Page 57 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

I felt an odd mixture of disdain and pride, being asked to stand next to him. When we got to the ground floor, a nurse motioned us outside, where a pack of photographers and reporters had gathered.

As we exited through the front door, a chorus of voices leaped up together.

“Lucien! Tell us how you saved the boy?”

“The mother of Joel Armstrong says you ran twenty miles with the kid. That true?”

“Lucien? Is it true you got the boy flown in by helicopter?”

“What about you, Miss Solomon? Where were you when your son fell?”

“Look,” said Lucien. “I was in the right place at the right time, that’s all. I’m just glad Kyle’s okay and he’s getting the treatment he needs. But that’s not the issue.”

“What is the issue?”

“I flew Kyle over,” Lucien said, holding up a hand to stop the crowd of journalists from braying any more. “I had to do that because there was no hospital within seventy miles of Caluga Falls that could help him. In this country, in this day and age, that’s a travesty. So the first thing I do when I get back,” he said, “is making plans to redevelop the Caluga Parkland. We’re going to get our hospital back if it's the last thing I do.”

There were more questions, but Lucien had said enough. He walked past the crowd, and round the block.

“How did I do?” he said.

“Pretty good,” I admitted.

“Let’s just hope I can follow through on the promise to get the hospital up and running,” Lucien grumbled.

“I think you could do anything,” I replied. I didn’t want to say it, not after the way he’d spoken to me. But I was exhausted and emotional, and it just came out.

“Are you flying back with me?”

I shook my head. “I’ll take David’s car,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

I was about to say my goodbye when something brushed up against my arm. It was Lucien’s hand. He’d wrapped his fingers around my wrist, and for a moment, I glimpsed the power in his limbs, his amazing strength, and I felt dizzy.

“Take tomorrow off,” he said. “And Tuesday too, if you need.”

“Thank you,” I said, looking into his eyes. We were close enough to kiss. And I would have kissed him, if not for what he said next.

“I didn’t mean what I said,” he told me. “I’m sorry. And I don’t know what it meant either, Laura. But I know that you’re important to me.”

My heart felt like it would burst when I heard him say that.

“Can we talk?” I said. “When I get back?”

“About what?”

“About us.”

I hardly knew what else to say, but Lucien smiled, and nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “We can talk.”

He rounded the corner of the hospital, and then he was gone.

Chapter 18

Conor (Lucien)