Stay With Me(28)

She smiled. “Thank you.”

She walked as quickly as she could to the elevator and was grateful when it opened and someone got off just as she approached. She stepped inside, inserted her keycard then punched the button for the top floor.

As the elevator soared upward, she wavered and reached out to brace herself. A searing bolt of pain speared through her side, and she doubled over in agony.

She gasped as wave upon wave splintered through her body. She cried out in pain and then again in fear. Her baby. She couldn’t lose her baby.

Her knees buckled, and she grabbed at the railing. Her vision dimmed, and she couldn’t breathe for the horrific, burning pain.

She was vaguely aware of hitting the floor, and then mercifully, blackness enfolded her.

Chapter Fourteen

Logan let the phone ring until the answering machine picked up then he hung up for the fortieth time. Then he dialed Catherine’s cell phone. Again. He swore when it went straight to voicemail.He and Rhys stood outside the door of passenger pickup waiting for their driver, and both men wore extremely grim expressions.

Rhys, too, was on the phone, talking to Paige. When he slapped the phone shut, jaw clenched, Logan knew he hadn’t been any more successful gaining information about Catherine.

“What did she say?” Logan asked.

“The same as the last time,” Rhys said tersely. “She talked to Catherine right after she got off the plane. She took a cab home, and she was pissed.”

Logan blew out his breath. Hard to do around the sick feeling in his stomach.

“We blew it,” Rhys said. “All we had to goddamn do was come home when we said we were, and we f**king blew it. Goddamn Kingston.”

Logan silently agreed. Even though he’d finally told Kingston to take his f**king deal and shove it up his ass, it had been too little too late. Kingston had dicked them around from the beginning, high on a power trip and goaded by his ego.

He’d loved jacking him and Rhys around, having them at his beck and call. He’d dangled the hotel deal in front of their noses then watched with glee when they jumped when he said jump.

Logan and Rhys had gone through the motions. One more hour. A few more hours. One more meeting until it added up to two f**king days, and they’d stood there knowing that once again, they’d shit on Catherine and for what? A few more million dollars?

In a moment of complete and utter clarity, Logan realized that it would never be enough. And in the end, he’d be left standing with everything and nothing all at the same time.

Telling Kingston to go f**k himself was freeing. Realizing that it was in all likelihood too late had thrust a knife into Logan’s gut that he still hadn’t been able to remove.

When the car pulled around, he and Rhys threw their bags in and jumped in after them. All the way home, Logan relived those last moments in Jamaica with Catherine. The worry and sadness on her face as she contemplated being shoved aside once more.

He’d assured her. He’d promised her. And once again, he’d failed her.

Would she be there? God, he hoped so. He couldn’t face being without her. They were going to need a lot of time to mend their relationship and to regain her trust.

When they pulled up to the apartment, he and Rhys jumped out. Before they made it to the entrance, Stuart nearly ran them over.

“Mr. Cullen, Mr. Wellesley, I’m so glad to see you. How is Mrs. Wellesley? Will she be released from the hospital soon?”

The older man was clearly agitated, and he wrung his hands in rapid fashion. Rhys stared at Stuart with an open mouth, and fear lodged solidly in Logan’s throat. He tried to speak, to demand to know what Stuart was talking about, but all that came out was a garbled exclamation.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rhys asked.

Stuart paled and then stared down at their bags as if just realizing that they’d come back into town. “You don’t know.”

“Know what?” Logan snarled, finally finding his voice.

“Mrs. Wellesley arrived home two days ago. I met her at the door and sent her up to the apartment. She clearly wasn’t feeling well. I collected her bags, and when I went to bring them up, I found her in the elevator unconscious. I summoned an ambulance, and she was rushed to the hospital.”

A buzz began in Logan’s ears, loud, incessant, swarming like a hoard of angry bees.

“What hospital?” Rhys demanded.

Logan barely waited for the answer before he bolted back to the car. Rhys piled in beside him as Logan told the driver to get them to the hospital.

“What could be wrong?” Rhys asked in a shaky voice. “She seemed fine when we left her. She was quiet, not exactly herself, but I chalked that up to her disappointment over our leaving.”

Logan closed his eyes. Disappointment. Yeah, that was one way to put it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t f**king know. But we should have been here. Goddamn it, if we’d met her plane, we would have been here when she needed us.”

Rhys closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. He was fighting for control, and Logan could certainly sympathize. He was ready to explode in a hundred different directions. Only the thought that Catherine was in a hospital, that she needed him and Rhys, kept him from losing his cool.

When the driver pulled around to the hospital, both men jumped out and ran inside to the information desk. The receptionist eyed them warily but looked up the information they asked for without comment.