Chapter 14 The results
Sleeping in the same room as a man who can kill you with a look is a great way to ensure you never actually reach REM sleep.
I lie perfectly still, my eyes closed tight shut while my heart hammers in my chest. The weight of Alistair’s presence at the edge of the mattress is making me hit. It’s an unexplainable type of heat. A heat that radiates through the silk sheets and prickles at my skin. My lungs feel small, like they can only take in half breaths. Just when I think the tension is going to snap my spine, the mattress shifts.
Alistair stands up.
I wait a few seconds, even counting my breath to pass the time and then I hear the sound of his feet.
I want to believe that he has stepped away from the bed. Even though I’m not a hundred percent sure that he has, I open my eyes by a fraction so I can see what’s happening.
I first see his silhouette, a tall, dark shadow on the closet created by the moonlight. He doesn’t say a word or look at me. He just walks across the room, the soft sound of his bare feet on the marble disappearing into the plush rug of the sitting area.
I watch him lay the blanket on the sofa and lie down facing up. Then he turns to the other side, his back turned to me. Then he turns again to face up, and because the room is so quiet, I hear him grunt.
He must be uncomfortable.
I bite my lips and contemplate inviting him to join me for a second but I quickly kill the idea.
It’s nerve-racking enough being in the same room with him. I don’t think I’ll survive a full night in the same bed with him.
I watch as he raises his hand up and then claps twice. The sound sends us into total darkness as I realize that the call controls the lights.
Fancy.
He moves again and this time, the sofa creaks under his weight. But in any case, see which direction he turned to.
I let out a breath so long and shaky it feels like my ribs are finally expanding for the first time since midnight. My muscles go limp, sinking into the silver duvet. He’s on the sofa. I’m in bed. The invisible line in the sand has been drawn, and for now, the wolf is staying on his side of the forest. I close my eyes but sleep doesn’t come to me immediately.
I wonder where he’s facing now. Is he facing up, the other side, or is he facing me? I don’t know why I care where he’s facing but I do.
And the thought keeps me awake for a long time. I eventually start to count sheep and then I listen to the sound of the distant ocean waves.
***
What wakes me up from my dreamless sleep is a sharp rapping sound on the heavy oak door of the room. Sunlight is pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows, turning the room into a cage of gold and glass.
If I thought this room was breathtaking last night, I wasn’t ready for what it looks like right now.
"Mr. Wolfe? Miss Emily?"
It must be one of the maids, and she sounds breathless. That probably means whatever news she has to deliver is urgent. "The Old Madam is in the breakfast room," she continues. "Dr. Aris has returned with the laboratory results. They’re requesting your presence downstairs immediately."
My stomach does a nervous flip. This is it. The moment my future in the Wolfe family is decided by a chemical breakdown. I sit up, pushing my hair out of my face and scanning the room for Alistair.
I find him already standing by the vanity. He’s fully dressed in a nice dark green suit, looking as if he’s been awake for hours. He doesn’t look like a man who spent the night on a sofa. He looks like a man ready to go to war.
"Take a shower. I’ll wait for you and we’ll head downstairs together."
I nod and climb out of the bed, my legs feeling a bit unsteady. Alistair watches me for a moment and his eyebrows twitch.
"You good?" He asks and I nod.
"I’m confident in myself and what my mother taught me," I reply then walk to meet him by the vanity just before he reaches for his watch.
"Yesterday, in front of everyone... You agreed to the divorce wager. You told your grandmother you’d give up your position as head of the family rather than let her drive me out. Why? Weren’t you afraid I was wrong about the medicine? Weren’t you afraid I was just some fraud from the sticks?"
Alistair stops. He adjusts the silver cufflink on his left wrist with a slow, deliberate motion. He turns his head toward me, the morning light catching the sharp, clean line of his jaw. He’s a stunning man.
"I wasn’t afraid," he says. "I trust your judgment, Emily. I saw the way you handled that syringe. I saw the way you looked at her. You didn’t look like a girl playing a part. You looked like someone who knew exactly what she was doing."
I feel a strange, warm pressure in my chest. In my father’s house, I was a liability. To Julian, I was a means to an end. No one has ever looked at me and seen anything worth trusting, let alone a billionaire who has the weight of an empire on his shoulders.
"I lost my temper yesterday," Alistair continues, his gaze dropping to my neck where the faint yellowish bruises are still visible. He steps closer, his presence overwhelming the small space between us. "I laid hands on you because I let my anger blind me. I’ve already apologized, but I’ll say it again. I shouldn’t have done that. But now that I’ve had time to think, I know the results are going to be in your favor. I believe in you, Emily."
