It’s probably his condition, but the need to punch his chest and ask him to do something creeps under my skin like a wildfire.
When the hospital comes into view, I practically leap out of the car before it properly stops. My voice is surprisingly calm when I ask the nurse about Daniel. She asks me if I’m family and I want to strangle her.
I might not be Daniel’s family, but he’s mine. He did so many things for me that my own family didn’t.
He did something no one did.
Like making me feel alive.
Wanted.
Protected.
“I’m his brother,” Zach says, stopping beside me. “She’s his…significant other.”
I stare up at him with wide eyes, but he seems more interested in his phone, whatever he has on that thing.
As soon as the nurse directs me to Daniel’s room, I half jog there, then my rhythm falls into a stroll.
During all my life, I lost people because they tried to protect me.
Papa drowned because he tried to save me.
My mother, as power-hungry as she was, married a lord to secure my future. She killed an innocent woman and attempted to murder her stepdaughter so the field would be free for me.
My younger self lost her dreams and self-respect so I can move on.
Survive.
The thought of Daniel being added to the list physically nauseates me and I have to shake my head and blink my blurry eyes to remain on the right path.
During every disaster that befell me, it was Daniel or the thought of him that pushed me to stay afloat and do better.
This time, I won’t be able to move on with my life.
This time, it’ll be the end.
Zach told me his guy caught the one who stabbed Daniel. He was some low-rent thug and admitted to being paid by Christopher to stab Daniel.
So Daniel is hurt because of me. Because he beat up Christopher for me.
My heart nearly drops to the floor when I reach his room.
Please.
Please let him be all right.
If he still hates me, I’ll disappear. If I’m a bad omen to his life, I’ll never search for him again.
As long as he’s alive.
And well.
And healthy.
My unsteady fingers push the door open and I freeze in the doorway. Daniel sits on a hospital bed, only wearing trousers as a male nurse wraps a bandage around his midsection.
He’s…sitting.
Although his brows are knit together in what I assume is pain, he has his eyes open and he’s conscious.
The nurse clips the bandage, then tells Daniel something, gives him a pill and water, then waits for him to drink it before he shoulders past me.
That’s when Daniel looks at me.
And the emotion on his face shakes me to the bones. I expected surprise, anger, maybe even coldness, but the one I find?
It’s relief.
The encompassing type of it.
The tears I’ve been holding spill on my cheeks as I step inside. “Are you okay?”
He runs his fingers through his hair. It’s a bit tousled, a bit imperfect, just like him right now. “Some pesky stitches, but I’ll be good as new soon. Besides, I’ve been told scars are beautiful so I’ll be rocking that look.”
Despite his light tone, the fire still burns hot and bright inside me. I stop a safe distance away because his closeness would turn that fire into a volcano.
“If that didn’t answer your question, I’m really fine. Stop crying, I hate it.”
A sob bursts free and I cry even harder.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Daniel grunts as he reaches a hand and pulls me to him, his warm, big palm wrapping around my hair, keeping me nestled to his side.
“Why?” I sniffle through the tears. “Why do you hate to see me cry, take revenge against Christopher for me, leave me your mansion and your money, but still refuse to be with me? Is it so hard to love me?”
He grabs me by the shoulders, pulling me away so his blue eyes, the mixture of the stars and sky, are staring deep into mine. “I became obsessed with you since you gave me that snow globe and laid your head on my thigh. That obsession turned to hatred and fascination over the years. I hated myself because I wanted you more than I wanted anything. I hated myself for never being able to move on from you, for avoiding all blondes because they reminded me of you. So the thing is, you never gave me a choice. The memory of you followed me everywhere like a ghost, or an angel, I’m not sure which. It’s hard to hate you and even harder to forget you, but loving you was the easiest thing that I’ve ever done. It was natural, inevitable, and fucking infinite.”
My lips part open and my brain struggles to process every word he said, but I heard them all. Every single one.
And I still can’t believe it.
I think Daniel said he loves me.
No. Maybe he didn’t.
“Did you… Did you just say you love me?”
“Always fucking have, Nicole. I only figured it out late, as in when you broke my heart, and I was stupid enough to let it rot inside me and not express it.”
“Then…then why do you want to leave me?”
He drops his hands from around my shoulders and I want to grab them and put them there again. I want him to keep touching me, to keep telling me things I would’ve never thought his beautiful mouth would say.
Daniel breathes so harshly, his abdomen contracts and his nostrils flare.
“Tell me,” I insist. “And don’t even think about channeling the cold jerk lurking inside you because I know everything you said last night was to push me away.”
I wasn’t entirely sure earlier, but I’m certain now. If he really didn’t care about me, he wouldn’t have left me his money and took vengeance for me.
He’s not that selfless.
“You said it yourself,” he speaks with a calm that contradicts his disheveled demeanor.
“I said what myself?”
“That I ruined you, Nicole! If I wasn’t a fucking idiot and noticed the signs, if I didn’t choose to see you as the image you projected, I wouldn’t have pushed you into that cunt’s arms. You wouldn’t have lost a part of you that you’ll never get back. And I get that now, I get that no matter what I do, you’ll never forgive me for what happened to you. Which is why I chose to hurt you and myself and fucking leave.”
“You didn’t push me into Christopher’s arms, my unhealthy obsession did. And you know what, I used to blame you sometimes, but I had no right. I also have no right to blame myself. It’s not my or your fault, Daniel. It’s Christopher’s. Okay? And I didn’t mean you ruined me in that sense, I meant emotionally, you arsehole. You keep playing hide-and-seek with me, the moment I think you’re mine, you slip from between my fingers like sand. I’m tired of hoping, pining, and being so irrevocably in love with a man who never looked at me.”
“I did,” he whispers. “When you thought I wasn’t looking. You were the only person I had trouble looking away from.”
“You were glaring at me.”
“Because I loathed how much you affected me even though you were hateful, not only to me but to everyone else.”
I snort out laughter mixed with tears. “Looks like we both misunderstood everything.”
“And we paid for it dearly.” He sighs deeply, painfully. “The years you were out of my life were so empty and desolate, I tried to fill them up with anything available. I didn’t realize I failed until the moment you walked into my office.”