The Price of Fame by Hazel Gower Page B

from him, telling him to follow.
    Now he sat waiting to find out what the hell had happened. A doctor came out and came over to him. He stood.
    “Mr. Pegios, your fiancée will be fine. She has a concussion from her fall and stitches in the back of her head. Those will need to come out in a couple of days. The baby is fine. At the stage she’s at, they are quiet resilient, although after this incident, and considering her low blood pressure, I want you to book her in and have an obstetrician monitor her. That’s what caused the fall. She hadn’t eaten, and her energy levels were down. Plus, it doesn’t help that she is still clearly jet-lagged. I don’t want her travelling alone or for long periods without her doctor’s consent. And I want her stress levels down. We’ll keep her overnight for the concussion, and if you like, I’ll organize finding a GP.”
    Speechless, all he could do was nod and whisper, “Can I go in and see her?” The doctor told him what room Kylie was in and that, by that afternoon, he’d have OB/GYN check in and touch base.
    Walking into her room, he groaned as she turned away from him, which he saw was quite the feat with the drip in one arm and blood pressure cuff on the other.
    “Go away. I want to be alone.”
    Ignoring her, he pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat next to it. “My family is going to be here tomorrow. My mama is looking forward to meeting you.”
    Turning her head the best she could, Kylie glared at him. “I don’t know if the doctor told you anything, but I’m supposed to be stress free, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t think meeting my boyfriend’s family for the first time isn’t a stress-free situation.”
    He bit his tongue and tried to sort everything he needed to say in his head before he said something that got her worked up again. He noticed she called him boyfriend, and not fiancé. She continued, and his heart sank further with each word she said.
    “The engagement ring is in the drawer.” She turned away from him. “I think we rushed into things. I don’t know if I can be in your world after everything that happened last night. I think I need to take a step back.”
    Gritting his teeth, knowing his voice sounded broken, he whispered, “Don’t. Don’t do this, Kylie. This is just our first big fight. We can get through this. We’re stronger than this.”
    She shook her head as he spoke.
    “ Omorphoula , please, I wasn’t thinking when those women kissed me. I should have pushed them away quicker.”
    She huffed.
    “Okay, moved out of their way entirely. Come on, give us a chance. This is all new to me too.”
    Kylie blew a raspberry. “You’ve been a star for many years now.”
    “I’m talking about a relationship with a non-Greek woman.”
    The monitors went off as she turned around, not caring about all the medical stuff.
    “You have got to be kidding me. So, you’re telling me if you were with a Greek woman, she wouldn’t have minded being locked in a bathroom, and then going to a party where her fiancé makes out with several women while she sits in a corner and watches?”
    The nurses came running in and pushed him out of the room before he could respond, and he stared at the closed door, wondering what to do.
    A couple of minutes later, a nurse came out to him. “Mr. Pegios, Miss Breal asked us to give this to you.”
    He looked down to see Kylie’s engagement ring.
    “She also asked us to not let you in anymore.”
    He stared at the door behind the nurse and looked down numbly at the ring. Nodding, he walked away, feeling defeated for the first time in his life.
    Since his teenage years, he’d always gotten what he wanted, first with his modeling career, and then with his singing. Markus had never had any problems with women, as they always threw themselves at him. He didn’t know what to do. He’d never needed to woo a woman. Even when he’d been with Helena, she hadn’t minded the groupies.
    He called his