But when she stepped out of the bedroom, he was already waiting.
Dressed. Coffee in hand. Keys in the other.
"D-Don't you have a meeting?"
"You and your godfather are remarkably similar in the way you wound me with your preconceptions," he mocked. "Am I really such a monster in your eyes that you would think I'd prioritize business over your well-being?"
"I just didn't want to—-"
A finger over her lips.
The touch short-circuited everything she'd been about to say, and all she could do was stare up at him while her heart did something that would've had the smartwatch flashing warnings if she'd remembered to put it on.
"It is my most cherished duty to look after you, but your refusal to depend on me will make me think that you have no confidence in my capacity—-"
The words had her so horrified that she was already shaking her head. "No, no, it's not that at all!"
"Then will you promise to depend on me from now on?"
"Absolutely, I swear!"
Olivio knew that if he had simply told her to depend on him, she would've been too shy to do so. But if he were to frame it in such a way that her independence would end up hurting him?
He pulled her into his arms and hid his smile against her hair. How wonderfully predictable his beautiful wife was.
All eyes were on them at Stanhope Medical Center, and Chelsea was stunned anew when her husband turned out to be personally acquainted with her doctor. “Kazeyuki is a good friend of mine,tesoro.But he’s also a little too handsome for this job, so I think it’s best I’m by your side at every appointment.”
“You and I both know I am not the type to hit on my patients,” Kazeyuki interjected mildly.
“We both know you don’t have to.”
Kazeyuki turned to her, asking, “Is he always this jealous?”
“I’m not jealous. I’m simply protecting what’s mine.”
“Ah, my mistake. I stand corrected.” Kazeyuki’s too-solemn tone had color staining Olivio’s high-boned cheeks while Chelsea couldn’t even bear to meet either man’s gaze. Her embarrassment only grew afterwards, with Chelsea feeling flustered and struggling to calm her racing heartbeat as her doctor instructed Olivio to assist her in her exercises.
His hands were on her leg, her hip, her lower back, following her doctor’s instructions with the same focus he brought to everything, and the female trainees and nurses had long since stopped pretending to work.
Chelsea couldn't blame them. How he took care of her, how he put her above everything—-it was the kind of thing that only happened in movies, wasn't it? And yet here he was, this man who ran an empire, kneeling on a therapy mat and holding her ankle with the concentration of someone performing surgery.
This can't be real.
But it was. The warmth of his hands on her skin was real. The way he looked up at her when the physiotherapist said she was making excellent progress, as ifhewere the one who'd just received good news—-that was real too.
On the days that followed, Chelsea's time was mostly consumed by learning the ropes of what it meant to be Mrs. Olivio Cannizzaro. The art of smiling and making small talk while attending to whatever task Olivio's PR department needed her for. Sometimes it involved studying background files on dinner guests. Other times it involved attending charity functions where she was expected to remember names and navigate conversations with people who looked at her as if she were an equation they couldn't solve and were mildly offended by.
Kelly, a woman from the PR team who'd been assigned to manage Chelsea's schedule, had taken on this task with the grim dedication of someone who'd been given an impossible job and intended to do it anyway. Chelsea adored her instantly, which Kelly clearly did not know what to do with.
The work was ever-changing and endless, but she was stunned to find herself actually thriving, and it was mostly because of Olivio himself. He was like the most dashing guardian angel, the hottest professor, and the most chivalrous supporter all rolled into one.
The coffee he made to her exact order without being told. She had mentioned it once, in passing, on their second morning, and every morning since, it was there. Waiting. As if the information had entered him and simply become part of how he operated, the way her three-step rhythm had become part of hers.
It terrified her, how he had become her world in just one week. She knew what it was to lose a world. She'd lost her parents. She'd lost three years. She'd lost the version of herself that could walk without a limp and live without a smartwatch and trust that the ground beneath her would stay solid.
But it was because of God alone that she wasn't consumed by the terror.
What God had joined together, no man shall put asunder.
