The Art of You

“Thank you for taking them out. I just . . . when I see that many flowers together, it makes me remember . . .” I shivered, and my mother covered me with a second blanket.

“I know, I hate flowers, too. Reminds me of when Bianca died.” My mother said what I couldn’t. “But these flowers are to celebrate life and not mourn death.” She smoothed the back of her hand across my forehead, inspecting my bruises. “I thought I lost you.” Her voice wavered as she shook her head. “When I heard what happened, it was like I was reliving Bianca’s death all over again.”

I removed her hand from my face and squeezed it. “But you didn’t lose me. Happy flowers, not sad ones, remember?” My mother had worried her way into my room every hour since I’d first arrived at the hospital, and she’d been momming me nonstop.

“Hey, up for more company?” At the sound of my sister-in-law’s voice, I peeked around my mom to see Callie in the doorway. “Late for coffee, I know, but I brought some just in case.”

I’d lost track of time at this point. It was Saturday, that much I knew. “Come in.” I let go of my mother’s hand to wave Callie in. “Get some rest, Mom.”

“I’ll rest when you’re no longer in a hospital bed.” She kissed the top of my head, walked to the door, and gave Callie a quick forearm pat before she left.

Growing hot again, I lowered the blankets to the bottom of the bed. “This hospital gown is quite the downgrade from the ball gown I had on last night.” My lame attempt to make a joke was intended to hopefully ease Callie’s anxiety about all of this. The woman had been through so much this past summer, and the last thing she needed was to be dragged into hell because Alessandro had her fly up for what was supposed to be a quickie.

Callie set both cups she’d been holding on the rolling cart. That agent’s coffee mug “gift” had long since been tossed into the trash.

She glanced over at my brothers talking in the hallway, most likely speaking in Italian since they were surrounded by men and women with badges. “How are you feeling?”

I leaned back against the pillow, unsure if relaxing was even possible. “I’m just⁠—”

My words died when Hudson joined my brothers in the hall. He was dressed in jeans and a black tee but had a cane for support. His gaze slowly drifted my way before he gave the guys a nod and started for my room.

“I’ll come back,” Callie said quickly, dismissing herself before I could stop her, too fixated on Hudson’s slow walk to my bed.

The fact he’d changed was a good sign. The cane? Not so much.

“Quit your worrying, it’s just for balance. The drugs are almost out of my system, then I should be fine.” He gave me an unexpected and ridiculously handsome smile. “How are you? And don’t lie to me.”

I was dying to reach out and touch him. Dive my fingers through his messy hair. He already had a five o’clock shadow on his jaw. His beard always had a bit more of a coppery-brown color to it than the darker hair on his head. Such an odd thing for me to notice right now. “I’m better now that you’re next to me.”

Pressing his free hand beside me on the bed, he shocked me by leaning in to kiss my forehead. Before pulling back, he murmured, “I’m so sorry I put you here.” He lifted his head to find my eyes, our noses nearly touching. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

While fighting back tears at the emotion in his voice, I used my good arm to reach up and hold his bicep. “I thought we established earlier you owe me no apologies. It was my fault we’d pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Just screams horror movie. And I was the one being avoidant, giving you attitude and acting like a total stubborn pain in the⁠—”

“Don’t do this. That’s an order.” He’d tried to come across as teasing, but he couldn’t lose the worry in his tone any more than my brothers could whenever they’d spoken to me today. “Do you know how many things could’ve happened to you while I was out cold? If you’d been⁠—”

“But they didn’t happen. I mean, not to us. Two people died, but I think we can all agree they were playing for team bad guy. So, you know, their funerals.” Quite literally.

“Isabella.” He frowned and pushed away from the bed, forcing me to let go of his arm.

“Hud-son,” I emphasized his name right back. “You kicking yourself for all the what-could-have-beens does just about as much good as me beating myself up for distracting you last night.” At his signature scowl he seemed to enjoy reserving for me, I copied his deep exhalation with one of my own, worried I wasn’t getting through to him.

