Chapter 3

THREE

Oakley hadn’t knownthe true meaning of despair until he’d woken up in a hospital bed, surrounded by mechanical beeps and sterile whiteness. He ached all over, but that pain had the hazy softness of powerful narcotics keeping the snarling dogs of brokenness at the door.

He’d been barely able to move for the first couple of days, partially because of the pain as he was weened off the strongest of the painkillers, and partly because he’d been stabilized with buffers to keep him as still as possible while the doctors at the trauma hospital Heath had made certain he was taken to could assess just how bad the damage was.

Heath had been there almost from the start. Oakley had never been so grateful for his younger brother. Their parents and their youngest brother, Marmaduke, had been in and out as well, but Marmie was still at university, and Oakley’s mum and dad were more the sort to care by throwing money at things. Heath had been Oakley’s rock and his advocate.

Heath had been the one to consult with the seemingly endless stream of doctors who had come in and out of his room during those first few, fuzzy days, when time had been irrelevant and difficult to grasp.

“We’ve been able to rule out traumatic brain injury,” one of the emergency doctors had explained to Heath while Oakley had pretended not to listen. He hadn’t wanted to hear what the woman had to say. “Your brother is incredibly lucky to have covered his head when he was ejected from the car. The impact he experienced was primarily to his side and lower back. We’ll know more about what we’re dealing with once we’ve done an MRI.”

The MRI had been excruciating, not so much because of the pain of moving Oakley from one part of the hospital to another, but because he had felt as though every set of eyes they passed in those long, cold corridors had known something he hadn’t. They all knew.

All he’d wanted to do was get up, brush himself off, tell Heath and the doctors that he was fine and that they were making a fuss over nothing, and walk out of the hospital. The problem was, he couldn’t feel his legs, let alone move them. It was as if everything below his hips no longer existed.

Everythingbelow his hips.

“The results of the MRI are relatively conclusive,” another doctor had told Heath some indeterminate time after the scan. “Your brother has an incomplete injury to the L1 vertebrae with compression.”

“What does that mean?” Heath had asked, all frantic concern and upset as he’d grasped Oakley’s hand.

Oakley had been helpless to do anything but lie there, surrounded by pristine, unfeeling white, the constant beep of the hospital mocking him, as he received his life sentence.

“I’m afraid it means that your brother is facing the strong possibility that he may never regain mobility or sensation in his lower extremities,” the doctor had said.

“You mean I’ll never walk again,” Oakley had said, proving to his surprised brother and the doctor that he was conscious and paying attention after all. “I’m stuck in this fucking bed as a fucking cripple for the rest of my fucking life.”

“Oakley, you’re awake. You’re going to be alright,” Heath said, crouching a little and leaning into Oakley with an expression of traumatized relief.

As much as Oakley had appreciated his brother’s love, he wanted to shout and rage and shove him away. “I am most certainly not going to be alright,” he’d grumbled.

“There’s no way to tell for certain what the extent of your injury is, Mr. Manfred,” the doctor had said with that artificial bedside manner that Oakley despised. “We will perform surgery to make certain no bone fragments are intruding on the damaged part of your spinal cord, but that isn’t a cure. In some cases it can take up to two years for spinal cord compression to ease. Once the swelling goes down, we’ll have a much better picture of the actual damage.”

“Fuck you!” Oakley had shouted. Too loudly, as it happened. The effort it had taken to raise his voice had tensed his body to the point where blinding pain overcame him.

He’d been taken back to his room, and the next time a doctor came to see him and tell him the exact same fucking thing, it had been someone else.

Which was pretty much the same way things had gone for the remainder of the week.

Oakley had been discharged from the trauma hospital and sent on to Greater Kensington Hospital, which specialized in rehabilitation and long-term care of bastards whose lives had been utterly shattered, like his. Everyone had cooed and raved over how swiftly his recovery was progressing, as if he’d been some sort of hero for shielding his head when he’d gone flying through the windshield of his Bugatti. He had no memory of the accident at all, only of breaking up with Ellis right before it happened. For all Oakley knew, fairies could have burst out of an alternative dimension and carried him safely to the ground, where his memories started again.

