Angelo: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Read online

  Darkness bubbled up around the sides of my vision, then covered me completely and took me under.

  Chapter Five - Angelo

  A nearby thump finished waking me up. I’d already been halfway to consciousness, but the sudden noise sent me bolting up to sitting.

  I looked around the room in confusion. “Paige?”

  No answer.

  Stretching my arms above my head, I languidly stood up. Just enough sun entered through the thick curtains for me to easily make out the room. Just how long had I been sleeping for? And where had Paige gotten off to?

  I turned out of the doorway and froze, momentarily taken aback by the strange, crumpled mass in front of me.

  Had I left something out here the night before?

  But no. It was no bunched-up rug or pile of clothes on the floor.

  It was Paige.

  “Paige!” I shouted, dropping to my knees and taking her head in my hands. Her face was pale, her eyes closed.

  “Paige!” I tried again.

  Had she just randomly fainted? From what?

  An asthma attack! That could do it, right?

  No. That couldn’t be it. She’d been telling me just the day before about her asthma, about how it could unexpectedly flare up and that’s why she always carried her inhaler with her.

  But there was no other answer. There was nothing in the hall she could have hit her head on.

  Asthma had to be it.

  I thought fast, my mind working at warp speed. Where had she put her purse?

  The bedroom.

  Putting her head back down, I flew into the bedroom. Her purse sat on the floor, just underneath the footstool holding her duffel bag.

  Something in the unzipped bag caught my eye.

  Her inhaler. Thank God.

  Snatching it up, I leaped back into the hallway.

  I’d never had to administer a dose of whatever was in these inhalers before today, but it seemed pretty easy. Craning her head back a little bit, I put the mouthpiece between her lips and pumped the device.

  “Come on,” I muttered, my heart beating so loudly I could hardly hear my voice. “Come on, Paige.”

  The relief over finding the inhaler quickly disappeared. It wasn’t working.

  What next? CPR?

  What if that did no good either?

  I needed to call for an ambulance.

  Nearly tripping over my feet, I ran into the room and grabbed my cell phone. Each second without a medic there was precious time. I didn’t know how long it had been since Paige became unconscious, but even minutes could be long enough, without the right medical care.

  I stammered my address and an explanation of the emergency into the phone line. The operator instructed me to administer CPR until the medics arrived.

  Relieved to have an answer as to what to do, I hurried back to Paige. It had been years since I took that CPR course in high school, but it all came back to me as I worked frantically to save her.

  Chest compressions. Two quick breaths.

  The pulse in her neck told me she still hung on.

  I checked for breathing. Nothing.

  Come on, Paige. Not now. Not when I’ve just found you.

  She couldn’t be dying. It just wasn’t fair.

  Adrenaline pulsed in me. I wasn’t going to lose her. Hell no.

  More chest compressions. Another head tilt and a deep breath. And then I felt it. Her exhale on my lips.

  “Paige?”

  Her eyelashes fluttered.

  At the same time sirens filled the air.

  I hopped up and ran as fast as I could to the front door. Two paramedics rushed up the drive.

  “This way,” I told them, directing them down the hallway to where Paige lay.

  I let them go first and then rushed after them. Paige lay where I had left her, but her head moved slightly to the side. Was she waking up?

  “What’s her name?” the female paramedic asked.

  “Paige,” I thickly replied. “That’s her inhaler next to her.”

  “Paige? Can you hear me?”

  Her eyes still closed, Paige garbled something unintelligible in response. I sighed in relief. At least she was conscious now.

  The paramedics helped her sit up while I hung back. She put her palm to her face like she had a headache.

  While the female paramedic checked Paige out and helped her get a hit from the inhaler her male counterpart questioned me on what had happened. I gave him the story from beginning to end. Everything I could remember, I shared.

  “It looks like you saved her,” he replied. “We’ll get her to the emergency room. She needs to be checked out.”

  “All right,” I nodded. “I’ll follow you there.”

  I smiled at Paige encouragingly, but she looked so out of it, it seemed she didn’t even notice me there.

  One of the paramedics retrieved a stretcher and they took her away, talking to her and crowding my view.

  Eager to get to the hospital, I went back into my room to dress. Throughout the chaos, I’d been wearing a pair of striped boxers. Hopefully the paramedics had seen people in less.

  On the drive to the hospital I called my brother.

  “Dominic,” I started, the second he answered.

  A moment passed. Dominic wasn’t an early riser. Then, “Yes?”

  “I need to talk to you about Sophia.”

  Another moment, this one longer, passed.

  Getting so close to losing Paige made me realize I couldn’t be complacent. Not only could I not let her slip away, I couldn’t just rest idle, sitting on my hands, while a mysterious swirl of activity surrounded me. I needed to know what we were in for, needed to know what came next.

  If experience taught me anything it was that when things happen all at once they’re usually connected.

  There were too many secrets. All I needed to do was a bit of unraveling.

