Page 28 of A Forbidden Arrangement

I stay close, watching the faint rise and fall of her chest. She’s too soft for this world, too easy to break. Too easy to lose. The thought hardens into a promise.

I won’t fail her again.

Chapter 14

Dahlia

The first thingI register is a voice. Low, steady, and close. It doesn’t cut through the haze so much as draw me toward it, coaxing me back until my body reacts before my mind does. Heat spreads beneath my skin, warmth settling into my sluggish limbs.

I’m not fully awake. I drift just below the surface, caught between the ache in my head and the weight holding me down. The words blur, impossible to grasp, but the tone sinks deeper, pulling me closer.

My eyes burn, lashes sticky. The ache in my skull sharpens as the world swims into focus, too bright, too sharp, and the fog starts to peel back. I see a man talking on the phone a few feet away from me. Even with his back turned, his broad shoulders are impossible to forget.

Reality crashes over me as memories of Xander in the alley flood back in.

He’d been there when I collapsed. I have the vague memory of his arms around me while I was drifting in and out. I’d been so relieved to see him, but I must have passed out for a bit because when I came to, Xander was talking to Elliot.

They’d been standing in front of each other, voices muffled so I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but one thing I know for sure is even with me hurt, Xander wasn’t fighting him.

My skin goes cold, goose bumps rising under the thin blanket. My muscles lock hard as my fingers claw into the sheets, gripping for something solid while everything inside me screams to run. Loud beeping comes from beside me, growing more frantic, but my gaze fixes on Xander.

A sound tears free, raw and broken, before I can swallow it down.

Xander’s beside me in an instant, filling all the space. The air thins. The ceiling feels lower, the walls pressing in. His shadow stretches across me, heavy, inescapable. He leans down, hand reaching for me like he belongs here, like touching me is the most natural thing in the world. His fingers skim my hairline, brushing hair back from my bandage with a care that makes bile rise.

I jerk away so hard the back of my head slams into the pillow, pain splintering white across my skull.

He stops. His jaw goes tight, and a tendon jumps in his neck. His hand closes into a fist once, knuckles white, and then opens again. He searches my face, clear gray eyes raking over me, and then his features smooth like he’s pulling on a mask. When he speaks, the sound drops low, soft, almost coaxing.

“Easy. You’re hurt.”

The gentleness in his tone makes my stomach lurch.

The door opens, and relief cuts through me. The doctor pauses on the threshold, eyes flicking to me before he steps inside. His hand lingers on the door like he’s not sure whether to close it. The coat sways around his knees as he moves, clipboard pressed tight against his chest.

His smile is stretched thin when he sees I’m awake. He talks fast about numbers and levels and everything I don’t care about until he adds a word that hits like a hammer.

“You’re stable, Mrs. Everette.”

Mrs. Everette.

The sound of that name detonates in my chest.

My pulse spikes. “What? No. That’s not my name.”

The doctor blinks down at the chart. “That’s what it says here.”

“It’s wrong.” My voice breaks. “My last name is Sinclair.”

His eyes dart to Xander, just for a beat, before he mutters something under his breath and backs out of the room. Fast. Like he knows better than to stay.

The silence afterward crushes me. My body shakes against the bed. My breath scrapes in and out, ragged and too loud.

Xander moves without hesitation. He slides something from a folder and lays it across my lap.

“I think you’ll find that you are wrong,Mrs. Everette.”

The paper is heavy, cream stock, the kind used for things that can’t be undone. The embossed seal catches the light… A marriage certificate.