Chapter 4 - THE FEVER AND THE WATCHThen, my own body betrayed me.
I had been ignoring a nagging chest infection for a week, working through intense board meetings until my vision blurred and I collapsed unconscious onto the marble floor of my study.
When I finally opened my eyes, the harsh fluorescent lights of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital greeted me.
Kneeling right beside my bed, holding a damp cloth to my forehead while my captains shouted useless orders in the corner, was Emily.
She had ordered my guards to carry me to the car when I collapsed and refused to leave my side during the wild, sirens-blazing race to the hospital. Doctors later told me that a severe bacterial infection had entered my bloodstream and that another twelve hours without aggressive treatment would have killed me.
For two weeks, Emily barely left my room. My mother visited in the afternoons, my underworld associates dropped by with business ledgers, and armed guards stood post outside the door. But Emily was the only one who stayed through the long, agonizing nights.
She fed me broth when I was too weak to lift a spoon, monitored my fever charts, and quietly held my wrist while she slept sitting upright in a hard armchair, just so she could feel my pulse.
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When I whispered to her one night that I wasn't alone because guards surrounded the room, she looked at me with soft, sad eyes and said, "That isn't the same thing."
By the time I walked out of that hospital, I knew I was completely, irrevocably in love with her.