“You know how hard it is for me to look at your black eye and your arm in that sling?” His voice was raw and hoarse with emotion. “Your brothers almost lost their sister.”

Again. I heard the unspoken word. It’d been jostling around in my head, too.

“Was it the FBI keeping you away from me since I left your room, or did you not want to look at me?”

His forehead creased. “A little of both?” At least he was being honest.

“I want you to be angry, not sad.” I held on to my sling like a safety blanket. “What I mean is that we need to focus on who put us here in the first place and why. Channel our frustrations into something useful and solve this case. I thought we were on the same page about this. Did those Feds get into your head? Did Agent Asshole visit you, too? Are you having doubts about what happened?”

“You mean Clarke? Yeah, he tried to mindfuck me and failed. Constantine told me he did the same to you. Word is I might need a defense lawyer. After the hell you gave that man, sounds like you’d be up for the job.” His lips twitched, fighting a surprising smile. “Thanks for having my six.”

“Always.” The word came out like a breath of air, because I’d been caught off guard at how charming he’d come across discussing potential murder charges.

“But no, no one got into my head. Least of all that prick.” He dropped his smile while staring at my bruised face, and his blue eyes quickly went from disarming determination to full-on devastation.

Eyes cast to the ground, I couldn’t help but swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, needing him to stop seeing me as a sick patient.

“Don’t avoid looking at me just because it’s hard to do.” I mean, it hurts me to look at you, too. But I wouldn’t admit that. I swallowed that last bit of space between us, my body practically flush with his. I was fully aware my brothers were in the hall, and they had to see this confrontation happening, but I didn’t care. “Look at me and let these bruises motivate you to find the real shooter instead.”

His nostrils flared. Mine probably were, too. But my words were working. He righted his posture, becoming a statue of intimidation again. And his eyes? They were a deep, lethal blue as the need for justice simmered there. Definitely anger over sadness and worry now.

He swung his focus to the hall a beat later. I was certain Constantine’s presence there was the reason for Hudson’s three backward steps away from me. “We need to find a place to lie low for a few days.”

His father pretty much insisted the same thing earlier, and I was in agreement. “But where do we go? How do we get clear of everyone? There’s so much media and police here, you’d think Taylor Swift’s inside the building.” I sidestepped him to go over to the window to take another look down below.

“Bella,” he bit out at the same moment I felt the draft at my back.

And of course, the gown had come untied. I hadn’t planned for that little tease, because this wasn’t the time or the place for it, but knowing the man might be staring at my ass did manage to distract my thoughts from the darkness we’d been cloaked in all day.

I looped the strings together and whirled around while knotting the tie. “Tell me I didn’t moon anyone else?”

Jaw clenched and eyes narrowing on mine in frustration suggested he hadn’t turned away from the free show. “I must be blocking their view, or your brothers would already be in here lecturing you.”

Good point.

“But I saw, so thank you for that,” he gritted out.

“Well, at least it’s one part of me not bruised. I mean, it’s not, is it?” I stole a look over my shoulder, pretending to check out my own ass. “I can’t even get you to crack a smile after seeing my crack. I’m losing my touch.”

“Glad to see your sense of humor wasn’t lost on the side of that road last night. Mine was.”

“Since when did you have one?” Teasing this man was much more preferable to remembering why we were in the hospital in the first place. Ignorance is bliss is an expression for a reason, after all.

He fake-scowled, which was adorable until he winced, rubbing his jaw from the pain his facial expression had caused. “We were talking about something before you exposed yourself, what was it?”

“Exposed, huh? Makes me sound like a streaker running through Times Square.”

And score, another smile from the man.

“We’d been talking about how to escape the hospital without having the press breathing down our necks,” I finally relinquished the answer while doing a mental victory lap at the fact Hudson wasn’t immune to my charms after all. At least not to my ass. The fact I was thinking about this right now meant I was probably overdue for an appointment with my therapist. “That’s assuming the FBI will let us go.”

