take my rightful place at Ella’s bedside, and when her cloudy eyes find mine, she reaches out to touch me as if I’m not real.
“Thorsen?”
I take her hand and guide it to my chest, and it has the immediate effect of relaxing my entire body.
“Gudinne, what happened to you?”
She’s battered and bruised, and it looks like she’s been through hell all over again. But when she reads the agony in my eyes, she reacts as only Ella could, trying to comfort me even as she’s returning from the brink of death. She squeezes my hand, her warmth a balm to the raw wound that feels like a caged beast inside me. She’s awake, and she’s alive, but how? I still don’t understand.
“I didn’t take the oleander,” she tells me. “I dumped it out after I took it from you and replaced it with oil from your kitchen before I swapped the labels with the sleep elixir.”
The suffocating weight on my chest evaporates, and I kiss her hand a thousand times, thanking every god in the universe that fate hasn’t ripped her away. My fire-breathing goddess is still here. She still lives on.
“Why would you do that, Ella?” Charlotte asks as she comes to stand at the foot of her bed. “Why would you take the sleeping elixir? You gave us all a heart attack today. We thought—” Her voice splinters, emotion choking her ability to speak as Olivia tries to comfort her.
“I’m sorry.” Ella dips her head, and I can tell she’s hiding something. “I never meant for any of this to happen, and I want to explain everything. But can we talk about this later?”
“You can talk about it when you’re ready,” Olivia assures her.
“Okay.” Ella nods, her eyes heavy.
“She needs to rest,” the doctor tells us. “We’re moving her to a room for observation tonight.”
“I’m staying with her,” I inform him.
He sighs, but when Ella doesn’t argue, he gives up.
“Should we stay too?” Charlotte asks.
“Please don’t put yourselves out,” Ella says. “I can call you tomorrow morning when I’m feeling better.”
Both women reluctantly hug her and say their goodbyes before the doctor insists again on Ella’s rest. Once they’ve gone, the nurse wheels Ella up to a hospital room while I follow at her side. It takes another twenty minutes for them to check her vitals and give her a new IV bag, and by that time, she’s fast asleep again.
The weight of the day leaves me exhausted too, and when I collapse into the bedside chair, my head finds a home on her lap as my eyes fall shut. At some point, her fingers curl into my hair, and her presence lulls me into a peaceful sleep beside her.
33
Thorsen
The doctor comes to check on Ella one more time, asking her for more details of what happened today. When she gives him a vague response, he warns her that he could keep her on a hold at the hospital until she’s assessed and deemed mentally fit to leave on her own.