Chapter 3 - The Bruised Knee
Two private security guards, men Adrian had covertly hired weeks ago, stepped out from the shadows of the mezzanine. Their presence was silent and absolute. Without a word from Adrian, they flanked Vanessa, cutting off any route of escape.
"Escort Miss Blackwood to the north drawing room," Adrian ordered without looking at them. "Confiscate her phone, her keys, and her jewelry. She does not leave that room until Detective Miller arrives."
"You can't do this to me!" Vanessa screamed as a guard gripped her upper arm. Her composure had degraded into frantic hysteria. "Adrian! I gave you three years of my life! I stayed by your side when you were broken! You owe me!"
"You stayed by my side to monitor my breathing until you could find a way to stop it," Adrian said, turning his back on her.
Her venomous shouts faded down the vaulted gallery as the heavy double doors clicked shut behind her.
The silence returned, thick and painful. Adrian exhaled a long, heavy breath, the posture of iron authority slipping just enough to reveal the exhaustion beneath. He knelt down slowly, his movements fluid and natural, coming eye-to-eye with Emma on the cold floor.
"Let me look at your leg," he said gently.
"Don't," Emma whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. She tried to pull herself up against the wheelchair, but a sharp wince escaped her lips as her weight shifted onto her injured knee.
Adrian didn't ask for permission this time. He caught her by the waist and lifted her effortlessly into his arms. Emma gasped, her hands instinctively clutching his lapels. Up close, she could feel the steady, powerful rhythm of his heartbeat and the sheer physical strength she had assumed was gone forever.
"Adrian, put me down," she pleaded, looking away from his intense gaze.
"You took a blow meant for my spine, Emma. The least I can do is carry you to the sofa," he replied.
He carried her into his private study, a room lined with dark mahogany shelves and smelling of aged paper and cedar. Setting her down gently on the leather chesterfield, he knelt before her, retrieving a medical kit from the low cabinet beside his desk.
With practiced, gentle hands, he cut away the torn fabric of her stocking, exposing the deep purple bruising and raw scrape on her kneecap. He soaked a cotton pad in antiseptic and applied it. Emma hissed in pain, her fingers digging into the leather cushion.
"I'm sorry," Adrian murmured, his head bowed as he bandaged the wound. "Not just for the knee. For making you carry the weight of a dying man when I was already standing."
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Emma looked down at the crown of his dark head. "Why couldn't you trust me, Adrian? Out of everyone in that house, I stayed. When your board abandoned you, when your friends stopped visiting... I was the one who held your hand through the nightmares."
Adrian looked up, his grey eyes burning with an emotion he had kept locked away for too long. "Because the person who tampered with my steering column seven months ago knew my exact itinerary. They knew my security codes. It had to be someone close to me. If Vanessa suspected that you knew I was recovering, your life would have been in danger. The only way to keep you safe was to make sure you believed the lie as deeply as she did."