“The Feds can’t keep us. Seems to me you did an even better job than I did at outlining all the reasons why I’m innocent.”

Minus accidentally admitting you were carrying last night to that Clarke guy.

His attention flicked to the window. “We’ve been ordered to remain available, though.”

“So, we have to stay in New York, right? No running away to Italy, then?”

Eyes back on me, he shot out a sarcastic, “Real funny.”

“I wasn’t joking.” I shrugged and had to clamp down on my molars to hide a grimace so he wouldn’t worry. My shoulder was feeling pretty good there for a minute. “Maybe somewhere we can take a helicopter so no driving will be needed.”

“We can probably make that work,” he responded after quietly studying me, easily making the connection as to why I’d prefer a helo to a car.

Like almost dying in one last night.

“We should take your family’s bird. My father would prefer to keep his hands as clean of this mess as possible.” His tone dipped lower and borderline icy when mentioning the governor.

“Even though he’s kind of why we’re here.” I was glad his father sought us out for help so we could save Lola’s life, but he wasn’t handling the aftermath of that decision so well. Not that I’d say it aloud, but from where I stood, his priority was ensuring none of this would hinder his chances at winning next year’s election.

“My father’s concern will always be about his job first and how to ensure he keeps it.”

I really wanted to hug him right now. Make up for all the affection he’d missed out on over the years. But my brothers were still lurking in the hall, and I didn’t want to cause Hudson any grief with them. Constantine would die for his best friend, but apparently, he would also kill him if Hudson ever crossed whatever lines he felt were inappropriate.

So, I got back in bed instead of wrapping this man up in my arms, denying the blanket of solace he seemed to need.

I removed the sling from my arm, discarding it on the rolling cart. “I take it Alessandro told you he couldn’t access the video footage from the party?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“And I assume you talked to Adelina?”

He nodded. “Only over the phone. The director wouldn’t let her come down here yet. She’ll meet up with us tomorrow.”

“And was she able to shed any light on anything, or was it too risky to chat details over the phone?”

“We couldn’t talk about the case. The Feds were probably listening in.”

Of course they were. “We should be on the same team as the FBI, and here we are feeling like their enemy.” This sucks.

“Your brothers filled her in about what we discussed earlier, though.”

“I know the Feds won’t share anything earth-shattering unless it’s because they’re charging us with something, but will she keep us in the loop?”

“Yeah, for sure.” He shot me an uneasy look. “I did manage to learn one minor detail from one of the Feds investigating the crash earlier. The fuses to my airbag were disconnected, but they’re saying it’s possible the wiring system was faulty and it wasn’t tampered with.”

“Faulty my ass.”

“It’s possible they didn’t screw with my airbag, though. If they needed us alive, they wouldn’t want to risk killing me.”

True but . . . “They could’ve been aiming to only kill you, assuming I’d give in easier when pressed for a location about their kidnapper friends.” There was a hole with that theory, too, though. “But I suppose if that were the case, our mystery person who fled the scene wouldn’t have left you alive, either.”

“Unfortunately, right now, we have more questions than answers. Regardless of the situation with my airbag, all I know is that I’m relieved yours was okay. If anything⁠—”

“Nope, we’re not doing that. If you start the blame train, I’ll pick it up and run with it myself. So, if you want me to feel guilty, then by all means . . .”

The man had a black eye and bruises, but he still rolled his eyes at me.

I stole a look at my brothers in the hall talking. They were too far away to hear us, and I couldn’t eavesdrop on them either. “So much for this being a quick weekend op. Enzo should go back to Maria, don’t you think? We need to make him. He’ll want to stay, but it’s hard for him to be away from her when she’s pregnant.”

“I’ve already talked to Constantine about that, and he agrees. He’ll ride Enzo hard and ensure he’s on a plane tomorrow. Monday at the latest.”

