Chapter 13
Then again, Hayden’s temperature seemed a bit higher than usual.
He seemed to be having a fever.
Zara felt a little pleased when she saw Hayden so worried and anxious about her.
“Zar? Zar!” he called.
༠ F ཆ ས ༴ སཾ F ཆ ཇ
Zara came back to her senses when she heard him calling her name. “Yeah?” she asked.
This was the first time she had looked at him so earnestly.
Hayden’s cool demeanor seemed to have disappeared. “You didn’t answer me when I said your name earlier. Didn’t you hear me? Are you really that scared?” There was no point in lying to him about this, and the answer was obvious anyway, so Zara answered, “Yeah.”
Hayden said seriously, “If you really can’t do it, you don’t have to. I’ll drive you anywhere you want. I’ll be your driver.”
However, Zara did not want to give up just like that.
After all, she’d already taken the most important step. If she did not continue, she would’ve been terrified for no reason earlier. When she heard Hayden’s determined tone, she smiled, exasperated.
He was the one who told her to overcome her trauma in the first place. Now, he was the one who was distressed on her behalf.
“Fine,” Hayden sighed. “Don’t worry. I’ll be by your side.”
After trying several more times, Zara still only managed a short distance.
Every 100 meters, she would have to slam on the brakes.
Hayden had been expecting this. During the last attempt, when Zara had managed to drive the full distance of 100 meters, he thought that Zara had finally managed to overcome her fear, so he began encouraging her.
However, it didn’t last long. Almost immediately, Zara slammed on the brakes again.
The inertia was stronger than in the previous instances. Hayden, who had taken off his seatbelt, lurched forward and back again, slamming against the back of his seat. The injury on his back wasn’t fully recovered, and his bones weren’t completely healed yet.
He grunted in pain but didn’t say anything as Zara looked happy.
He just continued practicing with Zara.
However, Zara soon noticed something wrong with him. She hadn’t forgotten his abnormally high body temperature earlier. “Hayden, are you feeling unwell?” she asked.
Hayden’s brows were furrowed, but he forced out a smile and leaned closer to Zara. “I’m tired, Zar,” he said into her ear.
Zara reached out immediately and placed a hand on his forehead. He really had a fever.
“When did the fever start?”
Hayden thought back and said, “This morning, I think.”
Hearing this, Zara was angry. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? You didn’t need to be here in the rain with me!”
Hayden lowered his head sadly. “I promised you yesterday that I would accompany you. I can’t break my promise.”
“Not at the cost of your own health. I can practice driving anytime I want. It’s not like I can overcome my fear in just one rainy day.”
Then, she drove straight back home without hesitation. Hayden wasn’t even sure if this was purely out of anger, or if she had actually managed to overcome her fear. Before he got out of the car, he asked, “Can we count this as a success?”
Zara did not care about overcoming her trauma at the moment.
She found him some aspirin. “Here, take these.”
Then, she grabbed a thermometer and checked his temperature. She was shocked by the result.
Hayden had a fever of 103°F.
Worried that the aspirin wouldn’t be able to help with a fever that high, Zara suggested going to the hospital.
Hayden didn’t want her to find out that his back was also starting to hurt, so he refused to go to the hospital. “I’m fine. I just need some sleep.”
Zara looked at him. Even though she was worried, she still trusted him, so she allowed him to go to bed.
Hayden slept until noon the next day.
When the housekeeper finished cooking dinner, Zara took the thermometer and checked Hayden’s temperature again.
His fever had gotten worse.
Zara shouldn’t have trusted him.
Heart pounding with anxiety, she shook Hayden awake.
His fever was at 104°F now. She was afraid that the high temperature would cook Hayden’s brain.
Hayden woke up, but he was still bleary with sleep. He also kept moaning in pain.
At first, Zara didn’t know where he was hurt. Then, she came into contact with Hayden’s back and realized that the injury on his back was still unhealed.
She remembered how she had slammed on the brakes last night in the car. Hayden hadn’t put on his seatbelt then.
So, he was hurt and ill again because of her?
Tears fell from Zara’s eyes suddenly. She didn’t know what to do now.
Hayden looked groggy. Zara wasn’t sure if that was because of the fever or not.
He felt tears dripping on him. When he looked up, he saw Zara’s reddened eyes and became upset. “Stop crying, Zar,” he said as Zara wiped her eyes hastily. “It hurts more when you cry.”
Zara thought that his injury was acting up again. She remembered that Hayden’s butler, Tom Brown, was outside, so she called him in.
Then, Hayden pointed at his chest with a blank and earnest look. “It hurts here.”
Zara stared at his chest dazedly. Her tears began flowing again.
Tom realized what had happened when he entered and saw this. “Don’t worry, Ms. Cardellini. Mr. Gavino has always been like this when he’s sick. When his fever gets higher than 100°F, he becomes dazed and a little dumb. He’ll return to normal once the fever recedes. He won’t stay dumb forever.”
Zara was relieved to hear that. She helped Hayden out of bed so that she could take him to the hospital.
Without shoes, Hayden stepped onto the cold ground barefooted. “The floor is cold, Zar. Will you hold me while I sleep?”
NANGS NE SER NEC
If it were before, Zara would’ve replied, “You should just sleep on the floor. The only person I’ll hold while sleeping is my son.”
