Deal with a Billionaire

Chapter 18

Taking in the quiet room Annabelle took a deep breath forcing her mind away from Christ- Chris. She was going to have to work on referring to him as Chris and work on wrapping her mind around this new version of him she saw today. Everything was upside down and all over the place in her life, and she needed the time to mentally reorganize and adjust to everything new.

She had a father, albeit one she wasn't planning to accept but the head of one of the largest Italian mafia families nonetheless.

She had worked at distancing herself from the life of crime Xavier was crazy about, only to be smacked into the center of the mafia. She let out a deep sigh, rolling her eyes at her luck.

What she hadn't shared with Xavier was that she didn't leave because she didn't like the life of crime, she left because of how good she was at it. She would get suctioned in with each job, and knowing how much she loved a challenge, she was afraid to get too deep. She had been afraid of dragging Xavier in too deep, and worried about what she would do if anything happened to him. She rolled her eyes at the irony as she took in the room around her.

As her level of pain went up, her eyes drifted shut as she worked on focusing on her breathing since this was a level of pain she had never experienced. She finally opened her eyes to look for some water for her dry throat and cringed at her pale reflection. Forcing her eyes away from the reflection she zoned in on the water cooler across from her bed. 

She weighed the dryness in her mouth against getting up to get the water and it seemed to only make her throat dryer. Groaning in resolution she slowly started sliding her legs out of the bed. The movement alone ripped pain through her and she bit her cheek to distract from the pain. Luckily since the bed was high, sliding off reduced the energy needed to sit up as and she paused once her feet were on the floor and she was leaning against the bed for support. Straightening up to stand fully made her see black in pain and she forced herself to work through it. Remembering a time she helped Xavier recover from a stab wound she yanked a pillow and pressed it to her abdomen to reduce the pain enough so that she could take a step. Letting out a deep breath she slowly pushed away from the bed taking on the distance to the cooler a step at a time.

She was about six steps in when she heard the door click open behind her and to her dismay Michael's voice,

"Fucking hell, what are you doing?! You shouldn't be out of bed, you're going to pull your stitches!"

Having the worst or possibly the luckiest timing, her body chose that moment to give out and she felt herself sway to the right.

Michael lunged forward, and with impeccable reflexes moved to her right and wrapped an arm around her waist being careful to stay away from her wound to steady her.

"I've got you, caro" He said as he helped her stand back straighter moving his arm below her elbow supporting her weight.

The relief from supporting her weight on him was enough to make her hold back and take the help. She motioned to the cooler she was trying to get to,

"I need some water"

Nodding, Michael helped her make the rest of the steps to the sitting area and slowly lowered her into the couch, moving the cushions around her to keep her supported up.

"You should've called, there are plenty of men surrounding your room and I would have been here in an instant. You would have set your recovery back several weeks with a fall right now." He admonished as he brought her a glass of water.

"It was just a few steps." She gritted out as she took a few sips of water.

Micheal gently took the glass back, and placed it on the table for her.

"I'm going to have someone grab some soup for you. You need to eat a bit so you can take your antibiotics. Since you pulled the IV out, I had doc drop some pills off. He sent some painkillers too, just in case you feel differently -"

"I won't"

"- at any point"

"I'm really not hungry." She added, starting to get uncomfortable sitting on the couch.

"You'll have to eat just a bit so you don't get sick with your antibiotics. You can't take the risk of throwing up later, not with your stitches. You got really lucky the bullet missed everything, but you still have a nasty wound that will take some time to heal. The better you take care of yourself, the faster it'll heal."

"The faster I'll get to leave" she muttered as she looked to the door.

"Annabelle we had an agreement, once you're better if you want nothing to do with me, I'll respect that. All I am looking for is a chance to get to know you and to give you your rightful place in my life. You promised a chance, but if you're entirely shut off to even hearing me out, that's not giving me a chance."

They sat in silence for the next few minutes until there was a knock on the door. Michael left the room for a minute only to return with a large tray covered in food and some prescription bottles that he placed on the table in front of her.

"There's some soup, and grilled cheese if you're up to it. Some ginger ale, or sprite whichever you prefer." Michael explained as he set up a tray table across her lap placing the bowl of soup and the sandwich on the tray for her. She shook her head at the ginger ale,

"Water is fine."

After taking in a small spoonful of soup, she finally turned to him,

"Ok, I'll give this a shot. Tell me how a child from such a powerful family can end up at an orphanage?"