Dearest Ivie: A Novella Set in the Black Dagger World (Black Dagger Brotherhood) by J. R. Ward

Author:J. R. Ward
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2018-03-13T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“If you’ll excuse me,” Silas said tightly, “I have to sit down.”

His gait was stiff as he went over to the bed, and he lowered himself onto the mattress like every bone in his body hurt. With hands that shook, he slowly did up each button of the shirt, covering himself.

As he worked to close the two halves, snippets of memories flashed through Ivie’s mind: him not really ever eating; him not removing all his clothes those times they’d been together; the sudden burst of energy he’d had from feeding; his need to go home at dawn each night; the fact that he never dematerialized, but drove.

But all of that was kind of hard to track.

There was a silk-covered armchair over in the corner by a brass lamp and an Old Masters painting of a vase of flowers. Ivie went across and sat down because she didn’t trust her legs.

Any more than he seemed to trust his own.

Just for different reasons.

“Needless to say,” he murmured, “my upcoming trip is not to the Old Country.”

Ivie dropped her arms and let her head fall back. There were no tears for her, and she was glad that she had always reacted to situations of high emotion with a lack of drama as opposed to a surplus.

She wiped her mouth even though it was stone dry. “I, ah…” She cleared her throat. “So, um, I guess I went to your house, didn’t I?”

What she really wanted to know was what the hell was wrong with him, but demanding that information seemed a violation of his privacy—especially given that she was in uniform and at work.

“I’m sorry,” Silas said as he stared at his hands. “It was wrong of me not to come clean about my condition.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Fine, that’s true enough, she thought. But compared to the ramifications of your being this ill?

Harping on him because he hadn’t admitted he was…

She couldn’t say the word, even in her head.

And then something came back to her. “My cell phone number. I never did give it to you, did I. I never…I just picked up your call. I didn’t tell you my address, either. How could I have missed that?”

Then again, she’d been gob-smacked that someone like him had just shown up in her life. Tangled in fantasies, she had missed the reality in front of her.

Guess that theory also covered the other clues she’d overlooked.

Silas took a deep breath and shuddered on the exhale. “When you came for the interview that night, I didn’t have any interest in a private nurse. Pritchard—that is my majordomo—was insisting, and so were the clinicians here. To me, though, it felt like I was giving up. Transferring into hospice too soon.” He shrugged. “I mean, that’s the final stage, you know. Someone coming to the house every night, plugging and unplugging the machines, working the drugs, waiting for the point of no resuscitation. I went through it with my father. I remember exactly what it was like.”

Ivie closed her eyes.

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