Page 36 of What You left in Me

And then she is shaking her head, coolly dismissing, “Enough with the theatrics, Ariane. I don’t have the patience to coddle you right now,” before sweeping past me, heels ticking like punctuation.

I watch her go, take a sip of Coke, and whisper to myself, “Love you too, Mom.”

###

The thought of sitting here one more second, staring at the beige linoleum while Richard fights for breath behind a glass wall, makes me want to scream.

I make a beeline for the sliding doors, past the smokers’ corner, into the bite of cold morning air. It’s almost violent against my lungs, and I welcome it.

And there he is.

Like a mirage from the night before, he’s leaning against the hospital’s brick wall like he’s posing for a noir film no one invited me to see. This time, his hands are shoved in his pockets, shoulders relaxed, chin tilted slightly down. There’s no cigarette pinched between his fingers, but he holds himself like there should be one between his fingers, smoke curling up into the cold. His hair is a little mussed, silver catching in the daylight, and his jacket is unbuttoned as if hospitals don’t touch him, as if he exists on a separate frequency altogether.

I stop dead, my pulse tripping over itself. Because, just like last night, my body betrays me. It remembers. The heat of him pressed against me in that car, the rough scrape of his hand on my waist, his mouth on mine. One kiss and I’m branded.

And now here he is, standing like temptation itself in broad daylight.

I clear my throat, too abrupt, too loud in the cold. “Why aren’t you at Richard’s bedside?”

His head lifts, those steely eyes pinning me with that unnerving steadiness. “Because he doesn’t need another body hovering over him.”

The words crawl under my skin. Detached. So damn clinical. I cross my arms, wishing I didn’t sound like a petulant teenager but failing anyway. “You always sound so fucking detached.”

He doesn’t flinch. He never does. He pushes off the wall just enough that the light defines the cut of his jaw. “Oh, Princess cusses too? What would Mommy Dearest say?”

That earns him a glare.

We stare at each other too long. His gaze flickers down, just for a second, to my mouth, and when it comes back up, I feel my pulse everywhere. In my throat. My wrists. Between my thighs.

I want to look away. And that’s the danger, isn’t it? Not the kiss last night, not even the heat that still lingers on my skin. The danger is right here, in the unspoken words, in the gravitation of looking and not looking away.

I exhale hard, a laugh that isn’t a laugh at all.

“You’re a dick sometimes.”

His mouth twitches and it makes my stomach twist harder.

“And you’re still here,” he says quietly. “What does that say about you, Ariane?”

I shake my head. My shoes click too loudly against the concrete as I stride back toward the sliding doors, arms locked tight around myself. The glass swishes open, the antiseptic air swallows me again, and I don’t look back.

My arms are locked around myself, like if I hold tight enough I can keep my ribs from cracking open. The glass sighs apart, swallowing me back into fluorescent light and antiseptic air.

And then I hear footsteps following me.

His steps are heavier. He doesn’t say a word or call after me. Just walks in behind me, shadow at my back, presence so thick it presses against my spine even as I keep moving.

We don’t get far. A figure in a white coat rounds the corner at the end of the hall, clipboard tucked to his chest, expression carved into the kind of neutral calm that only comes from years of delivering bad news. It isn’t the doctor from last night, the cardiologist—and that isn’t good news. Somehow, I just know that isn’t good news.

My stomach drops before he even opens his mouth.

Mom materializes out of thin air, heels clicking too fast as she sweeps down the corridor. Her pearls swing like they’re holding her together. Julian is at her elbow instantly, phone tucked away, face arranged into that careful, sympathetic mask he’s perfected. I stumble forward a step, my throat already closing, and Finn lingers behind me, silent and incomprehensible.

The doctor exhales, buying himself a second of mercy before he crushes us. “Mr. Wagner suffered more than just cardiac arrest last night. During the event, there was a secondary complication, a cerebral hemorrhage.”

I blink. “A… what?”

He softens his tone, but not the words. “A bleed in the brain. Likely caused by the strain of the heart attack. At present, he is stable, but unresponsive. We’ve run scans.” He pauses, eyes flicking to Eleanor, then Julian, then finally me. “The results are… concerning. Surgery is not an option at this stage. The risks outweigh the potential benefit.”