“I’ve come to realize you are everything to me. From the moment I saw you, I knew. I told myself I didn’t want love, but I was wrong.”
I breathe in sharply as the tears renew. I climb carefully into the bed beside her, mindful of her IVs. She curls instinctively into my chest. “I’ve loved you since the beginning,” I whisper into her hair. “I didn’t know how to feel it. I thought money was enough. But you and our little one... you deserve love. All I have to give, it’s yours.”
Her frail hand meets mine on her belly. In this moment, we are a family.
Selena lays her head on my chest as her tears soak my shirt. “I love you,” she manages to say before she drifts to sleep.
I close my eyes too and, for the first time in days, I finally rest.
30
SELENA
I wake up in Griffin’s arms. The hospital bed is small, but somehow we fit comfortably. He’s sound asleep, and though I am weak, I feel the first real stirrings of hunger. I try to settle back into his embrace, but the growling of my stomach and Amelia’s vigilant vitals-check wake him. The steady beeping of my heart monitor has become a strange sort of companion. My shoulder still aches, but the fever has subsided and my mind is finally clear.
“You get clear liquids today,” Amelia says with a note of triumph. Griffin laughs as he stretches. “And you need to move to the chair and let your wife have some room,” she scolds him like a schoolmarm.
“Right,” Griffin says, kissing my temple before carefully extracting himself from my side.
“I like him,” I manage to rasp out. As the words leave my mouth, I feel a surge of relief. He’s here. Griffin is actually here. Not Landon. My husband.
“I’m sure you do; you married him. But I need to redress your bandages. I’ll have a recliner brought in for you, Mr. Calloway.”
“Griffin,” he corrects, his voice rough and sleepy. He looks at me, his suit wrinkled and dark circles under his eyes. “I like her, too. Maybe we can get a bigger bed? I don’t mind paying.”
“All the money on earth won’t get a bigger hospital bed. I can bring a gurney for you tonight, but until then, use the chair. Your wife is on a strict diet.”
“And what does my wife get to eat?” Griffin is suddenly in full caretaker mode.
“Chicken broth, tea, and lime Jell-O.”
Griffin winces, and I laugh. I know how much he despises the stuff, but he knows I love it.
“Ugh, how long does she have to eat that?” He speaks through visible disgust, but it sounds like a feast to me.
“Twenty-four hours. If she tolerates that, we move to soft foods.”
The nurse leaves, and it’s just the two of us. I look at him, needing to know. “What you said last night… about loving me? Was that real? Or are you just glad I’m alive?”
Silence stretches between us. I panic, thinking he’ll take it back. We are in a fake marriage, after all. We got pregnant by accident. Being shot doesn’t change the legal truth of our arrangement.
Griffin doesn't answer with words first. He gets back into the bed with me. “Fuck the nurse,” he whispers, his jaw tightening as he pulls me close. “I didn’t expect to love you. I wasn’t planning on it… not ever. Love isn’t something I thought myself capable of.”
My heart races.
“Everything I’ve built, everything I thought I wanted—none of it means anything without you. I married you for control. I wanted the partnership, the reputation, the stability. I wanted to keep you from the rest of the world so I could figure out what to do with you. What I didn’t realize until you were gone for forty-eight hours—when I didn’t know if you were alive or dead—is that I’ve been in love with you since the moment you stumbledinto that club. You were starving and brave, and I fell harder than I’ve ever fallen.”
Tears well in my eyes. “That’s not love, Griffin. That’s proximity. Desire.”
“No,” he says gently. “I’ve been lying to you. There is nothing fake about the way I feel. I know I’m still a bastard who doesn’t deserve you, but I'm an honest one now.”
I look into his eyes, searching for an ulterior motive, but all I see is a man who hasn’t slept or shaved, looking at me with total transparency.
He kisses my neck. “I want new terms. No money. No contracts. Just us. Mutual respect. Trust. Half of all I own. I won’t shut you out again. I’ll give you a husband who strives to be worthy of you, if you’ll have me until death do us part.”
I slowly nod, a warm tear sliding down my cheek. “I love you.”
“Thank God,” he whispers, and kisses me properly.