However, now that Hayden was sick and not in his right mind, Zara wiped her tears away and said softly, “I’ll hold you when we get to the hospital, okay?”
Hayden pouted, looking close to tears.
Zara thought that he didn’t want to go to the hospital, so she tried to rephrase her sentence, but it still didn’t work. In the end, she had to resort to threatening Hayden with no hugs unless he went to the hospital.
After a while, when Zara refused to back down, Hayden relented with a hurt expression. “Fine,” he mumbled.
Throughout their journey to the hospital, Hayden refused to let go of Zara’s hand.
Even when they arrived at the hospital, he refused to get checked, insisting on holding Zara’s hand.
With so many doctors and nurses staring at them, Zara felt embarrassed.
However, there was nothing she could do, as Hayden flat–out refused to let go of her.
Eventually, Hayden was hooked up to an IV drip and fell asleep. Only then did Zara have the freedom to move around.
She kept a close eye on Hayden’s temperature as he went through several bags of IV.
When his fever receded, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Eventually, she fell asleep at the side of his bed as well.
Her sleep was fitful, though. She woke up when she sensed some movement.
When she saw that Hayden was awake and back to his usual cold self, she was amused. She still remembered how he acted when he was sick.
However, the first thing Hayden did after he woke up wasn’t to speak to her. Instead, he called the nurses and insisted that they check on her to see if she had been infected by him or not.
Zara was taken aback. A fever like this shouldn’t be infectious.
The nurses were similarly perplexed.
Hayden explained, “I saw her smiling like an idiot as soon as I woke up. I thought she was sick too.”
Zara understood now. He was just pissed off because he remembered how he had acted before.
She sent the nurses out and gave Hayden a calculating once–over. “So, do you still need me to hold you while you sleep, baby Hayden?”
Hayden’s expression darkened. “Was it necessary to call me a baby? You’re bullying a sick man here.”
Zara looked conflicted when she looked at him, but Hayden could clearly see her concern for him despite it.
“Fine. Hayden, do you need me to hold you while you sleep?”
She sounded fond and indulgent.
Despite his frustration, Hayden was still satisfied with Zara’s show of affection. He did not turn her down. “Sure.”
He tried to remain expressionless, but Zara caught his lips twitching up in glee.
Zara got into bed with Hayden.
He wrapped his arms around her tightly, forgetting that his back was still injured.
Secretly, he shifted, trying to relieve the pain in his back. He bit his lower lip to keep his mind clear.
It would be an understatement to say it was in a little pain; it felt like something was stabbing him in the spine, or rather, his spine had splintered and was stabbing into his flesh. The tighter he hugged Zara, the more pain he felt.
He clenched his teeth tightly so that Zara wouldn’t notice anything amiss. However, the pain was hard to bear.
Maybe it was his cold that lowered his tolerance for pain. Hayden couldn’t stop the grunt of pain that came out of his mouth. Hearing this, Zara shifted. “What’s wrong?”
Her voice was much gentler than before.
Forcing out a smile, Hayden said, “You crashed right into my heart.”
Zara was speechless.
This wasn’t normal. Hayden must be hiding something.
Zara knew that Hayden’s back was hurting when she saw the sweat on his brow.
Chapter 13
Immediately, she reprimanded him for hugging her so tightly.
Hayden smiled bitterly. “I was scared you’d run away, you see.”
3/3
Hayden was never like this before.“You would never say something like that to me before,” Zara said.
Hayden pursed his lips. “That was before. I’m with you now. I won’t give you the chance to run away from me again. I’ve learned something from Jonathan after being around him for so long.”
Zara shook her head.
He knew that she had broken up with Jonathan for good. How could he bring up her ex–boyfriend in front of her?
“I’m not going to run away,” she said.
Hayden rested at home for another month before fully recovering.
As soon as he recovered, he dived right back into work.
During his time off, his friends had called him relentlessly. Now that he was feeling better, they wanted to hold a party for him to celebrate.
Zara didn’t like noisy places, so she didn’t go to the party with Hayden.
However, Hayden’s friends weren’t happy about this.
“Why didn’t you bring Zara along, Hayden?” When Hayden arrived, one of his friends, Colin Freeman, said as he lounged on the couch. “We wanted to get to know her.”
Hayden glanced at him sideways. “You don’t need to meet her. I don’t want you to corrupt Zar.”
He was already feeling a headache coming on at the thought that Zara would become as insouciant as his friends if she got the chance to spend time with them.
Even he found it hard to hold on to his principles when spending time with them.
Corrupt?
Colin widened his eyes in disbelief. He raised a trembling hand and pointed at himself.
However, Hayden wasn’t even looking at him. Colin felt even more devastated at that.
He opened his mouth to defend himself from Hayden’s “slander“, but before he could say anything, the words got stuck in his throat.
Zara was a woman, and she looked quite innocent. It did seem like he would corrupt her eventually.
His argument sounded lame now that he had that thought. “Even so, you should let us hang out with her. We won’t corrupt her. You’ll be by her side, won’t you?” He trailed off toward the end.
Thinking hard, he continued, “More importantly, what if she gets the wrong idea about what you get up to without her? You really should bring her along.”
Hayden looked at him disdainfully. Zara was the one who said she didn’t want to come. She wouldn’t be suspicious of him.
She wasn’t an unreasonable person, after all.
“Say…” Colin continued prattling on before Hayden could say anything.
