CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE
ALICE
Nobody prepares you for encounters, especially when speaking about a young mistress of my father.
Well, the truth is that life rarely gives you a warning before it throws you into a room with the exact people who tore your world apart.
You just stumble into them in the hallways of public buildings, completely defenseless, while you are already trying to survive your own disasters.
The first surprise came to me two days ago when Ethan Hamilton offered that they would like to keep me at their estate.
The offer itself had left me completely speechless for a few seconds.
He had stood by the edge of my hospital bed, looking like an immovable wall of muscle and authority, and casually suggested that I should move into his family home to heal.
I denied it to my absolute length. My pride was the only thing I had left that hadn't been bruised, broken, or pierced by a nail, and I was determined to protect it.
I told..him thank you,.
I told him I had my own apartment, my own routine, and my own life to get back to.
But as much as I'd like to keep my pride, the cold, hard reality of my physical condition was starting to settle in.
I know I won't be able to do anything by myself in my apartment.
I couldn't even reach behind my own shoulder to button a shirt without white-hot agony shooting down my back...
The simple act of sitting up made my head spin, and the thought of trying to cook, clean, or change my own medical dressings in a lonely room was terrifying.
Pride doesn't carry groceries up three flights of stairs.
Pride doesn't heal a punctured shoulder blade.
So here we are, preparing my discharge papers.
The nurse was fluttering around the small hospital room, checking monitors, packing up loose gauze, and sliding documents across the small plastic table for me to sign.
The paperwork felt heavy in my hands, a literal stack of reminders that my grand entrance into the university had ended in a blood-stained emergency room.
Throughout all of this chaos, Zade hasn't talked to me since that day.
He had been a silent, brooding shadow in the corner of the room, keeping his distance as if a sudden line had been drawn in the sand between us.
He wouldn't look me in the eye, and he wouldn't utter a single syllable in my direction.
The silence from him was deafening, filling every empty space in the small medical room until the air felt too thick to breathe.
And I hate to admit the fact that I miss his arrogant care.
I hated myself for it, deeply.
I was Alice Miller, the girl who was supposed to be completely independent, yet my stupid, treacherous heart was actively longing for the frustrating, infuriating way he used to boss me around just to make sure I was safe.
His arrogance was annoying, but it was constant.
It was a weirdly grounding presence in a world that felt completely out of control, and without it, I felt completely adrift.
What truly surprised me was when I saw my dearest daddy walking through the hospital corridors.
I had been sitting on the edge of the mattress, trying to adjust to the stiff fabric of the hospital recovery ward, when a familiar figure cut through the crowd of doctors and visitors outside the glass door.
My breath caught in my throat.
My body went entirely rigid, every muscle locking up until the pain in my back flared back to life.
It was a face I had seen in a thousand nightmares and a handful of bitter memories.
"Do you know who that is?" Ellie had asked me, because I had been staring at him.
She had been watching me from her own position across the room, noticing the sudden, deathly pale color that had washed over my face.
I hadn't realized I was gaping, my lips slightly parted as my eyes tracked his every movement through the glass.
"Yeah, that's my father," I had said. The words tasted like ash in my mouth, cold and completely detached.
And the absolute shock on her face had been inexplicable.
Ellie didn't know the pieces of my history, but seeing the biological architect of my misery walking casually down the hallway of the very hospital where I was recovering was a twist neither of us expected.
She looked between me and the hallway, her jaw dropping slightly as she registered the total lack of warmth in my voice.
"I wonder what he is doing here?" I had said, mostly to myself.
A tiny, pathetic, foolish part of my brain wondered if he had somehow heard about the attack.
Had the university called him? Had he finally remembered he had a daughter sleeping in a hospital bed just blocks away from his pristine life?
"He's with a woman who was heavily pregnant when they passed by the maternity ward. I saw them," she said, confirming the only doubt I had.
Of course. The words slammed into my chest like a physical blow, knocking the remaining wind right out of my lungs.
