Chapter 4

Sienna POV

The first thing that caught me was the sound, steady rhythmic beep of the heart monitor somewhere beside me. 

As my eyes slowly opened, the harsh fluorescent lights were enough to make me want to shut them again. Slowly, I was able to adjust my eyes to the brightness.

My whole body felt heavy, aching especially around my lower abdomen.

I glanced around, trying to make out if I was really in a hospital and not some sort of afterlife.

The door opened, and a nurse stepped in, her expression softening the moment she saw my eyes open. “Oh, thank goodness. You’re finally awake.”

She stepped  closer with a grin on her face. “I think I should get the doctor,” she said, brushing my hair backwards. 

I tried to sit up, but she stopped me. “You had a lot of internal injuries. It’s better to remain this way until the doctor says otherwise.” 

“How long?” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “How long have I been here?”  

“Two weeks,” she said gently, adjusting the IV line near my wrist. “You’ve been in a coma since the fall. We were starting to worry.”

Two weeks. The number didn’t feel real. I tried to piece together the event of that night.. the stairs, Chloe’s hand against my chest, the sickening weightlessness of falling.

“The baby,” I said suddenly, panic surging through the fog in my mind. My hands flew to my stomach before my brain had even finished the thought. “My baby—”

“Your baby is fine,” the nurse said quickly, placing a steadying hand over mine. “Strong heartbeat, healthy vitals the whole time. You’ve got a fighter in there.”

The relief that flooded through me was so sharp it almost hurt worse than the fall itself. I let my head fall back against the pillow, tears slipping down the sides of my face before I could stop them.

“Apex Industries has covered all your expenses too. Nothing to worry,” the nurse added, checking the monitor beside me. “Your insurance came through their corporate plan. Everything’s been taken care of.”

Of course it had. Not out of concern for me…I understood that much clearly, even through the haze. 

A lawsuit, an investigation, a scandal involving Damian’s girlfriend pushing his former assistant down a flight of stairs was the last thing Apex needed splashed across headlines right now. 

This was containment, not compassion. And I knew, even lying here, that suing Chloe would go nowhere. 

Damian would bury it before it ever reached a courtroom. He’d protect her, protect the company, protect the image, long before he’d protect the truth, or me.

I wasn’t going to waste what little strength I had chasing justice that would never come.

The nurse handed me the remote before stepping out to update the doctor, and out of habit more than interest, I turned on the television mounted on the wall.

The screen flickered to a news channel, a banner scrolling along the bottom.

“Apex Industries CEO Damian Kane weds longtime partner Chloe Reyes in private ceremony.”

My stomach dropped as the footage cut to Damian in a tailored black suit, Chloe beside him in white, exchanging vows in front of a small, curated crowd of board members and cameras positioned just far enough away to look intimate rather than staged.

The anchor went on and on about their “whirlwind romance,” making it sound like their reunion had been planned all along instead of the frantic cover-up I now knew it really was.

I watched Damian’s face on the screen, composed, unreadable, the same expression he’d worn the night he handed me those papers. Not a flicker of hesitation. Not a single glance toward wherever I might have been.

I switched the television off before the segment ended, my hand trembling slightly against the remote.

I wasn’t going to spend one more moment mourning a man who had already erased me the moment I became inconvenient.

My hand moved instinctively to my belly. Whatever came next, this child deserved better than a mother who kept waiting for someone incapable of choosing her.

I reached for the folded pile of my clothes sitting on the chair beside the bed, patting down the pockets of the blazer I’d worn the night of the gala. 

My fingers found the small card tucked into the inner pocket…slightly bent from the fall, but intact.

Marcus.

I turned it over in my hands, reading the number printed along the bottom.

“Excuse me,” I called out as the nurse stepped back into the room. “Could you help me? I don’t have my phone, but I need to make a call.”

She nodded, pulling her own phone from her scrubs pocket and dialing the number as I read it out to her, then handing it to me once it began to ring.

It rang twice before he picked up.

“Marcus speaking.”

“Marcus,” I said, my voice steadier than I expected. “It’s Sienna. From the rooftop, at the Apex gala.”

There was a brief pause on the line. “Sienna. I wasn’t sure I’d hear from you.” Then, a shift in his tone, sharper, more alert. “Is everything alright? You sound—”

“I’ve been in the hospital,” I said simply. “It’s a long story. I’m alright now.”

Another pause, this one heavier. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said carefully. “So why did you reach out, today?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, steadying myself before I spoke.

“About your offer,” I said. “I’m ready.”