“What about Alessandro? Doesn’t Callie need to get back to her life in Nashville?”

“She’s as stubborn as your brother. Both of them are staying until this case is resolved.”

I should’ve felt guilty about that, but I didn’t exactly hate the idea of having my sister-in-law here with me.

“But what I need from you right now, is to finish that conversation we started last night.”

I conjured up memories from our unfinished roadside chat and shook my head no. “Now isn’t the time.”

He stared at me as if I had two heads. “This is precisely the right time.”

“We have too much to deal with now to worry about something so trivial.” My eyes betrayed me, shooting to the window. Of course Kit was out there. No way she wouldn’t chase down a story involving the two of us.

“Trivial my ass. You were upset because of something, and you mentioned feeling like you were being watched.”

His worried tone triggered my gaze to rush back to him, a tired sigh falling from my lips. “It has nothing to do with what’s happening now. Why don’t we handle this problem first, and if there’s time left over, we can handle mine.” If it’s even still a problem by then.

“I don’t give a damn if your problem is unrelated to what’s going on. It’s important to me. I need to know.” The authoritative bite in his voice nearly had me submitting to him, which wasn’t my normal go-to response.

I typically tested out the dish of defiance with a side of attitude before I ultimately gave in to one of my brothers or the stubborn man before me.

“Talk.” The command sailed even lower that time.

“Fine.” Eyes on the blanket, I revealed, “Yesterday, someone dropped off an envelope. No address on it. No writing at all. Callie brought it to me when she’d come to my room to help zip me up.” I clutched the blanket tighter to my chest. “Inside the envelope was a photo from an article—the one Kit wrote when Bianca died. Remember the photo of me standing in the rain? The one Kit used for her story?”

I worked up the courage to meet his eyes, and his shallow breaths and lack of blinking worried me. I should have waited to share.

Too late now.

“That’s why I was so freaked out. Because why in the world would someone anonymously send it to me, especially that specific photo? And then I could’ve sworn someone was watching us from the fourth floor in the building across from us when we got into the Porsche. But after seeing Kit at the party, I’m sure it was her trying to screw with me.”

“What?” That was all I got from him. That one shocked word. And yet, there was an entire lecture packed inside those four letters.

I know, I know. It’s beyond messed up.

“It can’t be a coincidence she was at the party and approached us like she did the same night I got a photo tied to her article. I don’t remember her on the original guest list, which means someone tipped her off we’d be there, and she was a late addition to the press pool. I have no clue why she’s messing with me, but at least we know it was her trying to get into my head, not some psycho-weirdo watching me.”

Using my decent arm, I waved my hand in the air, working to wrestle his attention back to my face, hoping to calm him down. “See, I know that look. Eyes glazed over in anger. You’re breathing hard without opening your mouth. You’re upset.”

“Of course I’m upset.” He didn’t grant me his eyes. Instead, his lashes fell like a curtain, jaw locked and loaded with tension, restraint barely controlled.

The man before me could easily double-tap someone in the right spot to ensure an expedient death. Not that I believed he killed Eduardo and Chris, but he wouldn’t hesitate to neutralize a threat. Maybe not completely end their lives, though. He saw things a bit more black and white when it came to killing, whereas my brothers swam deep in the gray when dealing with evil.

Although Hudson had been with my brothers when they killed the man they’d thought had murdered Bianca years ago, he hadn’t actively partaken in the man’s death. But the guilt he’d felt for allowing it to happen weighed heavily enough on his conscience that he eventually turned in his badge.

“Did you check your home’s security footage to see who dropped off the envelope?” He opened his eyes, pinning me with a worried look.

“I didn’t have time. You were outside my bedroom door, and we had to go. I didn’t want to distract you from the mission, so I kept my mouth shut. I planned to look after the party.”

He peered at me for five long seconds. I knew, because I counted in my head.

