Henry couldn’t believe his ears. The words that had just slipped from Eliana’s lips—steady, deliberate, almost ceremonial—hung in the hospital room like the smoke after a gunshot. Marry Rafael? The billionaire recluse who’d spent months pulling her strings, tightening them until she could barely breathe?
His mind lurched, staggered, scrambled for footing. A sharp pulse hamred through his chest, as if his heart was trying to break free from his ribcage and demand an explanation itself. He stared at her, stunned, his blue eyes wide and searching her face desperately for sothing—hesitation, doubt, a hint that she was joking, anything. But there was nothing. Not even a tremor.
Eliana looked almost impossibly calm. Her honey eyes held a strange, heavy resolve that made the room feel even colder. Her dark curls were scattered across the white hospital pillow, the sterile lighting catching the faint sheen of tears she refused to shed. There was a quiet strength etched into her features—a kind that twisted Henry’s stomach with equal parts fear and heartbreak. She wasn’t playing. She wasn’t confused. She had made a choice.
And that terrified him more than anything.
"Eliana..." Henry’s voice barely made it out of his throat, cracking like brittle leaves crushed under a boot. He leaned forward in the flimsy hospital chair, his tall fra folding in on itself as if the air around him had suddenly shrunk. The fluorescent lights above buzzed with a faint, irritating hum, washing his features in an unforgiving glare that carved deep shadows into his usually composed face. He looked pale—haunted, even.
"You’re... you’re not serious, right?" he breathed, the words trembling out of him. "Please—please tell this is so kind of twisted joke. Marry Rafael? That cold, calculating man?" His voice rose, then broke again, raw with disbelief. "The sa guy who’s been manipulating everyone he touches—including you?"
He searched her eyes, desperately hoping for a smile, a shake of her head, anything that would undo the mont tightening like a noose around his chest.
Eliana’s expression didn’t waver. She t his gaze steadily, her full lips pressing into a thin line before she spoke. Her voice was soft but firm, laced with the exhaustion of soone who’d cried too many tears and fought too many battles in the span of a single night. "No, Henry. I’m not joking. I’m dead serious." She shifted slightly in the bed, wincing as the movent tugged at the IV line in her arm, a reminder of the chaos that had brought her here. The room slled of antiseptic and faint traces of her floral shampoo, a stark contrast to the storm brewing between them. "Rafael and I... we’ve agreed to get married. As soon as I’m discharged from the hospital. It’s happening fast, but it has to."
Henry shot to his feet so suddenly the chair skidded backward, its tal legs shrieking across the linoleum. The sound cracked through the room like a warning. His fists tightened at his sides, knuckles blanching, every muscle in his body drawn tight—like he was one breath away from shattering.
He took a single step toward the window, where the afternoon sun slipped through the half-closed blinds, carving pale stripes across the floor like prison bars. For a mont he stood in them, chest rising and falling too fast, before he spun back toward her—eyes burning, jaw locked.
"Why?" he demanded, the word ripping out of him. "Why him, Eliana?" His voice wavered between disbelief and sothing dangerously close to heartbreak. "Of all people... why Rafael Vexley?"
He gestured helplessly, as if the very idea tasted wrong on his tongue. "He’s a walking fortress of lies—faking weakness just to keep you hovering around him in that damn hospital, after everything he’s already dragged you through. And that’s just what I know about." His breath hitched, frustration bleeding into fear. "You’ve told yourself how he twists everything—how he manipulates people like it’s a second language."
Henry took a small step toward her, voice lowering but shaking with desperation. "Is this... is this Stockholm syndro or sothing? Are you doing this because you feel trapped?" His eyes searched her face, frantic. "Eliana, please. Tell the truth."
Eliana sighed, her slender fingers twisting the edge of the thin hospital blanket that covered her. Her warm brown skin glowed faintly under the lights, but her eyes held a depth of sorrow that made Henry’s chest ache. She didn’t sugarcoat it; she never had with him. That was one of the things he’d always loved about her—the raw honesty that cut through the noise. "I’m doing it for protection, Henry. Mine, the baby’s, Papa’s... and even yours." Her hand instinctively rested on her swollen belly, the gentle curve a symbol of the life she was fighting to safeguard. "Mirabel’s threats aren’t empty. She’s already tried to kill us— that van this morning wasn’t an accident. It’s her. And Rafael... he has the power to shield us all. His resources, his influence. Marrying him makes untouchable. It ties our fates together, and she’ll have no choice but to step back—at least long enough for to breathe... and plan my retaliation."
Henry froze, his face draining of color as if soone had pointed a loaded gun straight at his heart. His warm eyes, usually so kind and steady, now flashed with a mix of horror and desperation. He looked like a man staring down the barrel of his worst nightmare, the room suddenly feeling too small, the air too thick. "Protection? Eliana, you don’t have to marry him for that!" His voice rose, edged with urgency, as he stepped closer to the bed. He grabbed her hand, his palm warm and hard from years of dical training, enveloping hers in a grip that pleaded for her to reconsider. "I can protect you. —Henry Jackson. I have connections, Eliana. Real ones. My family has resources, and I can use every last one of them if that’s what it takes. We can hire private security, go to the authorities, relocate you and Frank to a safer place—sowhere with round-the-clock surveillance and guards who don’t blink unless you tell them to. Whatever you need, I’ll make it happen."
He took a shaky breath, his voice softening, cracking with sothing rawer.
"You know how I feel about you. I’ve loved you since college—since the mont I first saw you at Jason’s party. And the next morning, when you spilled coffee all over my notes in that tiny lecture hall and just laughed... God, you didn’t even apologize. You just smiled at like the sun had chosen your face to sit on."
His fists loosened at his sides, the fight in him turning into a quiet plea.
"I’m willing to do anything—anything—to keep you safe. You don’t need Rafael. You don’t need his power or his money or whatever illusion he’s dangling in front of you. I’m here, Eliana. I’ve always been here."
To be continued...
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