Our roles had reversed.
Now I was the broken one.
HEALING AND GROWTH
Archer
Archer Bellamy: Man of the Penthouse
Bank Account: Enough to live on and more if I never worked another day.
Heart: Still beating. Resting rate—72.
Cards and flowerscrowded the coffee table—proof that nothing spread faster than news of a near-death experience. I finally go around to opening them. Clients, employees, even my high-school calculus teacher had weighed in with neatly written well wishes:Lucky. Strong. Take the time you need. Get better soon.
I thumbed through them on the couch, in gray sweats and a tee—my new uniform of late—and found a light-blue envelope from Caleb.
Get well. Rooting for you.—Caleb
Understated. But considering he really had been sick after Steele Valley instead of plotting to poach a client, I’d let it slide.
Next was a cream envelope with a doodled flower, in Maya’s handwriting.
I turned down Holden’s offer. You taught me a standard of excellence and believed in me from day one. I’m loyal to Bellamy Bros. and ready to help Matt keep things running while you recover.—Maya
I set it aside, a satisfied smile tugging at my mouth that she didn’t quit.Loyalty.A word that meant something in my world. Because of it, Maya would get her own team and whatever projects she wanted as a reward—later, when I was back in the saddle.
Loyaltywas a good quality in employees, a noble one that I admired and expected… even from girlfriends. I leaned back, trying to squeeze Penny out of my head. I wasn’t ready to deal with her yet.
My new superpower was postponement—laterhad become my favorite word. The world, my doctor, everyone around me had given me permission to rest, the A-okay to do nothing. But the silence that came with recovery? That proved brutal. Especially when silence came in the shape of a woman who wasn’t here, but ever present in my thoughts.
Two weeks since my heart attack, every quiet minute echoed our last conversation at the hospital. She’d stood pale and terrified beside my bed, and I—idiot that I was—had used my last reserves of pride as armor. I lobbied accusations, defensiveness, and all the crap at her from a man who hated being fragile in front of the woman he loved.
And I never said it back. Never said,I love you, too.
She’d told me she hid things to protect me. I had called it betrayal instead of what it was—care. Watching her leave thatday hurt worse than the cardiac event itself. The monitors never capturedthatkind of pain.
Now, every breath replayed the sound of her voice:I didn’t want to see you break again.
She wasn’t wrong. I had let the ghost of Brianne get to me again and control how I treated the one woman who was nothing like her.
I owed Penny an apology—a real one.
I scrolled through our most recent text thread. She checked in on me every morning:
Penny: How’s your heart today?
Me: Structurally sound. Emotionally questionable.
Penny: Progress. Can I stop by and bring you anything?
Me: Not today.
She offered everyday to come see me, to be there for me. I put her off and kept our connection to texts, avoiding the hard topics, circling each other in polite digital conversation. She’d sent thoughtful deliveries instead, little things like a book of crosswords, a self-help book for type-A males, and nice slippers.
The fact she tried every single day, loyal and waiting for me to catch up, meant she hadn’t given up. I just needed time to wrap my head around everything that had happened in my life. It was hell to face my own mortality, an organ that almost failed me, much less to face a woman I was falling for who’d kept secrets from me.
Was I ready to see her yet? I pulled up the photo of us with all the Golden Retrievers around us. My thumb drifted over the smile I missed.
