Chapter 180 Rowena Arrived
_Author’s POV_
Even before Brielle Logan’s arrival to the capital, the news channel picked it up.
Someone at the airport recognized her coming through arrivals, it was a journalist, and by the time Gabriel’s car pulled away from the terminal, the headline was already moving through the usual channels.
Dr. Brielle Logan returns to the capital.
It wasn’t a small name, In medical circles, and in the wider world that paid attention to medical circles, Brielle Logan was a woman whose movements were considered newsworthy.
She had published work that changed how silver toxicity in shifters was treated, she had been flown to three different countries in the past two years to consult on cases that other doctors had run out of answers for. She was twenty five years old and she had already built the kind of reputation that a lot of people spent entire careers reaching for.
She was also, as the photographs accompanying the headline made very clear, exactly as beautiful as she had always been.
Her blonde hair that she wore down and that was slightly past her shoulders, a slim figure that her clothes covered, and the confidence around her.
Gabriel watched her in the rearview mirror during the drive and said very little. Honestly, he felt honored and overwhelmed to see her in person.
Brielle looked out the window and seemed unbothered by the silence or the look he was giving her. Of course she could feel his eyes on her, she got that alot and was used to it.
They arrived at her hotel first and she freshened up. By seven in the evening, they headed to the hospital. When they arrived, went straight to the VIP ward where Alaric was staying.
The place wasn’t filled up, it contained just guards outside the room and a nurse adjusting the drip bag in Alaric’s room.
Kasper was in the corridor outside the room, he looked at Brielle when Gabriel brought her through and she looked back at him. She didn’t exactly know him, but she felt he was someone of a good importance to Alaric.
“Doctor Brielle,” Kasper greeted, and opened the door for her.
Brielle nodded firmly and offered a calm smile.
Inside the room, Alaric was sitting up against the pillows with his eyes on the door, he had actually been waiting for Rowena who said she would be with him shortly.
He had sent her a message an hour ago asking her to come to the hospital when she could because he had been composing in his head how to begin the conversation, running through his mind for what to say first and how much detail was necessary.
Then the door opened and to his disappointment it was not Rowena.
Brielle stepped into the room and stopped just inside the doorway, looking at him.
He looked back at her without a word or any emotion on his face.
She looked better than the last time he had seen her, which had been more than two years.
She looked better than before but he didn’t find anything special about it..
“You look terrible,” she pointed out with a smile.
“And you look well,” he replied.
She crossed the room and set her bag on the chair. She looked at his arm before saying, “How long has the silver been in there?”
Thank goodness she didn’t beat around the bush.
“Since this morning,” he said.
“And the treatments they’ve tried?”
He told her, she listened to his explanation while pulling on gloves, and opening her bag.
“You should have called me sooner, you know.” she said.
“I didn’t call you at all,” he replied sarcastically without a care. “Gabriel called you.”
She looked up at him briefly. “Semantics.”
“Not really,” he said.
She held his gaze for a moment and then looked back at the wound, which she had begun examining with careful hands. “You were ignoring my messages.”
“Yes.”
“For over two years.”
“Yes.”
She made a sound that wasn’t exactly a laugh. “You’re consistent, I’ll give you that.” She pressed two fingers gently against the area just below the wound, but he kept his face completely still despite what that pressure did to the surrounding tissue. “You always were consistent. Consistently unreachable, consistently certain you knew best, and consistently......”
“Brielle.”
“I’m just talking,” she said pleasantly. “It helps me concentrate.”
“Talk about something else,” he said.
“What would you like me to talk about?”
“Anything,” he said. “Talk about today’s weather, your newest research, and the flight.”
“The flight was fine,” she said. “The weather is cold. My research is going well.” She paused, hands still working. “Is that enough?”
“It’s sufficient,” he responded dryly.
She smiled at that, “You haven’t changed anything all.”
“You have,” he said but not unkindly. There was no use lying, she did change and it has nothing to do with him. It was just instincts.
“Better or worse?” she asked.
“Better,” he said honestly. “You seem settled now, which is good for you.”
“I am,” she smiled. “The work does that, it gives you somewhere to put yourself.” She reached into her bag for something specific, her movements were unhurried as she searched for it. “I heard about the press conference.”
Alaric said nothing on that, it didn’t concern her.
“The whole world heard about the press conference,” she said. “You said it very clearly.”
“You sound like someone else I know,” he mused.
“She must be a smart woman,” Brielle laughed.
She leaned forward to work on the upper part of the wound, her hands moving carefully across his arm, and she was so close now. So close enough that her hair fell slightly forward over her shoulder.
She was saying something about the silver extraction process, the steps of her protocol, and what the next hour would look like.
She maintained a low voice as she explained, but just then, the door opened, Rowena stood in the doorway.
Her eyes settled on the position Alaric and Brielle were in. Her hair falling over her shoulders, everything seemed so intimate.
Alaric cursed under his breath at the bad timing, but there was nothing he could do now since Rowena had already arrived at the worst time.