Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy [45]
Once in the room, she stopped by the bed, her heart breaking yet again as she looked at his face. There was a huge, ugly bruise just beneath the bandage around his head. Her eyes blurred with tears. It couldn't end like this. The charming, outgoing David Hathaway, who spoke so passionately about art and history and life, could not go so quietly out of this world.
She picked up his hand. It had been a long time since she had held his hand. His skin was cool, as if the blood couldn't quite reach his fingers, as if his heart was slowing, his body shutting down. But the machine was still bleeping. She could see jagged lines of what must be his heartbeat. His chest moved in and out. He wasn't gone yet.
"Don't leave me," she murmured. "Not like this, not without a good-bye."
"What on earth is going on?" A woman's sharp voice broke through the silence.
Jasmine turned, knowing whom she would find behind her.
Victoria Hathaway stood in the doorway, her face shocked, her eyes angry. She drew herself up, throwing back her shoulders, lifting her chin. She was so beautiful, with her blond hair, her blue eyes, her perfectly made-up face, not a wrinkle, not a shadow anywhere, nothing to show she was worried about her husband. Dressed in a white suit with sheer stockings and high heels, she looked as if she'd come from work, as if her life hadn't changed at all since her husband's assault.
Jasmine felt short and heavy, uncomfortable with her old, unstylish clothes and her heavy, thick black hair that hadn't seen a hairdresser in several years. Not for the first time she wondered how David could have left Victoria to come to her. But she hadn't always looked this way. There had been a time when men thought she was pretty, when she had laughed and enjoyed life. Meeting David had changed all that.
"Who are you?" Victoria demanded, walking farther into the room.
"Jasmine Chen," she replied.
Victoria's face paled. Did she recognize the name? Had David actually spoken of her? Jasmine's heart lightened just a bit.
"You have no right to be here." Victoria's harsh words sliced through Jasmine like a knife. "How did you get in here? Where is the nurse?"
Jasmine didn't reply right away, not sure what she wanted to say. Although she had feared it was not her place to be, now that she had come, she wanted to stay. She had lost so much because of this man. Didn't she deserve to at least stand by his bedside at this moment? Everyone would say no. She was not the wife. She was not family.
"How is he?" she asked, ignoring Victoria's request that she leave.
"That is none of your business. Please go."
"Why haven't you asked me who I am, how I know David?" Jasmine saw the truth in Victoria's eyes. "You know, don't you?"
"I know that you don't belong here in my husband's room."
"I love him, too." Jasmine was shocked by the words that had come from her mouth. She hadn't said them in twenty years, not to anyone, not even out loud to herself.
Victoria stuttered over a reply, as if she couldn't believe what Jasmine had said.
But it was done. It couldn't be taken back. Jasmine looked at David, wondering if he would be angry when he woke up. He had asked her for secrecy, and she had always given it to him. Until now. She had betrayed him to his own wife. Would he be able to forgive her? She told herself she should not care. But she did. And she was sorry. Would she have a chance to tell him how sorry she was?
"Get out of this room now," Victoria hissed. "You have no right to be here. I don't care who you love. For that matter, I don't care who he loves. He's my husband. I'm his wife. And that's the way it will stay."
"I didn't come here to cause you trouble. I simply wanted to see him." Jasmine cast David one last lingering