Chapter Seven

The flowers came on my first real day off in over a week.

I wasn’t even dressed. Still in my oversized T-shirt and mismatched socks, toothbrush shoved halfway into my cheek like a chew toy, mouth full of foam when I heard the screech.

“Oh my God, Gabby!” Nadia’s voice ricocheted down the hallway like a warning shot. “Someone left you flowers!”

I squinted at the light pouring through the living room window and shuffled toward the noise, still brushing. “What?”

“Toothpaste,” Maya called lazily from the kitchen. “You’re dripping it all over the floor.”

I wiped my chin with the back of my hand—very glamorous—and peered over Nadia’s shoulder at the bouquet. Dozens of deep red tulips and eucalyptus sprigs. Classy. Clean. Like something from a showroom, not a grocery store shelf. No cartoon balloon or glittery ‘Get Well Soon’ nonsense. Just flowers. Thoughtful ones.

Nadia turned and held up the little card like it might explode. “There’s a note,” she said in a dramatic whisper, which meant she’d already read it twice.

I plucked it from her fingers, squinting to read the fancy cursive.

Still thinking?

No name. No initials. Just those two words.

I stared at the card like it might offer more if I waited long enough. It didn’t.

“You have a secret admirer?” Nadia asked, eyes wide. “Who are you sleeping with?”

I gave her a toothpaste-smeared glare.

“Someone with money,” Maya said, poking her head out of the kitchen, half a bagel in her hand. “That arrangement costs at least eighty bucks. Who’d you trap?”

“I’m not sleeping with anyone,” I muttered, spitting into a napkin. “And no one got trapped.”

“Hmm.” Maya raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “So it’s a platonic floral donation?”

Nadia giggled and took another exaggerated whiff of the flowers. “They smell expensive. Definitely not from James.”

“James is nice,” I said automatically.

“James is nice,” Maya repeated, smirking. “But these flowers don’t say nice. They say mystery. Drama. Potential restraining order.”

I rolled my eyes and padded toward the kitchen to rinse out my mouth. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Just saying.” Maya shrugged, sliding her bagel into her mouth. “Men don’t send anonymous flowers unless they’re either very romantic… or very rich and trying to overcompensate.”

I swallowed hard, drying my hands on a dish towel. The image of Isaac’s eyes in the back seat of that sleek black car flashed across my mind like static.

“I’m going to my room,” I said quickly.

“To call your flower daddy?” Nadia called after me.

“To put the flowers in water before they die a slow, neglected death on the dining table,” I said over my shoulder, grabbing the vase on the way out.

As I shut my bedroom door behind me, I stared at the bouquet again.

I placed the vase on the windowsill and stared at the note again.

Still thinking?

I hadn’t answered him yet. Not officially. Not out loud.

But now I couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d looked at me, how his voice had dipped low in that car, full of quiet possession.

And I hated that a part of me wasn’t scared of him. A part of me was scared of how much I wasn’t.

Because if I said yes… I wasn’t just saying yes to a job.

I was stepping into something blurred. Unprofessional. Unsafe. Maybe reckless. And some dangerous, restless part of me? Was curious.

Two days after the flowers came, the note still sat in my nightstand drawer—folded once, ink still fresh.

I didn’t even realize how far I’d slipped until mid-shift.

One second, I was checking vitals, and the next, I was standing in the supply closet, door halfway shut, the pill bottle in my palm.

It wasn’t even mine. Just one of the older bottles marked for disposal—left over from a transfer case. I’d spotted it earlier on the corner of the med cart, untouched, forgotten. And then, it followed me.

My hand trembled—not from guilt, not yet, but from need. From the ache, the pounding behind my eyes, the restlessness under my skin. I hadn’t slept more than two hours in days. My body was breaking open from the inside.

Just one. I wasn’t going to spiral. I just needed to stop feeling like I was on fire.

“Gabriella?”

I froze. James.

His voice was too close. Closer than I wanted him to be.

I shoved the bottle behind a stack of gauze boxes and straightened myself out just as he pushed the door open with the edge of his shoulder. His eyes swept the room, then landed on me—disheveled, jittery, caught.

“Didn’t mean to sneak up,” he said casually, but his gaze lingered a second too long. Reading me. Seeing too much.

“Just—restocking,” I muttered.

“Sure,” he said slowly. “You got a call. The front desk said it’s urgent.”

I nodded too fast. “Yeah, okay.”

“You alright?” he added, softer now. Less curious, more concerned. James never pressed. That was the thing about him. He noticed, but didn’t poke. Maybe that’s why I never hated him for caring.

“I’m fine.”

He stepped back, holding the door for me. “Come on. Whoever it is sounded a little panicked.”

The moment I walked toward the nurse’s station, I already had a pit in my stomach. My hands still smelled faintly of antiseptic, and my thoughts were still caught in the tight coil of temptation—but that coiled into something else when I picked up the phone.

Maya’s voice came through, loud and shaky.

“Gabby, you need to come home. Now.”

“What happened?”

“It’s Mom. It’s— It’s everything. Just come.”

Her voice cracked on the last word.

I didn’t ask questions. I just hung up the phone and turned back toward James. His brow furrowed, and before he could say anything, I just shook my head.

“I have to go.”

“Want me to cover your round?”

I nodded.

And then I left—with the echo of almost-relapse behind me and the weight of whatever was waiting at home pressing down on my chest like a held breath.

The door was already open when I got home.

Wide, like someone had stormed through it—or didn’t care to close it behind them. I barely stepped inside before I heard voices. Male. Low. Stern.

And then my mother’s—higher-pitched, frantic. My father’s voice followed, quieter but tight, like he was trying not to sound as desperate as he was.

I turned the corner into the living room and froze.

Two men in dark coats sat across from my parents like they owned the space. Suits. Briefcases. Disinterest carved into their faces like they’d done this a hundred times and it never got more human. One of them was flipping through a small ledger book, like it was 1998 and we hadn’t caught up to digital shame yet.

The room smelled like burnt rice. Like someone had tried to cook through the chaos and failed.

My mother noticed me first. Her eyes went wide, the corners of her mouth tightening like she was trying to swallow a scream.

“Gabriella,” she said sharply. “Go back to work.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, voice low but rising with each word.

The man with the book looked up at me like I was a stray dog that had wandered in. “You must be the daughter. Nurse, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

He turned to my father, who sat stiffly on the edge of the couch, eyes on the threadbare rug.

“We’ve given your family more than enough time. Three final notices. One lien warning. This is the last stop before legal filing. And frankly, we’re tired.”

“I told you we just needed two more weeks,” my father said, his voice fraying. “I have something coming in, a contract—”

“You’ve said that for three months,” the other man snapped. “You’re out of time.”

“What debt?” I asked. “What are they talking about?”

No one answered me right away.

Then my mother let out a breath. It was ragged. Shamed.

“It’s the house. The business loan. Some old medical bills.”

“All of it,” my father added quietly.

My throat tightened. I looked around at the home I’d grown up in—the framed photos that hadn’t moved in years, the sag in the couch, the chipped ceramic bowl by the door that still held spare keys we never used. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was ours. Or so I thought.

“How much?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

The man flipped a page. “With interest and fees? Just under eighty-three thousand.”

I almost laughed. Almost.

“Eighty-three—”

“I told you to go back to work,” my mother said again, this time lower. Tired. Not angry. Just stripped.

It wasn’t her pride speaking. It was survival.

And just like that, the answer was clear. Stark. Heavy.

Isaac Langton didn’t know it, but he’d just bought himself a personal nurse.

And I was done pretending I had a choice.