Chapter 110
Elizabeth's POV
Carter led me to a door and then headed straight into the room next to it.
I watched him, waiting for him to do something else, but he didn't. My brows pulled together.
When he disappeared into the other room, I couldn't wait another second and pushed open the door in front of me.
It was a master bedroom, huge, so big I couldn't see much of the inside from the doorway. I tried calling Alexander's name, a faint prickle of nerves creeping up my spine.
Nothing should have happened to him… right?
"Alexander? Are you in here?" My voice kept getting softer without my permission, and my steps turned hesitant, each one slower than the last.
If this was just another trap, I was about to lose my freedom all over again.
"Alexander?"
Right then, a hand suddenly shot out from the side, clamped around my arm, and yanked me hard to one side.
I jumped, scared out of my skin, my throat working on a scream.
A low voice sounded right by my ear. It was Alexander.
"Don't scream." One of his hands covered my mouth, and at some point, his other hand had locked around my waist, pulling me into his chest with the slightest flex of his fingers.
My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was lodged in my throat. I had to suck in a few deep breaths before I could calm down.
Once Alexander felt me relax a little, he finally took his hand away from my mouth.
The room went dead quiet in an instant. There was almost no sound at all around us, just the soft, steady rhythm of his breathing at my ear.
"Why are you here?" Alexander asked, his hand still firm at my waist, his tone very much like he was interrogating me.
My heart lurched, and I almost reflexively snapped back, "Didn't you look at my location and follow it here? Didn't you notice I wasn't actually here?"
He was really choosing now to be curious about why I was here? For the first time, I started to wonder if maybe this whole thing wasn't what I thought it was.
Alexander stood flush against my back, his body heat practically pressing through me, the space between us shrinking by the second.
"I realized you'd been tricked, so I came to get you out," I explained first, not wanting the air between us to turn awkward.
Who knew he would let out a quiet, derisive laugh, his voice tinged with a kind of pride I didn't quite understand.
He said, "You think I need you to rescue me? If you can just take care of yourself, that's already impressive."
The words themselves were ice-cold, but his tone was maddeningly even, like he was just stating a simple, boring fact.
If it had been anyone else, I would have taken it as a provocation. But because it was Alexander, it was entirely possible he really did just think that way.
"Mr. Windsor, please let go of me."
We had been plastered together for way too long; my whole body felt wrong. I pushed at him, shoved, tried to wriggle free.
I had found him, and from the look of him, he didn't seem seriously hurt. That meant the rest was easy.
All we had to do was leave this place, and everything could go back to the way it used to be.
Alexander let me push him back, but a tiny, almost inaudible breath slipped from his lips.
I caught it immediately, and in the same instant, a sharp metallic scent hit my nose. It took me a few seconds to register that it was blood.
My voice went up without my consent. "You're hurt? You're bleeding?"
Alexander sounded a little helpless as he lifted a hand, making a shushing gesture at me.
Only then did I turn around and meet his eyes, noticing the beads of sweat sliding down from his temple.
My gaze dropped, landing on the place around his waist he was so obviously trying to hide, and everything clicked.
Was the injury at his waist? What the hell had happened?
When I'd come in, I hadn't seen anyone else. And Carter had walked into the room next door like he owned the place, which meant he knew this place very well.
Now Alexander was hurt. It was very likely he'd gotten into some kind of fight with someone, bad enough that it ended with a knife.
"Have you treated the wound yet? If you haven't, you need to take care of it right away, or it'll get infected."
I stared at his abdomen, not even realizing how anxious I sounded as I moved closer to him in a rush.
Alexander took two steps back, something strained and awkward flickering across his face, too quick for me to catch.
He reached out and pushed me away a little, his tone flat. "You don't have to worry that much. I'm not going to die."
I grabbed his hand, looking straight at him, my voice deadly serious. "How can you just throw the word 'die' around like that? That's so unlucky."
Sometimes I absolutely hated this about Alexander; he seemed to have no emotions about anything and never deliberately set you up or lied to you.
But with a person like that, most of what came out of his mouth was the truth, which only made people more on edge.
Especially for me right now. I was painfully aware of how I felt about him, so of course I paid extra attention to his condition.
Hearing him talk so casually about his own life, like he could just discard it, scraped at me in a way that felt both painful and terrifying.
"What's wrong with you?" Alexander seemed to pick up on the shift in me. He suddenly lifted my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes.
Those deep, unreadable eyes of his held a tangle of emotions I could make even less sense of than usual, making me want to look away.
I tried to turn my head, not wanting to be pinned by his gaze, but he simply turned my face back, no room for argument.
"Elizabeth, if you weren't here, why did you come back for me?" His expression turned serious, his eyes searching my face like he was trying to dig something out of me.
I knew that look. He was genuinely curious, genuinely puzzled by what I'd done.
Honestly, if I were him, I would have had the same question.
The way I cared about Alexander, the way that care had slowly shifted into something dangerously close to love, was something I could never get past my lips.
His dark gaze stayed fixed on me, leaving me nowhere to hide.
So I lifted my chin and met his eyes head-on, my voice steady as I threw the question back at him. "What about you? You knew this might be a trap, so why did you still come?"
I clearly saw his expression freeze for a second. Those always-calm, unruffled eyes of his weren't quite so peaceful anymore.
I could read that flicker in his gaze. He was questioning himself too.
Just like me, Alexander hadn't figured out what exactly that extra, unfamiliar feeling in his chest really was.
My head dipped lower and lower, until I didn't dare look at him at all.
Silence settled over us again. It was like everything in the room had gone mute, and the quiet made my pulse race even faster.
Alexander didn't answer my question, and the longer he stayed silent, the more anxious I became.
Maybe it had been a one-woman show from the very beginning. Maybe I was the only one caught up in this.
Maybe the reason he'd rushed over without hesitation wasn't because he felt anything different for me, but only because of the baby.
After all, it was right after he'd found out the baby in my belly was his that he'd taken me into his home to take care of me without a second thought.
I had read too much into it.