Chapter 468: Not Donovan

Chapter 468: Not Donovan

"Does it hurt?"

His brow furrowed deeper. "You... again..."

Again what? Emily's heart leapt into her throat. He knew? How could he know?

Anouk's voice interjected at precisely the right moment, laced with perfectly calibrated concern: "Mr. Windsor needs rest. Miss, you don't look well either."

Emily didn't acknowledge Anouk, her eyes locked on Charles's.

Charles responded gently, "Ms. Montgomery, I'd like some water. Would you mind fetching it yourself? The hospital's drinking water... I don't quite trust it."

Behind her glasses, Anouk's eyes narrowed slightly before she produced a gracious smile. "Of course. Mr. Windsor's caution is understandable. I'll be right back."

The instant the door clicked shut, the warmth drained from Charles's eyes like a receding tide.

He pushed himself upright with a fluid efficiency that belied someone who'd just emerged from a coma. Emily instinctively moved to support him, only to have him catch her wrist instead.

"Emily, listen to me first."

Emily's pupils contracted sharply.

"Anouk isn't Donovan's assistant. That Donovan isn't the real Donovan either."

A shadow flickered through Charles's gaze. "The current Donovan is a fraud. A replacement. And Anouk—I suspect I know her. Or rather, I know the person behind her."

"So you deliberately went along with their treatment?"

Charles extracted a miniature cryo-case from beneath his pillow. Inside, several clear vials of injectable solution sat in neat rows. "I went along with my own treatment. Every dose they gave me—my people switched it out. The tubes in the isolation chamber weren't connected to their purification system. I had my own equipment secretly transported. Every data point Anouk saw was manufactured by my team."

Emily stared at the cryo-case, her mind racing.

"The entire P4 facility—from the director to the janitors—they're all mine. I let Anouk believe she had total control, that her virus reactivation protocol was working. In reality, my team has been deliberately manipulating my viral load the entire time." He grasped her trembling right hand, gently prying her fingers open to lace them with his own.

Emily's voice tightened. "You're insane. If one thing had gone wrong—"

"Nothing went wrong. I've been planning this for three months. The moment I first saw Donovan's name in black market files, I knew someone was laying a trap. I walked into it willingly because I needed to see what they were after."

His fingers tightened, the heat of his palm seeping through their joined skin. "The way Anouk looks at me—it's not how you look at a patient. There's something else there. Something complicated I can't quite define."

Emily's heart clenched painfully.

"I suspect Anouk's appearance is part of a larger conspiracy. So I have to keep playing along. I need her to believe I trust her, depend on her, that I'm even... attracted to her."

Emily jerked her hand away. She turned toward the window, her back to him, shoulders rigid as a drawn bowstring.

"Emily."

"Mr. Windsor plays his part so convincingly. Even I almost believed it."

Behind her came the rustle of fabric, then the muffled pad of bare feet on carpet. She didn't turn, but felt his presence envelop her from behind, radiating the lingering heat of fever and that bitter, achingly familiar scent of antiseptic.

His voice pressed against the shell of her ear. "I was performing for her. Every glance, every breath—calculated. I needed her to think I was falling for it, that her honey trap was working."

Emily spun around, nearly colliding her forehead with his chin. "What if I hadn't come back? If I hadn't made it from Eldoria in time, hadn't burst in here—would you have just kept performing? All the way to the bedroom? All the way to—"

Her voice cut off abruptly.

Because Charles smiled.

"You're jealous."

"I'm not—"

"You are."

He reached up, tucking cold-sweat-dampened strands behind her ear. "When you stormed in, you looked like a territorial animal whose den had been invaded. You deliberately blocked my view of her, deliberately used that fierce tone—Emily, do you know what seeing you like that makes me want to do?"

"Want to do what?"

"Pin you against this window. Let everyone downstairs see exactly who Charles Windsor belongs to."

Emily's face flamed scarlet. She shoved at him, but he caught her waist and pulled her flush against him. His heartbeat transmitted through the thin hospital gown—steady and strong, nothing like someone who'd just been resuscitated.

"You're the only one I see."

Emily went rigid in his arms.

She remembered her own declaration when she'd burst into the room.

Charles sensed her embarrassment and shifted topics. "What were you doing in Eldoria all this time? You were gone so long."