  Dominic was one of the hardest people to get information from. You had to work him, convince him you were onto things when you actually weren’t.

  “Why are you even asking about her?” came his cool reply.

  “Because whatever is going on with her has to do with me.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  I hit the gas, taking a quick right just before the stoplight in front of me turned red.

  “Maybe not directly, but...”

  “No.”

  I ground my teeth together and fought the urge to lash out at him.

  “Just tell me this. What’s her job? I know being a DJ is a cover for something.”

  “You know everything you need to know, Angelo. Stop sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong.”

  “It’s important.”

  I couldn’t tell him anything more, couldn’t let him on to the forbidden romance I was getting deeper into by the moment.

  “Please,” I said, using the word I’d probably said to him maybe twice in my life.

  I gulped, ashamed at begging. This wasn’t like me. I didn’t ask people for things, didn’t plead for what I wanted. I took what I needed, and if it wasn’t easy enough to get I just walked away. Most things weren’t worth keeping long term anyway.

  But now was a time I couldn’t just mosey off into the sunset.

  “Fine,” Dominic snapped. “If you must know, Sophia is in the Western Europe Burn Unit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to bed.”

  “The...”

  There was a muffled noise, and then silence. He’d hung up on me.

  I still held the phone pressed against my face, my ears buzzing from shock.

  Chapter Six - Paige

  Somewhere nearby voices murmured softly, rising and falling, none of them familiar. Something creaked and made a rolling noise.

  I opened my eyes to see a strange window in front of me, the curtains fully drawn. Next to it sat a small couch.

  Where the Hell am I?

  Panic rose in my chest and I quickly sat up.

 
“It’s all right,” came a familiar voice.

  I whipped my head around to see Angelo sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed I was in. He leaned forward, hands folded and resting on his legs, his eyes wide and uncertain.

  I took in a shaky breath and adjusted to my surroundings. The lighting was soft, coming from a small light next to the bed. Nearby, the door sat shut, a thin slice of glass not doing much to show what was on the other side.

  By now, though, I’d figured out we were in a hospital.

  “How are you feeling?” Angelo softly asked.

  I took another long inhale just to test it.

  “Good.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Uh...”

  “It’s okay. Don’t think too hard.”

  I ran a palm across my temples. “It’s fine.” My voice cracked a bit.

  “Here.”

  He poured some water from the pitcher on the bed side table and handed the glass to me. I gulped half of it down and then passed it back.

  “I was in the hallway,” I explained. “I know I passed out. I knew it when it was happening. I was going for my inhaler. And then… there were some people.”

  “Paramedics. I found you unconscious in the hallway and called for an ambulance.”

  “Oh.”

  Heat washed over me. I was ashamed to cause so much trouble. And all because I couldn’t get to my stupid meds fast enough.

  That never happened before. No matter if it took me a few minutes to get to it, I always made it there without passing out. In fact, this would be the first time it ever happened.

  Because the circumstances had been different. What I had wasn’t a normal asthma attack.

  The way I couldn’t get so much as half a breath in... The way my heart fluttered and my hands shook…

  “I think I had a panic attack,” I dumbly said, staring at the blanket covering my legs.

  “A panic attack? Does that ever happen?”

  My head slowly swung from side to side. “No. It’s never happened to me before. I…” The full memory of what went on in the living room washed over me. I held my breath. “Oh my God.”

  Angelo rested his hand on my leg but I barely felt it. He seemed a thousand miles away, a faint memory, less real than that horrific day I suddenly remembered. “Paige? Are you all right? Do I need to call a nurse?”

  “I’m fine,” I muttered. “I just…” My eyes burned and I took in a sharp breath. It racked my chest and a dry sob escaped. “I remember why it happened. Why I started hyperventilating.”

  Angelo opened his mouth, probably to question me some more, but I cut him off.

  “I need Sophia,” I rasped. “Please. Call Sophia. I need to talk to her.”

  “Okay. But...”

  I stared him down, silently begging him. He nodded and pulled out his phone.

  My eyes fell back down to my lap.

  All these years… How could it be I forgot about something so big so easily?

  And then, even more crazily, how could it be I remembered so quickly?

  I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but it didn’t budge.

  I needed my sister. She was the only one I could talk to. The only one who understood. The only one who had answers to my questions.

  “She’s not answering,” Angelo announced. “I’ll send her a text telling her to get in touch. Should I tell her about the asthma attack?”

  “Just tell her it’s important,” I quietly said. “I don’t want her to freak out about me being in the hospital. Thank you.”

  What time was it anyway? Maybe Sophia was still asleep. Or maybe she didn’t want to talk to Angelo. She’d pretty much kicked him out of our apartment. Would she answer if a call came in from my phone?

  Maybe not. We hadn’t exactly parted on good terms.

  It didn’t matter anyway. My cell was back at Angelo’s family’s house along with everything else I packed.

  “I’ll try texting Dominic,” Angelo announced, standing up and typing away on his phone.

  “Dominic?”

