"I'm not asking for everything now. I'm asking for the door to be open."
He nods. "The door is open."
Something settles in me. "There's something else," I say.
"Go on."
"There are so many women like me..." He nods, silently urging me to go on. "I gave her my number. She texted me yesterday. Her insurance won’t cover the cost of the surgery. She's been managing her pain with over-the-counter medication because she can't afford anything stronger." I hold his gaze.
He's very still. "What are you asking?"
"I'm not asking you to fix it. I'm telling you what I found so you know what I'm going to do about it." I sit forward slightly in the chair. "I want to help her get access to a specialist. I have Marsh's name. I have the knowledge of what to ask for and what to refuse. I want to use that. And I think—" I pause, feeling the edges of something larger. "I think there are a lot of women in her position. Not just with this condition. Women who have been dismissed or underfunded or told they're being dramatic, who don't know what they're entitled to ask for. And I have a lot of time on my hands right now, and I'm quite good at being angry on other people's behalf."
He looks at me for a long moment. Something is happening in his expression that I can't fully read from the outside.
"You want to build something," he says.
"I want to try. I don't know exactly what shape it takes yet." I meet his eyes. "But yes."
"All right," he says. Straightforward, no qualification.
"All right?"
"You'll need resources. Staff eventually, if it grows. Access to the right medical network. I'll talk to Marsh about a referral arrangement." He pauses. "And Rovin knows people who can—"
"Akyl." I stop him. "I want to do this properly. I don't want it to exist because you made some calls. I want to look into starting my own charity. For women. By women. Not be scary Bratva men in suits with guns."
"I understand." He tilts his head slightly. "But you are going to be my wife and my name is going to be attached to whatever you build. Which means the people who might otherwise overlook you will reconsider. That's not me doing it for you. That's the weight of a name you chose."
I think about that. "Fine," I say. "The name. But I direct it."
"I would never suggest otherwise."
I look at this man leaning against his desk in his expensive shirt with his arms crossed and his eyes on me like I'm the most interesting problem he's ever been handed, and I think about what my life looked like just over a week ago. The rationed medication. The temp agency shifts. The daily calculation of what I could afford to feel.
"You're nothing like what I expected," I tell him, the truth of it startling me.
"What did you expect?"
"Someone who bought a wife because he needed one. A transaction in a suit." I keep my eyes on his. "I didn't expect someone who would stay in a waiting room for seven hours and wait for me."
The muscle in his jaw moves. He says nothing.
"I didn't expect you to be kind," I say. "I was prepared for fair, but not kind."
He pushes off the desk and crosses to me, and he crouches down in front of my chair so that we're at eye level, which is such an unexpectedly intimate gesture from a man who takes up space the way he does that it almost winds me.
"When you're well," he says, very quietly, "I'm going to show you exactly how kind I can be." His eyes drop briefly to my mouth. "And some ways I can't be at all." He holds my gaze. "But right now I need you to go back to bed and rest, because you've been on your feet too long and ‘ve had enough stitches of my own to know how uncomfortable they can be."
I take his hand because it's easier than arguing and also because his hand is warm and I've been thinking about it all week because I'm only human.
Akyl
The ring has been in my pocket for three days.
I've carried it to two meetings, a port inspection, and a conversation with a man who owed Rovin money and was unwise about how he expressed his feelings on the matter. The whole time, it has sat against my hip like a decision I've already made and am simply waiting for the correct moment to execute.
Tonight is the correct moment.
