Days passed, and Lila was still unresponsive, trapped in the recesses of her mind. For the second day in a row, I found myself leaving the office at five and rushing over to the hospital.

Work was utter hell. I hated being away from her.

Nothing changed in the ten hours since I’d last been there. I walked into the room with quiet steps up to the bed. She looked so peaceful, like an angel. The constant beeping of the machines, along with the low rise and fall of her chest, put to rest the creeping fear that she was gone. I clung to each breath and beat.

She was still there, alive, and she would return.

I hoped.

My hand reached out to move a stray strand of hair from her face, but I stopped myself. It was one thing to see her, to smell her, and to feel her presence. It was another thing entirely to touch her.

This is for the best, I reminded myself.

I turned and walked back out to the hall. Once there, I leaned on the wall and stared at the room across the hall. A shiver ran down my spine, and my body shuddered as memories flooded back to my mind.

I pushed them away and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. My mind turned over to the beeping of the machines that let me know my Lila was still with me. After a few minutes, my heart began to beat in time with hers.

I sat there listening, thinking, feeling, until after midnight when a nurse came by and told me I couldn’t stay any longer.

When I returned the next night, her door was closed, and through the small glass window I could see Darren and a few other doctors looking at the monitors and talking.

Taking my position again, I slid down the wall, coming to rest on the cold, hard floor. I closed my eyes, my head tilted back, and I listened to the steady beep of the machines.

I heard the door to her room swish open then click closed. I didn’t know if he saw me or not, but he knew I was there.

He sighed. “Why are you sitting out here? If you came this far, why don’t you go in and see her? She knows you’re here, after all.”

My head snapped up. “She’s awake?”

I watched Darren turn to look at me, a sad smile on his lips. “No, not yet.”

“Then how do you know she knows?”

“Her heart rate’s been steady all day. It picked up about fifteen minutes ago,” he said, then quirked his brow. “How long have you been sitting out here?”

I stared up at him in wide-eyed shock. “About fifteen minutes.”

“That’s what I thought.” Darren slid down to sit next to me. “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here. Why are you here? You broke her, yet you come by every day and sit outside her room.”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I just… I feel such a pull to be near her. I hate that I did this to her…but it’s better this way.”

“Better than what? You may be saving her from the possibility of being harmed by Marconi, but what do you call that in there? Three fucking days she’s been unresponsive.” He hitched his thumb toward her room. “In that room, they’re talking about moving her to a facility I don’t want her to go to. She has no next of kin… Well, none that would come. She just has you and a small handful of friends. Friends who have lives. What do you have, Nathan?”

I sat there, staring at the room on the other side of the hallway.

He answered for me. “Nothing. You have nothing. You had her. A beautiful, broken woman who would have done anything for you. A woman who loves you, and you were selfish.”

“Selfish?” My voice rose in indignation, my head snapping to look at him.

“Selfish. You did this for your protection more than hers. The thought of losing her the same way you lost your wife crushes you, doesn’t it?”

“I… How do you know she loves me?”

“Way to deflect there, Nathan. Don’t worry, I won’t forget. And I know, because if she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t be in her current state. And if you didn’t love her, you wouldn’t be sitting out here in your expensive suit, on the floor, outside her door in a hospital.”

I cringed at the word, just as he probably knew I would.

After spending months in a hospital after the accident, I hated them. The smell alone made me sick. Especially there, in that wing, sitting across the hall from the room that had once been my home.

There was a sudden shrieking plea that rang out from her room. Lila was screaming, begging. Darren jumped to his feet and threw the door open, rushing into the room.

I turned, my fists slamming on the wall while her screams echoed around the hall. My eyes were screwed tight, but the tears leaked through as I listened to my Lila cry out.

Her screams and pleas cut through me, tearing me. I wanted to run in and take her in my arms and never let her go. I wanted to chase away her fears and self-doubts. Declare my undying love, want, need, and support.

“No one wants me!” she wailed.

My heart splintered. “I want you,” I whispered into the wall. I held my body tight and tense to keep me from running to her, to keep my heart from ruling.

I felt a warm hand on my fist, and I looked up through bleary, tear-filled-eyes to find my mother staring down at me with a sad expression on her face.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Nathan.”

“Yes, it does. She’s safe this way…without me in her life.”

I continued to listen to her pleas and sobs as Darren worked on calming her. It was my punishment. I had done that to her. I needed to hear it. Every cry and sob I created. I broke her.

My chest tightened, constricting my breathing.

It’s better this way.

She’s better off without me.