“Kit’s normal methods for acquiring a story may be unethical, but I can’t imagine she’s behind sending you the photo.” He turned to the side, eyeing my brothers still hovering in the hallway.

“They don’t need to know. Not now. Enzo won’t leave, and he needs to.” The protest was weak because I knew Hudson wouldn’t listen no matter what. “They have their hands full trying to solve two murders. The last thing anyone should be doing is worrying about me.”

His cane clicked against the ground as he swiveled back around. “Don’t ask me to do the impossible. It’ll never happen.” His blue eyes thinned as his chest puffed up from a deep inhalation.

“And what’s that?” I asked, letting go of that deep breath on his behalf.

“To not worry about you.” His words sat heavy in the air, and I positioned my hand on my stomach at the fluttery feeling there.

He bowed his head, more than likely collecting his thoughts. Then he quietly reached for my TV remote on the rolling cart. He flipped the station to the golf channel and lowered the volume.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he set aside the remote.

“I’m going to go talk to your brothers and find out who the hell dropped that photo off at your house. And see who lives on the fourth floor across the street.” He tipped his head toward the hall. “What you’re going to do is sleep while a few of the officers hanging out by the nurses’ station post outside your door to keep an eye on you.”

“I don’t understand.” I mean, I did. He was being his typical, broody, protective self, but . . .

“Golf helps you sleep,” he clarified, reading my confusion. “I know you don’t play or care about the sport, so I assume those magazines by your bed are how you fall asleep at night. Plus, you’ve passed out in your office before with the golf channel open on your phone.”

He was observant, I’d give him that. Really freaking observant. Came in handy with his previous line of work, I supposed. But then I remembered and sputtered, “The magazines. I put the photo between them before I opened my door for you. I left the envelope sitting on the desk in my room. It’s a plain white one, nothing unique or special about it.”

“I’ll send Alessandro over for the photo when he checks your cameras.”

“They’re going to overreact.” The last thing I want.

“As they should. Now go to sleep.” A subtle lift of the chin accompanied his order. “In the morning, we’ll get out of here. I’ll have Callie pack you a bag.”

Like I can sleep now. “Promise to wake me if you learn anything?”

“No.” He gestured toward the TV with his cane, his balance seemingly okay now. “Sleep.”

I decided to battle my way through the uncomfortable tension in the room with another joke. It’d helped before, so maybe it would now. “Only if you kiss me goodnight.”

His eyes raced to my mouth as if he was actually contemplating doing it.

I wasn’t about to get my hopes up, but the little crook of his lips into a semi-smile had me inhaling sharply.

“You want to get me into trouble, don’t you?” His voice was deep and seductive, and despite everything that’d happened since yesterday, I’d swear this man was begging me with his eyes to say yes.

The air was charged. The energy in the room had changed. I couldn’t quite describe it with words—I wasn’t the writer in the family—but it was a feeling. Deep down in my soul, I could reach out and touch it, the change happening. The shift between us.

The accident, photo, and two homicides hanging over our heads felt as though they were part of a Lifetime movie and irrelevant to our lives.

Pinning my tongue to the roof of my mouth, I worked hard to keep quiet and not kill the moment happening between us. I didn’t want to think about how I nearly lost him last night. That we could’ve died.

“What are you thinking?” The murmur escaped like the fine strokes of a calligraphy pen brushing the air.

The ink barely had time to dry as his husky voice replied, “Nothing good.”

There were so many ways I could interpret that, but he turned and walked out of the room without giving me a chance for a follow-up.

You felt that, too, didn’t you? There is something between us. It’s not one-sided.

Instead of watching golf like he wanted me to, I focused on the hall as he spoke to my brothers. I knew the second he told them about the photo because they all abruptly faced my room.

They were overbearing, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d do whatever they demanded for the sake of my safety, even if their overprotective measures drove me nuts.

Because the last thing in the world I wanted to put any of them through was the pain of losing another sister.