The word believe makes my skin tingle. I swallow the lump in my throat and give him a small, determined nod.
"I’m going to go get ready," I say.
I turn and head toward the bathroom, but as I reach the door, I glance at the large vanity mirror. In the reflection, I see Alistair watching my retreating figure. For a split second, the corners of his lips curve upward in a nearly imperceptible smile. It’s so quick, so faint, that I think I’ve imagined it. When I blink, his face is back to its usual mask of stone. I shake my head, certain that the lack of food has started to make me hallucinate.
I move through my morning ablutions with frantic speed. I splash cold water on my face, watching the color return to my cheeks. I brush my hair until it’s a dark, glossy sheet and pull on a simple charcoal dress.
I woke up to see my box near the closet and I know Jackson must have brought it and Alistair took it on my behalf.
When I emerge, Alistair is waiting by the door. As we reach the top of the grand staircase, he stops. He reaches out and takes my hand in his. His palm is warm, his grip firm and possessive. He doesn’t look at me, but he offers a small, confident smile that is clearly meant for the audience waiting below. We descend the stairs hand in hand, a united front in a house of enemies.
The living room is already crowded. The heavy perfume smell clouds the air again and I try not to take too deep breaths. Even though this is the perfect time for a deep breath.
Celia Wolfe is propped up in her high-backed chair, looking remarkably better, and I’m relieved. Even though the woman obviously doesn’t like me, I’m glad she’s doing better.
Beatrice is there, of course, pacing the length of the rug in a cream suit that makes her look pale. She looks up as we enter, her eyes narrowing at our joined hands.
"Oh, look at the happy couple," Beatrice scoffs. "Quite a performance, Alistair. But don’t think for a second that a little hand holding is going to change the facts. I’ve spent my life in the best schools in this country. I’ve graduated from a university that people like Emily can’t even dream of. I know the difference between a real doctor and a girl who probably learned her ’medicine’ from a box of cereal."
I feel Alistair’s grip on my hand tighten, but I don’t let him speak for me. I step forward, pulling my hand away just enough to stand on my own.
"Education is a privilege, Beatrice," I say. "But it isn’t a substitute for talent. You can spend all the money in the world on a degree, but it doesn’t give you the ability to see what’s right in front of your face. Once those results are in, we’ll see once and for all whether your ’prestigious university’ gave you the superior edge, or if it just made you empty and arrogant."
Beatrice’s face goes a blotchy, insulted red. She opens her mouth to retort, but the double doors swing open.
Dr. Aris enters, holding a manila folder and having the blankest expression on his face. The room goes really quiet as we all watch him like our lives depend on what he would say next.
I know mine does.
Dr. Aris clears his throat and looks at the Old Madam, then at Alistair, and finally at me.
"The appraisal results are conclusive," Dr. Aris says. He opens the folder and pulls out a sheet of paper covered in complex chemical diagrams. "The formula administered to the Old Madam is not a commercially available product. It contains several proprietary stabilizers and a specific magnesium derivative that has not been registered with any pharmaceutical database in the country."
He looks at me, his eyes filled with a new kind of respect.
"This formula was developed personally," Dr. Aris continues. "The purity and the compositional rationale are exceptionally unique. The way the electrolytes are balanced to prevent further arrhythmia is... well, it is a work of genius. It’s a quality of work that no ordinary person could possibly replicate."
I feel a wave of relief so powerful it makes my knees weak. I think of my mother’s journals, the late nights spent over a Bunsen burner in my bedroom, and the years of being told I was nothing. I was right. I am a healer.
Beatrice’s expression shifts through a gamut of emotions. Shock. Denial. And finally, a dark, desperate kind of fury. She looks at the paper, then at the doctor, her chest heaving. She isn’t going to lose. Not to me.
"Genius?" Beatrice asks, the word coming out as a strangled shriek. She points a shaking finger at me. "You’re calling this girl a genius? Did you hear that, everyone? ’No ordinary person could replicate this.’ Exactly! That’s the key!"
She turns to the Old Madam, her face twisted with a fresh, frantic energy.
"Don’t you see what’s happening?" Beatrice shouts. "She didn’t invent anything! She hired someone. She found some disgraced chemist or some back-alley scientist and paid them to formulate this remedy for her. She knew she was coming into the Wolfe family, and she wanted a ’miracle’ in her pocket to fool us all. She’s a fraud! We’ve been duped by a girl who bought her way into our good graces with someone else’s brain!"
She looks at Alistair, her eyes wide with a triumphant, ugly light.
"She’s a liar, Alistair! She’s playing us all for fools!"
The room erupts into a sea of whispers and accusatory glares.