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My brother shrugged. "She might. Or she'll feel like a prisoner. So maybe just talk to her. Don't change her safety protocols without telling her first. You'll probably find that she agrees with half of them anyway. Want as I am to agree with anything Lakewood says, she's probably going to hate this.”
"It's for her own good."
As I gave out more marching orders, I ran through some of the changes at work that would happen at Pendragon with Micah and Lakewood. I might as well put him to work if he refuses to go back to London. But part of me couldn't help but wonder if the two of them were right.
Would she understand?
She had to. She would have to see that I was only trying to keep her safe. Without her, I was nothing. I had to protect her with everything I had. I could not lose her again.
3
Gwen
Atticus was hovering.
Doesn't he have the right to hover?
Okay, fine. Admittedly, I’d been shot. And we still didn't know who’d done it. So there was that. But this constant watchfulness, as if I was going to shatter like glass at any moment, had to stop.
The problem was he wasn't talking to me. I tried bringing it up at the hospital yesterday, but he just told me not to worry about anything and to rest. That I could think about all these difficult things after I rested. What the hell did that mean? I had done nothing but rest and stare at the ceiling of my stupid hospital room for two weeks.
When I’d tried to use my laptop the other day, he'd just taken it out of my hands and told me that I didn't need to worry myself about any of it. If my dear husband was not careful, I was going to whack him on the head with said laptop.
The worse part was when I told him my nefarious plan to whack him over the head. Instead of calling me a violent little thing like he normally would have, he just kissed me on the forehead and patted my hand. Like I was a child who didn't know what I was saying.
Well, he would certainly know what I was saying when I actually did it. Now all I needed to do was find out where he'd hidden the laptop.
Our door staff at the penthouse was discreet. All Manny did was give me a soft smile and say, “Welcome back, Mrs. Price.”
I considered it for a moment. I hadn't even really had the opportunity to enjoy being called Mrs. Price. We'd been hiding our marital status when we got back from the Winston Isles. We'd only announced it the day I got shot.
I'd never been that girl who wanted to change my name and do all the bride things, but there was something nice about saying that I belonged to someone and he belonged to me.
Though before I filed any paperwork, I needed to make sure I wasn't going to super-hyphenate my name. Gwenyth Christin-Becker-Price. That was too much. I didn't want to completely lose myself just because I was married to one of the world's most powerful men.
But you are one of the world's most powerful women now. You hold a tech conglomerate in your hands. You have all the shares.
Shit.
That was right. All of Atticus’s Pendragon shares were now mine. Just thinking about the sheer number of them made me feel powerful as hell. But maybe, just maybe, I might be able to use some of that as leverage to get my husband to back the fuck off.
"Are you okay? Are you tired? Do you want me to carry you?"
We stepped in the elevator, and I slid him a withering glare. "If you pick me up, I swear before God that only one of us will be walking into the penthouse in a few minutes. And despite what you think, it will not be you."
He pressed his lips together. Gone was the humor that would have lightened the mood. There was no teasing like before when he would have said, “We’ll see about that,” or something else that made me giggle.
"You know I'll be okay, right?" I asked.
"Of course, you just need to heal up."
I glowered down at my sling. "I don't have to wear this thing all the time. The surgery scar is healing well. And honestly, you and I both know that I'm fine. The bullet didn't hit anything vital. The only thing that was scary was the blood loss and possibility of sepsis. And that's already taken care of. Please chill out, okay?"
He didn't say anything. And I was surprised when we reached our floor and there was another door.
"What the hell is this?"
"Additional security. Give me your palm."