  “To see if Sophia is on a job. He’ll know if she is.”

  “Oh.”

  Angelo didn’t look at me. Instead he paced about the small room, keeping his head turned away from mine. Something about his body posture was off.

  Was there something he wasn’t telling me?

  He lowered his phone but still didn’t look at me. Instead he went over to the window and fiddled with the curtains.

  “Do you want some light? I can open these a bit.”

  “No, it’s fine. Thanks.”

  “What about food? Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  He finally turned back to me.

  “The nurse said I could call her once you woke up. They ran some tests on you once you got here. Everything is fine.”

  “Okay,” I rasped. “Uh, but let’s wait a minute. Did Dominic text you back?”

  “Not yet.”

  His phone beeped and he looked down at it. “That’s him.”

  “What did he say?”

  Angelo’s jaw clenched as he read the text. “He said ‘yes’.”

  “That’s all?”

  Angelo hit the call button and brought the phone to his face. We both waited in silence.

  When his brother didn’t answer, he sighed and came to sit back in his chair. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Thank you. Why didn’t he answer? Why was he so vague?”

  “Dominic can be tight-lipped. About everything.”

  But why Sophia, I wanted to ask.

  Angelo slipped his phone back into his front pocket. “She’s probably busy. I’m sure she’ll call you once she gets a chance to check her phone.”

  “Yeah,” I thickly agreed.

  I didn’t want to wait. I couldn’t wait. I needed to see my sister right now.

  “I’ll call the nurse.”

  He pushed the little call button next to the bed. The nurse came right away, checking me out and then leaving to bring a doctor in.

  Angelo waited patiently while I got checked a second time.

  “You seem to be doing fine,” the doctor, a tall, dark woman said. “You can leave today if you like, but I want you to stay here and rest a bit before you try to move.”

  I pursed my lips. That would be hard when I was full of a drive to go and steal a car and head back to the city to find my sister.

  “All right,” I reluctantly agreed.

  They left, leaving Angelo and me alone again.

  “Want me to go and get you something?” he asked.

  “No thanks.”

  “I know hospital food sucks, but I can sneak you something in. There are a lot of restaurants just down the strip from here.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not very hungry.”

  “All right.” He took his usual seat. “Do you want to talk?”

  I licked my lips. “Not… Not right now.”

  “All right.” His hands picked one of mine up, warm and strong. A wave of relaxation floated over me.

  “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  His lips turned up in a sad smile. “It’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re all right.”

  “Nothing like that has happened to me before.”

  He reached up to brush some hair from my forehead. I probably looked like shit. Probably had sweat slicked all over my face and dark bags under my eyes.

  “It probably won’t happen again.”

  My last memories before blacking out came back. “I hope not...”

  Angelo gazed straight at me and blinked rapidly. “I was really worried.”

  I sighed heavily.

  He squeezed my hand. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I just want you to know...”

  That I care. Those were the last words he didn’t say.

  I smiled at him, his attention making me feel infinitely better. With Soph off somewhere, who would have come to my a
id? Who would come and stay at the hospital with me?

  It felt weird that the answer was a man I’d only recently met.

  But it also felt right.

  “If you do want to talk,” he went on, “I’m right here.”

  “Thank you,” I said, meaning those two simple words more than I ever had before.

  Chapter Seven - Paige

  “How about some TV?” Angelo asked.

  He got up and brought me the remote from the cabinet on the opposite wall.

  I couldn’t answer. There were no words to explain how I felt. A heavy weight pressed down on me, pushing me into the mattress. It kept getting heavier and heavier. Soon I would fall right through the bed, through the floor, through the earth. I’d come out on the other side of the globe and float away into space.

  I didn’t want to watch TV at a time like this.

  I needed to see Sophia. And if I couldn’t do that, what the hell was I supposed to do? I woke up a different person in this hospital room. Everything changed. I couldn’t just sit around and watch bad morning television.

  There seemed to be nothing to do, really.

  Other than talk about it all.

  “I’ll tell you,” I said in a shaky voice. “About why I had a panic attack.”

  Angelo froze with the remote in his hand. He set it back down and hurried back to his seat next to the bed.

  “Yes. Of course. If you want to.”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  I looked down at my clasped hands. Were they always that white?

  “I don’t know where to start,” I said in a voice so small I barely heard it myself.

  “That’s okay. Wherever you want.”

  “That photo...”

  Angelo’s head cocked. “What photo?”

  “That’s where it started. There’s a photograph in your house. My parents were in it. I saw it and I remembered...” Panic fluttered in my chest, half as real as it was that day so long ago.

  A heavy minute passed.

  Angelo spoke in a soft voice. “Is this about your parents’ deaths?”

  “Yes.” I gathered my courage and tried again. As hard as it was to not talk about all of this, talking was just as hard. It was like pulling out a thorn. You knew you needed to do it, but the truth was that it hurt to let the thorn stay in and it hurt to take it out. One way or the other you were screwed.