Chapter 6

The heart monitor beeped steadily.

Too steadily, for a girl whose heart was falling apart.

Sean's proposal still hung in the air. He had said it so calmly, like he was reading out a lab report.

That was what scared her most.

"Doctor." Valena's voice cracked. She twisted the edge of the blanket until her knuckles turned white. "You told me I don't have much time. How can you ask someone like me to marry you?"

Sean stood up from the chair beside her bed.

He came close. So close she could smell the antiseptic on his white coat.

Then he cradled her face in both hands, gently, as if she might shatter.

"That's exactly why," he said. "As my wife, you'll be safer. You can choose your own treatment. You can go anywhere you want. You won't need anyone's permission."

Valena laughed. It sounded ugly, even to her own ears.

"Free? Is that what you call it?" Her eyes stung. "My adoptive family threw me out like trash. And now, just to stay alive, I have to accept your pity?"

Sean took her hand. His thumb brushed over her skin, right beside the IV line.

The oxygen tube under her nose made her look small. Fragile.

His gaze never left her face.

"This isn't pity."

Valena lowered her head. She didn't want him to see her cry.

But her memory betrayed her.

A few months ago, Daniel had shown up at their candlelit dinner with a bouquet of red roses. He had held her hand and promised to propose on her twentieth birthday.

She had believed him. Completely.

She had thought she finally had a place to call home.

Now that place belonged to whoever could cry the loudest.

"Even the man who swore he loved me walked away," she whispered. "So how could you..."

"Valena."

Sean tilted her chin up until she had no choice but to look at him.

"I won't lie to you. I can't say I love you. Not yet." His voice was low and firm. "But I want to save your life. That much is real."

The words wrapped around her like a net, slowly pulling tight.

For the first time since that rainy night, no one was forcing her. No one was demanding anything. No one was telling her to give way.

Someone was standing right in front of her, saying: *I choose you.*

Her chest ached.

"I don't need your answer now," Sean said. "Think about it carefully."

The door clicked shut behind him.

And Valena was alone again, with nothing but the machines humming in the dark.

A few minutes later, someone knocked.

A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway, holding a bag of fruit.

"Miss Valena?"

Valena frowned. That face looked familiar. Like something she had glimpsed through the fog of that night.

"I'm Juliette Estelle," the woman said softly. "I'm the one who found you lying on the roadside."

Valena's breath caught.

Before she could sit up, Julie had already crossed the room and taken her icy fingers in both hands.

"What really happened to you that night, dear?"

Valena smiled. It was a smile she had practiced too many times.

"I was driven out of my adoptive parents' home, Mrs. Estelle."

"I'm so sorry." Julie patted her hand. "I'm just a widow with no children. Maybe we both need someone to lean on."

She paused.

"Dr. Sean was the most anxious person in the hospital that night. He didn't leave the emergency room until dawn."

Valena didn't think much of it. That was how Sean treated all his patients.

"Maybe it was just a coincidence."

Julie shook her head slowly.

"There are no coincidences like that, my dear."

They talked for a long time.

For the first time in days, Valena felt like someone was truly listening. Something in the way Julie spoke, and the way she looked at her, reminded Valena of Elsie.

Her chest went warm.

Then it hurt.

"Mrs. Estelle," she asked hesitantly, "why do you keep going, even when you're alone?"

Julie smiled, small and steady.

"Because I still have dreams I haven't lived yet. Loss isn't the end, Valena. Sometimes it's how life forces us to find out who we really are."

The words stayed with Valena long after Julie's footsteps faded.

Then the door opened again.

Sean walked in, followed by a nurse carrying a dinner tray. His expression cooled the moment he saw Julie.

But his eyes went straight back to Valena.

And stayed there.

"Visiting hours are over," he told Julie firmly. "Let her rest."

"Of course, Doctor."

When they were alone, Sean set a bowl of mushroom soup in front of her.

"Eat. It's still warm."

Valena stared at the thin curl of steam.

For the first time in a very long while, someone had wondered whether she had eaten.

*

At the Dominique mansion, Leovan sat in his study, staring at a thank-you letter he could never finish.

Three times he had called the hospital.

Three times he had been refused.

*The donor requested anonymity.*

It wasn't the refusal that bothered him.

It was the silence before it. That tiny, deliberate pause, like someone choosing their words.

That afternoon, he went to the hospital for his check-up.

At the third-floor nurses' station, he stopped to answer a message. Two nurses stood nearby, whispering, sure that no one was listening.

"Room 307 still can't have any visitors from the Dominique family. Dr. Weiss gave the order himself."

Leovan froze.

His fingers curled into a fist.

Th

e Dominique family.

Not strangers. Not the press. Not rivals.

His family.

And the man who had given that order was the same doctor who had saved his life.