“We’ll begin rehabilitative therapy immediately,” the grey-haired doctor who Oakley had a feeling was some sort of supervisor in his wing declared after he’d been settled into an overly cheerful room God only knew how long after the accident itself. He’d lost track of time as he’d been in and out of consciousness those first few days. “It’s important to keep the body moving as much as it possible after the sort of injury you’ve received, Mr. Manfred.”

Oakley had snorted and given the doctor a rousing, “Fuck you. It’s not like I can get up and do jumping jacks to keep limber.”

The bastard had barely flinched. Heath had rushed to apologize as if he’d kicked the man’s puppy, but the old fucker had merely smiled at Heath and said anger was a normal reaction to a life-altering injury of the sort Oakley had suffered.

Denial. Bargaining. Depression. Anger. Acceptance. The stages of grief rang through Oakley’s head like some sort of mocking mantra. He supposed it was something that he’d skipped straight past the first three and landed firmly on anger. It wasn’t as though he could deny that half his body was gone. He couldn’t make any sort of deal to get it back either. And he’d never been one for depression. So anger it was.

He was relatively certain that anger had chased off the first two, fresh-faced, overly perky young people who had visited his room over the next few days and tried to move and flex his useless legs. Watching his body being manipulated without being able to feel it had completely done Oakley’s head in. It was far easier to chase the young nurses or therapists or whatever they were away, one of them in tears, than it was to face the truth that was rushing in on him, like the tide coming in when he was buried in the sand up to his neck.

“You have to stop being like this,” Heath said more than a week after the accident, fussing around Oakley’s bedside as the late morning sunlight streamed in through the window in all its cold, thin, January glory. “I know you’re a fucking bastard, but you don’t have to treat the hospital staff like shit.”

“I don’t want anyone touching me,” Oakley snapped back. It was partially true. He couldn’t bear being touched and not feeling it. “I’m sick and fucking tired of being poked, prodded, and smiled at as they tell me I’m fucked.”

“You aren’t fucked.” Heath sighed heavily and sat by Oakley’s side. “You’re miraculously unharmed, considering the severity of the accident. If you would just stop being such an arse and let these people help you, which is their job, by the way, you might start to see some improvement.”

Oakley turned his head away from Heath and yanked his hand back when his brother tried to take it. That was exactly the trap he didn’t want to fall into. He absolutely did not want to fool himself with the hope that things would get better, that his spine would suddenly heal itself, and that he’d be dancing at Heath and Aubrey’s wedding in the spring. As the saying went, it was the hope that killed you.

“I’m not going to be one of those inspirational fools who everyone coos and cries over just because he manages to take a shit on his own,” Oakley growled.

That was the other misery he now had to endure. He had no bowel or bladder control. Instead, he had a nappy that some poor sod had to change for him every few hours.

“All of your doctors say there’s a strong chance you’ll regain a lot of function as soon as the swelling goes down,” Heath insisted, frowning down at Oakley. “You’ve already regained feeling in places.”

It was true, but not what Oakley wanted to hear when he was well and truly angry. He could feel tingles and prickles lower on his back and around his hips that he hadn’t been able to feel at first. But he wasn’t going to cling to that hope.

“Did you file the insurance claim for my car?” he asked a deflecting question instead.

Heath sighed, then got up and slumped his way over to the chair by the window. “Yes, I filed the insurance claim,” he said, clearly exasperated.

“And…and Ellis?” It was the one topic that had the potential to be more painful than Oakley’s injuries, mostly because of the epic levels of guilt he felt over the young man.

Heath sighed again. “He’s fine. A little banged up, but he was released from the hospital that night. He…he hasn’t contacted me since giving me the note.”

Oakley turned his head away from his brother and the light of the window. Ellis had walked away from the crash with scratches and bruises, because he’d been wearing his seatbelt. He’d sent Oakley a note, which Oakley had read, then promptly tossed in the bin, saying he was sorry for what had happened, he didn’t hold anything against Oakley for breaking up with him, and without actually using those words, that he never wanted to see Oakley again.

Fair enough.

“I want out of here,” Oakley said, cursing himself for how pitiful he sounded. “If my recovery is progressing as swiftly as everyone says it is, then I want out of here, now.”

“You can’t leave the hospital,” Heath said, sounding exhausted and put out. “Your therapy has barely begun. You need to stay here until you’re deemed fit enough to—”

“I’m never going to be fit enough to fucking do anything again!” Oakley shouted, sending another spasm of pain through his healing body. “I want to go home.”