I repeated those words over and over in my head, trying to convince myself that I had done what was best for her in the long run. A mantra, as I remained in the hall, listening to everything that poured out of her. My heart broke more the longer I listened, but it was my punishment. I had to hear her pain, because she was what mattered most.

But if I walked through that door and saw her, I might shatter. I’d much rather sit outside, listening to her scream, and let her be comforted by Darren. He knew what to do. He always did. I couldn’t offer her any solace; I didn’t have it in me anymore.

All my fucking fault. All of it.

 

 

They released Lila the next day, and I was left without any outlet to her. At least in the hospital I could be near her, but it was much better that she wasn’t there any longer. However, I was not better.

The beast within me paced, and I grew restless. Sleep evaded me, and I was lucky to be getting three or four hours a night. It was never in one shot either; forty-five minutes here, thirty there.

When Monday rolled around, I was anxious yet elated. I would see her again, and maybe that would soothe me some. I was happy she was returning to work because that meant she was awake. Over the previous few days, I found out just how much I’d grown used to always being around her, how much I was addicted to her.

I arrived at the office early, as insomnia had me up before five, and anxiously awaited her arrival. I was a nervous wreck and had no clue what to do or how to act. I just knew I was miserable, and I guessed that she was worse.

Worse was an understatement when she arrived a little while later. What walked through the door and into our office was not the Lila I knew. My heart ripped again. She looked…different. Almost as if she’d reverted back to that time in the parking lot. Her eyes were directed to the floor, hair down. She didn’t look my way. She didn’t acknowledge my presence.

It was difficult to look at her, knowing I’d done that to my Lila, but it had to be that way. Didn’t it?

I could smell her, and a calm spread through my every nerve. She was there. She was alive. That was what mattered.

Alive.

She continued to avoid looking at me while booting up her computer and sorting through the piles on her desk. Still no acknowledgement.

“Good morning, Lila,” I said. I was going to say more, but refrained when she cringed. My chest burned, the knife twisting deeper.

It was better that way.

 

 

The days passed just the same, silence prevailing between us. I hated it. Every moment was torture, and not just on me. Lila wasn’t even trying to hide the pain, her façade blown away. Stuffing herself into work to avoid thinking, perhaps?

I knew that was what I was doing. Distracting myself with contract after contract.

On her fourth day back, it was so busy I didn’t even take a lunch break. I ran to the lobby, picked up a quick deli sandwich from one of the vendors that occupied the first floor, and ate at my desk. I almost picked up Lila’s favorite, but I had a suspicion it was a bad idea.

She never left her desk, other than to get more coffee or some water. She drank her coffee black, so I knew she wasn’t getting any calories there, and I hadn’t seen her eat anything.

I glanced over at her and cringed. She’d lost weight over the last week. Not a lot, but noticeable. I knew I was to blame.

She’s in love with you!

Caroline’s words rang through, interrupting my thoughts.

There were only two hours left before she was to leave, Jack making sure she didn’t overdo it, and I had a feeling she wasn’t eating at home.

I knew I wasn’t.

“Lila, go eat something,” I said, my eyes never leaving the screen. I needed to stay detached to keep myself restrained. That was why I hadn’t engaged in conversation with her since her return.

“No.” Her fingers didn’t even skip a beat on her typing.

My jaw twitched. “Go.”

“I’m not hungry.” Her voice was detached, but held the beginnings of annoyance.

I slammed my hands down on my desk.

Dammit!

In my periphery she jumped, but kept her head down. I startled her. She did look my way as I stalked out and down to the break room. I surveyed the contents of the vending machine and found there wasn’t much of anything healthy, but at that point, she just needed something in her system.

Her favorite granola bar was there, so I entered my money into the slot. After retrieving it from the machine, I returned to the confines of our office. I threw the bar onto her desk, and it landed right in front of her.

“Eat it,” I demanded.

“No.”

“Eat the fucking granola bar before I shove it down your throat.” It was taking all my control to keep from yelling at her; I was so angry that she wouldn’t just take it.

Her hand wrapped around the package, and I smiled on the inside. My body sighed in relief that she was doing as I asked, but was quickly proven wrong when she threw it against the wall. It shattered inside the wrapper with a crack before falling to the floor.

“Oh, I’ve heard that threat before,” she spat up at me. Anger was boiling in her eyes, venom lacing her tone.

My eyes grew wide as I remembered the last time I’d given her a similar threat. My chest ached, longing for the time when things were different between us. Times where my possessiveness was allowed to get the better of me, and my cock ruled.

Her anger was new, confusing, and I didn’t know what to do. Something that scared me, but made me proud at the same time. I hated that she was going against me, but at the same time happy she was fighting back.