She glanced down at the plate and sighed, picking up her fork.
“Uh-uh,” he said with a frown he meant to amuse her.
He gestured toward the antibiotic pills on the tray. “Those first, and drink plenty of juice. Then you can eat.”
She rolled her eyes but complied with his request, washing down the pills with several gulps of the juice. Half the contents were gone. Good, but not enough.
He let her eat a few bites of her food, courtesy of Mojo, who was a wizard in the kitchen. He’d made crepes, whatever the hell those were. They looked too damn fancy for Hancock. There were beignets, which Hancock did know and liked. Who didn’t like beignets with strong black New Orleans coffee?
And there were fluffy scrambled eggs and breakfast ham along with bacon.
“What did he do, slaughter a pig?” she asked, laughter in her eyes.
He gestured toward the juice. “It’s fresh squeezed. Mojo will be offended if any is left.”
She nearly choked as she swallowed the food in her mouth. “Mojo cooked this?”
Hancock smiled at her reaction. “He’s a man of many hidden talents.”
“Obviously,” Honor murmured as she drained the juice.
She cut into one of the crepes and took a dainty bite, but she frowned and then quickly tried to cover it up. Hancock pretended not to notice, his heart already sinking.
She toyed with the eggs a moment, speared a forkful and lifted it toward her mouth, but then slipped her free hand over her stomach and let the fork drop with a loud clatter.
“Hancock, I feel sick. I haven’t eaten hardly anything. But I feel . . .”
She swayed, her face paling as she pressed her palm harder into her stomach. He saw her throat working as if she were trying not to vomit. He immediately reached forward to rub her back in an effort to soothe her and hopefully settle her stomach.
She flinched and then looked up at him with so much horror and hurt in her eyes that it was like a knife to the heart.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in a stricken voice. “What did you do to me?”
He cupped her face firmly when she resisted, and he pulled her into a gentle kiss, pouring out all the emotion he’d never allowed himself to feel until her.
He tasted her hot tears. Felt her keen sense of betrayal as if it had been done to him, and it only made him hate himself more for what he knew he had to do.
Kissing her again, he whispered against her lips, “Trust me, Honor. Don’t fight it. Just go to sleep now. Just go to sleep.”
“Am I dying?” she asked in a choked voice, tears silently streaking down her cheeks. “Kiss me,” she whispered, eyes bright with those heart-wrenching tears. “Kiss me one last time before I go. Pretend this once, for me.”
It broke his heart that she thought he’d pretended passion with her. That he’d used her, manipulated her emotions and tricked her into trusting him. Believing in him.
But he gave her what she wanted—what he wanted, savoring the sweetness of her mouth one last time before they had to go. Then he drew away, gazing intently into her eyes so she would know he was sincere.
“No, baby,” he said tenderly, stroking a hand through her silky hair. “Just trust me. Just this once. Trust me. Death doesn’t come to the innocent this day.”
But her eyes had already closed and had he not had his hand against her head, stroking her hair, she would have listed to the side, already unconscious. He swore violently, tears burning his own eyelids. She’d slipped under not only thinking she was breathing her last breath, but that he had been the one to poison her. His final betrayal when she’d offered him her trust time and time again, only for him to break it over and over.