“You can’t,” Heath shouted back at him. “Not until you’ve progressed a little further.”

“You can’t bloody keep me here,” Oakley growled back at him.

Heath’s eyes widened, and he snapped, “Oh no? Go on, then. Get up and leave, then.”

Oakley wrenched his face away from his brother, fighting with everything he had not to weep. Heath was right. He couldn’t get up and go. All he could do was scream and gnash his teeth and make life as miserable as humanly possible for everyone else in order not to feel completely helpless.

It was at that bitterly perfect moment that there was a knock on his room door, followed by a man in scrubs walking right in without being invited.

“Good morning,” the bastard said, glancing from the tablet in his hands to Oakley. “And how are you today, Mr. Manfred?”

It was the very last question Oakley wanted to answer. How did the fucker think he was?

“Bloody Christ, another one,” he lashed out. “Can’t you people just leave me alone for a change? I’m sick of this. Just go away.”

The doctor, nurse, therapist, whatever he was, stared at Oakley. He had an entirely different edge to him than anyone who had waltzed into Oakley’s room, spewing sunshine and roses. He was fit and handsome, for one thing, with rich, dark hair, a light beard, and some sort of fire flashing in his eyes that made it hard for Oakley to catch his breath.

“I’m here to help you,” the man said, putting all that sharpness and edge into his voice.

Despite everything, Oakley liked it. If whoever the fuck this was intended to be an arse to him, he was finally justified for being an even bigger arse right back to him.

“Well, you can just fuck off back to where you came from,” he growled, feeling the blood pound in his heart and through the parts of his body he could feel.

The man’s eyes flared, and he stepped closer to the bed with an almost menacing feeling, until he was standing right at the head of Oakley’s bed, towering over him.

The move had to be deliberate.

“I’m Willoughby Shepherd,” he said, his words brittle and tense. “I’ll be your physical therapist for the remainder of your journey with us.”

“Willoughby?” Oakley sneered. “What are you, some sort of character from a Jane Austen novel?”

“You can call me Will,” the man said, gripping his tablet so tightly his knuckles went a little white.

“Not Doctor Will?” Oakley asked, balling his fists in his sheets. “Are you even qualified to work with real patients?”

“I’ve been practicing physical therapy for nearly ten years,” Will said, all fire and challenge. “And I have experience with spinal cord patients that goes back another ten years before that.”

Oakley snorted. “A likely story. What, are you, like, twelve or something?”

“I’m twenty-nine, not that it’s any of your business,” Will said. He glanced down to his tablet and rushed on with, “I see you have an incomplete injury to the L1 vertebrae with compression.”

Willoughby Shepherd didn’t look twenty-nine. He barely looked twenty-one. Oakley was impressed with his genes, if nothing else. He caught himself wondering what Will might look like all dolled up, like the twinks he usually dated, but immediately discarded the idea. None of his past boyfriends had been as much of a fucking bastard as Will obviously was.

“Your injury has stabilized, so there’s little chance of further damage, but we’ll be careful with your exercises for the first few weeks all the same,” Will had gone on while Oakley’s mind had drifted.

Oakley huffed. “Exercises? Are you going to get me up on a stationary bike or something? Plan to make me run laps around the hospital garden?”

Instead of getting flustered and trying to make excuses, like the other PTs had, Will just stared down at him with a look of utter contempt. “Stretching and flexing exercises for your damaged extremities as well as your functioning ones is a vital part of the recovery process,” he said. “Unless you want your muscles and joints to seize up and atrophy to the point where you’re in constant pain.”

Oakley clenched his jaw so tightly he thought his teeth might shatter. And wouldn’t that just be the icing on his shit cake. “I don’t want any of this,” he grumbled. “I want to go home.”

He hated himself for being so wretched, and he was certain that Will would turn into the same condescending, blithering bucket of false sympathy that everyone else had been around him.

Boy, was he in for a shock.

“Do you think anyone wants to go through any of this?” he shouted. “Do you think Mrs. Applebaum in the room across the hall wants to be quadriplegic when she has three children under the age of ten to raise? Do you think Mr. Frost down the hall wanted to lose his leg to bone cancer? Do you think any one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of patients I’ve treated in my career want to be in the situations they were in?”