Why would he come to see me? He wouldn't.
He never did. He hadn't come when my mother was drawing her final, agonizing breaths, so there was absolutely no reason for him to show up for a daughter who had survived a minor scar.
He was here for his real family.
The new, untainted, perfect family that he had built on the ruins of my mother's broken heart and her ashes...
Anyways, now that I stand by Ethan's car, the heavy weight of that realization is sitting on my shoulders like lead.
The hospital parking lot is bright, almost blindingly so, and the heat of the sun is completely at odds with the freezing cold sensation spreading through my veins.
Zade is already inside the vehicle with Yana, sitting in the back seat like a dark king who has completely checked out of reality.
He doesn't look out the window as I approach.
He keeps his gaze fixed forward, his jaw set in a hard, uncompromising line.
Ellie was discharged yesterday, leaving with her parents and Nate in a flurry of relieved tears and protective hugs, and Mio is currently standing beside me on the black asphalt.
"Do you want to see him?" she asks, squinting her eyes as the sun is hitting our faces directly.
She raises a small hand to block the glare, looking up at me with those wide, perceptive doll eyes.
She can tell something is deeply wrong.
She can see the stiffness in my posture, the way my fingers are clutching the straps of my backpack like a lifeline.
"No... no. Well, I don't want to see him," I say, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.
I didn't want to look at Zade, and I certainly didn't want to think about the man currently walking the upper floors of the building behind us.
I wanted to disappear.
I wanted to turn back the clock to the morning before the puddle, before the university, before everything went sideways.
"You waiting for someone?" Ethan asks, his deep, rumbling voice cutting through my internal spiral.
He is standing by the driver's side door, his massive frame towering over the luxury vehicle.
His heavy brow is furrowed as he studies my hesitation, his sharp eyes reading the conflict written across my face.
"No, actually, I forgot my phone in there. I'll get it," I lie.
The excuse comes out of my mouth before I can even think about it.
It is a clumsy, desperate fabrication, but I need an escape.
I need to see it with my own eyes.
I need to fully break my own heart so I can finally stop hoping for things that don't exist.
"I'll get it," Ethan offers immediately, his hand already moving toward the handle of the door, ready to march back into the building on my behalf.
Despite his terrifying exterior, the sheer protective nature of this man is overwhelming.
"No... no, I'll get it. Just give me a few minutes," I say, waving my hand quickly to dismiss his offer.
I force a tight, artificial smile onto my face, trying to look like an ordinary, forgetful student rather than a girl on the verge of an emotional collapse.
I turn on my heel before he can argue, and I make my way toward the entrance of the hospital, my sneakers clicking against the concrete walkway.
The automatic glass doors slide open with a familiar hiss, welcoming me back into the air-conditioned, sterile world of medicine and sickness.
I don't look back at the car.
I keep my head down, navigating the white-tiled corridors with a strange, magnetic pull guiding my steps.
My feet know exactly where they are going, even if my brain is screaming at me to turn around and get into the vehicle with the Hamiltons.
As I move toward the maternity wards, the atmosphere shifts.
The harsh, metallic smell of the emergency wing is replaced by a softer, quieter environment.
The walls are painted in pale pastels, and the occasional sound of a distant, high-pitched cry echoes through the halls.
I slow my pace as I reach the large viewing windows, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
And then, I see him. He's sitting by her bed.
The woman that stole everything from me and my mom is lying there, looking exhausted but deeply content, her dark hair spread across the white pillows.
My father is leaning over her, his expensive suit jacket draped over the back of a plastic chair.
But how can I blame her if my father chose that? The bitter truth settles heavily in my stomach.
She didn't force him to leave.
She didn't drag him away by his collar. He walked away willingly.
He chose a new life, a new woman, and a new beginning, completely erasing the decades of sacrifice my mother had given him.
Through the glass, I see the baby.
It is placed in a small, transparent plastic bassinet right beside the bed.
