Page 138 of Gilt

“I’ll meet you at the hospital in half an hour,” Monroe says and hangs up. Apparently, I’m not the only one who wants to know if Leighton is talking.

I don’t spot Monroe’s gold convertible in visitor parking, but knowing her she has a private parking space reserved in her name. Heading inside, I pause at the information desk.

“My friend just woke up from a coma, and I was told I could visit her.”

The attendant gives me a doubtful look but turns toward her computer screen and asks for the name. If Monroe was with me, we’d already be in Leighton’s room. I glance around the waiting area but she’s nowhere to be found.

“Visiting hours are nearly over,” she informs me.

I force a tight smile. My questions can’t wait for tomorrow morning.

“She can have visitors but only if you’re on the approved list.” The attendant studies me over the top of her wire-rim glasses. “Are you on the approved list?”

“She is,” a voice answers behind me. A male voice. A familiar male voice. A voice that makes my heart leap into my throat and my stomach bottom out at the same time.

You’ve been played.

I should have known better than to fall for Monroe’s sudden concern for a friend. Pivoting slowly around, I face the last person I want to see and the person I want to see the most.

Like my feelings, he’s a study in contrast. His strong, chiseled jawline looks as if it’s been expertly carved from marble even as his coppery, brown hair falls over his eyes. The loosened tie and suit jacket are at odds with the hopeful smirk creeping over his lips, and the placid depths of his gray eyes flash with lightning as our gaze meets.

I want to kiss and I want to smack him at the same time. Instead I stand there, dumbfounded.

“Come with me,” he commands, taking me by the arm and hauling me toward the elevator.

Normally I would push back at the bossy gesture, but I can’t think with his skin touching mine, even in such an innocent touch. We step inside and stare at the doors as they shut. I should step away and put some distance between us but I can’t seem to will my body to move. When the doors slide open, he presses his hand to the small of my back and guides me into the corridor.

I refrain from melting into a puddle over the gesture. Barely.

It’s easier to get to Leighton’s room now that she’s out of the ICU. Although judging from the harried look on the nurse’s face, we aren’t the only ones who’ve come to visit. I wonder just how many people are on the approved list of visitors. Leave it to hospital staff not to share the joy when someone wakes up from a coma.

“Sign here,” the nurse says pertly, “and I’ll need to see some identification.”

“I thought she was getting out of the ICU,” I grumble as I dig my driver’s license out of my purse. They hadn’t asked for ID the first time I visited her.

“New policy,” she tells us. “The police suspect that her accident might have been purposeful.”

It seems that Leighton has been talking. I want to tell her that the accident was actually a lie, and that I know because I was the other girl who went through the window that night, but Jameson steps in before I confess. Flashing her a crooked grin, he passes her his ID.

She glances at it, and then her eyes widen. He might be everyone’s favorite suspect in the murder of the century, but his family’s contributions to Belle Mère Hospital are the stuff of legend. The Wests had built more than one wing of the institution, judging by the names and plaques displayed everywhere I look. They were the reason the hospital could afford to have nurses in the first place.

“I’m sorry, Mr. West,” she stammers, blushing furiously. “Go right in.”

“If that’s how they treat you when they think you’re a murderer,” I say under my breath as we turn.

“The adjective billionaire somehow mitigates whatever noun follows it.” He steers me down the hall until we’re in front of room forty-seven. The door opens and a middle-aged woman steps out, her red-rimmed eyes completely undermining all the plastic surgery she’s undergone. She swipes at tears and smiles widely.

“Jameson!” she says fondly. Apparently, my would-be boyfriend gets around in the middle-age social circles.

“Mrs.—” he begins.

“Cheryl,” she stops him with a hug. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yes. We’ve been praying for this moment.” He’s indulging her. The small display of charm he’d put on for the nurse turns into an entire charismatic show. I’ve never seen him like this, except when we first met. It hits me like a semi-truck: he’s flirting with her. It might piss some girls off, but I just stand back and let him work his magic. “Can I introduce my girlfriend, Emma Southerly?”

I swallow at the term of endearment. So, Jameson West still thinks of me as his girlfriend? Does it matter? Judging from the butterflies whirling around my stomach, it matters a lot.

A shadow passes over Cheryl’s face but she recovers admirably. “Of course. I know your mother.”