Oakley worked his mouth, but no words came out. His pulse raced as if he were hiking up Scafell Pike, making him feel like he might just be alive still after all.

“A shit thing has happened to you, Mr. Manfred,” Will went on, still full of piss and vinegar. “You’re going to be dealing with it for the rest of your life. But you could have had a cervical injury. You could be lying here, unable to move or eat or breathe on your own. As far as spinal cord injuries go, you might just have hit the lottery. And yes, it fucking sucks arse. But whining about going home and chasing off the hospital staff is not going to change the fact that you can’t fucking walk. You’re stuck with me. This road you’re on now is not optional. Are you going to suck it up and do the work to keep your body in ideal shape to make the most complete recovery possible, or are you going to be a pussy and make everyone hate you? Because I’ve seen that before too, and, surprise, it doesn’t bring your legs back.”

Oakley was stunned, to say the least. Almost no one had spoken to him like that before, and that was before his body had been broken. He should be livid. He should call hospital security or Will’s supervisor and have him sacked and thrown out onto the street. There was no possible way that the tirade he’d just gone off on was NHS approved.

But for the first time since the accident, he wanted something other than to turn back the hands of time so he could fasten his seat belt and erase everything that had happened to him. He wanted something other than to shout and curse God and the Universe for the state of his broken, painful body. He wanted to muscle himself out of bed, legs or no legs, so that he could punch the smarmy look of superiority off Willoughby Shepherd’s handsome face and make him pay for daring to speak to him that way.

“I’m sure my brother is sorry for speaking to you as he did,” Heath stammered by the side of Oakley’s bed, looking pale and shellshocked.

“I am not,” Oakley snapped, glaring at Heath. He then turned that glare on Will. “I don’t want to be treated by some third-rate, medical school drop out who settled for physical therapy.”

“I am not a drop out who—”

“I want to be treated by someone who knows their shit,” Oakley interrupted, catching some of the fire that burned hotter than ever in Will’s eyes. “And who won’t take shit from anyone else. I don’t want to be mollycoddled or to have anyone pat me on the head and say ‘there, there’. I want someone who can bust my balls, even if I’m never able to feel them again, and dish it out as well as take it. And I want to recover at home, not in some disinfectant-smelling shithole hospital.”

“Oakley, for the last time,” Heath said, pressing the bridge of his nose. “You need to be in a proper facility that can care for your—”

“You’re a rich bastard, aren’t you?” Will asked, crossing his arms and grinning down at Oakley with a wolfish gleam in his eyes.

“I’m a fucking billionaire,” Oakley seethed back.

Will shrugged. “Then you have the money to outfit your home with all the equipment you need for your recovery. I bet you can afford to hire around the clock nursing staff, too. You could probably kit up your place with nicer stuff than we have here.”

“You’re not actually encouraging him, are you?” Heath asked, starting to look worried.

“Why not?” Will shrugged again. “He’s just going to be a grumpy bastard and terrorize everyone if he stays here. Kit up his place, and he can torture you, me, and whoever else he hires in the privacy of his own home.”

“So…so you’ll still agree to treat him, even if he’s not a patient at this hospital?” Heath asked exactly the question Oakley was thinking.

“I’ve been asked to take Mr. Manfred on as a favor,” Will said.

“It’s Oakley,” Oakley said. “And as a favor to who?”

“The Brotherhood,” Will said with a sudden, smug grin.

That settled it, as far as Oakley was concerned. And he didn’t even have to know who asked for the favor. The way Heath suddenly went all squirrely and looked out the window was the answer to that particular riddle.

“Alright, then,” Oakley said. “You get me a list, and I’ll set my place up with everything I need to go through your torture machine of physical therapy. I’ll do whatever it takes to get out of here and back into my own home.”

“Deal,” Will said, then turned to go.

“Where are you going?” Oakley tried to stop him, though he felt like a complete arse for doing so. But Will Shepherd had given him back something that no one else had even thought to give him, and he didn’t want to see the back of the man yet.

“To make your list, you nasty, abusive bastard,” he said. He even gave Oakley the finger as he walked out of the room.

“What’s his problem?” Heath asked, utterly gobsmacked by the confrontation.

Oakley realized then that Will obviously did have some sort of problem. He’d walked into the room with it. That much was clear now.

But what he answered was, “Me. I’m his problem now. And he’d better be fucking ready for it.”