The small, innocent thing is sleeping peacefully in the glass crib, completely unaware of the wreckage and history that surrounds its entry into the world. Without my glasses, I can't see clearly.
The details of the baby's face are a soft, blurry smudge, and the figures in the room melt together into shapes of white and blue. But a thick, warm tear trickles down my cheek when he caresses the baby with a profound love.
I watch his hand, the same hand that used to sign my tuition checks with detached indifference, until they couldn't....gently reach into the crib.
His fingers stroke the infant's tiny forehead with a tenderness I had never experienced in my entire life.
He smiles down at the child, a genuine, radiant expression of pure adoration that he hadn't been like that to me, ever.
I was the duty.
I was the financial obligation.
This new child was his joy.
The contrast was a physical ache, a sharp knife twisting directly into my chest until I felt like I was suffocating on my own sorrow.
"Why did you lie?" A voice startles me.
The sound is a low, familiar baritone that shatters the quiet of the hallway.
I jump slightly, my breath catching as I quickly turn around to look.
Zade is standing there, just a few feet away from me.
His large frame is leaning slightly against the opposite wall, his dark eyes fixed entirely on my face.
He looks completely out of place in the soft, pastel-colored maternity ward, a dangerous, brooding force in a room meant for new life.
I quickly wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve, desperately trying to erase the evidence of my tears before he can comment on them.
My chest is still heaving, and my voice feels trapped in my throat.
"What... what do you mean?" I ask, my voice cracking slightly as I try to pull my armor back over my emotions.
I look everywhere but into his eyes.
I look at the tiled floor, the signs on the wall, the elevators at the end of the hall, completely terrified of what he will see if I make direct contact with those amber eyes.
"Your phone is here. It was in the hospital medicine bag... so..." he says, his voice dropping an octave as he steps closer.
He reaches into the pocket of his dark jacket and pulls out the familiar device, holding it out between us.
He knew the truth from the very beginning, because I was the one who put that there.
I had carefully slipped it into the plastic bag with my prescription labels right in front of him before we left the room.
There was no way I could have forgotten it.
"I must have forgotten," I say, scrambling for any shred of dignity as I reach out to snatch the phone from his palm.
My fingers brush against his skin, and a familiar, electric spark shoots up my arm, making my heart do a violent flip.
I grip the phone tightly and immediately try to walk past him, wanting nothing more than to run down the hallway and escape his suffocating presence.
But his hand shoots up, holding my wrist.
His grip is firm, unyielding, but surprisingly gentle.
The heat of his palm sears through my skin, anchoring me to the spot.
I freeze, my breath hitching in my throat as the world around us completely slows down.
I turn and look down to where our hands are, staring at the stark contrast of his large, tanned fingers wrapped securely around my pale, trembling wrist.
"Let me go," I plead, my voice dropping to a desperate, broken whisper.
The tears are threatening to spill over again, and the heavy lump in my throat is making it impossible to breathe.
I am this much away from breaking entirely, right here on the floor of the hospital, and I know that if he keeps looking at me with that intense, unreadable expression, the walls I built are going to completely crumble.
"I can't," he says.
The words are short, heavy, and absolute.
There is no arrogance in his tone this time, no mocking smirk, and no teasing edge.
There is only a raw, desperate certainty that sends a shiver straight down my spine.
Before I can even process the weight of his words, his grip on my wrist tightens slightly, and he pulls me into his embrace.
He draws my body flush against his broad, solid chest, wrapping his powerful arms around my shoulders and locking me into place.
The familiar scent of leather, expensive cologne, and rain wraps around me like a shield, completely blocking out the sterile smell of the hospital.
For the first time in days, the constant, throbbing ache in my back seems to fade into the background, replaced by the overwhelming warmth of his body.
My face presses into the soft fabric of his jacket, and as his arms tighten around me, the final thread of my control snaps, and the tears begin to fall in earnest against his chest.