Chapter 6: I Don't Buy People

The hospital visitor pass lay between them.

Neither of them moved.

Emma stared at the faded blue ink.

The handwriting was unmistakably hers.

One day you'll stop surviving and start living again.

She remembered writing those words.

She remembered the hospital chapel, the vending machine that kept swallowing dollar bills, the elderly volunteer who'd handed her hot chocolate she never drank.

She remembered the boy sitting alone outside the intensive care unit. Shoulders bowed. Head lowered. Hands stained with dried blood that wasn't his.

She remembered talking to him because neither of them wanted to be alone.

What she didn't remember was his face.

She slowly looked up.

"You were that boy."

"Yes."

"The one waiting outside Room 814."

A faint smile touched Ethan's lips.

"You remember the room."

"I remember the day."

Her voice was barely audible.

"My mother died that night."

Silence settled over the bridal suite.

Ethan lowered his eyes.

"My brother died an hour later."

Emma felt the air leave her lungs.

For a brief moment, neither billionaire nor waitress existed. Only two people who had survived the worst day of their lives.

She looked back at the visitor pass.

"You kept this."

"For six years."

"Why?"

His answer came without hesitation.

"Because it reminded me that someone believed I could survive."

Emma swallowed hard.

"And you spent six years looking for me?"

"Yes."

"And when you finally found me..."

She looked him straight in the eyes.

"...you proposed to my sister."

The words struck the room like shattered glass.

Richard closed his eyes. Nathan quietly looked toward the window. Even the wedding coordinator, still standing near the door, lowered her head.

Emma laughed once. There wasn't a trace of humor in it.

"Six years of looking, and this is what you did with it."

She held up the visitor pass.

"You proposed to someone else."

Ethan didn't interrupt. Didn't defend himself. Didn't explain.

Emma took another step toward him.

"I think you've confused obsession with love."

His expression remained calm, but something moved behind it, the first crack she'd seen in him since he'd walked through the door.

"You have every right to be angry."

"I'm not angry."

"No?"

"I'm insulted."

That finally caught his attention.

Emma continued.

"You didn't spend six years looking for me."

She placed the visitor pass back into his hand.

"You spent six years looking for someone convenient."

Silence.

"So don't stand here pretending this is fate."

She folded her arms.

"My answer is no."

Nobody breathed.

Richard looked ready to collapse.

"Emma, please—"

"No, Dad."

She didn't take her eyes off Ethan.

"I'm nobody's replacement."

Another long silence.

Then, to everyone's surprise, Ethan nodded.

"Good."

Emma looked at him like he'd switched languages mid-sentence.

"What?"

"I wasn't asking you to marry me."

Confusion flickered across her face.

"You weren't?"

"I asked you to hear the truth."

"I've heard enough."

"No."

His voice remained quiet.

"You've heard half."

Emma shook her head.

"I don't care."

"You will."

"No."

"I'll give you thirty minutes."

"I don't want thirty minutes."

"You don't have to decide today."

Whatever she'd braced for, it wasn't that.

"What?"

"I won't ask you to marry me today."

Richard stared at him. Nathan looked genuinely surprised. Even Emma forgot what she was going to say.

Ethan reached into the leather portfolio Nathan had been carrying and removed a thick stack of documents.

Without looking at them, he tore them straight down the middle.

The sound ripped through the room. Once. Twice. Again.

Pages worth hundreds of millions of dollars fluttered across the marble floor like snow.

Richard gasped.

"Ethan!"

Nathan took an involuntary step forward.

"Sir..."

It was the first time anyone had heard uncertainty in his voice.

Ethan calmly dropped the shredded papers onto the coffee table. His hand, Emma noticed, wasn't quite steady.

"The acquisition agreement."

Richard's face turned white.

"You..."

Ethan met Emma's eyes.

"I don't buy people."

The room fell completely silent.

"I never intended to."

Emma stared at the shredded contract.

He had just destroyed the only thing giving him leverage over her family.

He hadn't threatened her. He hadn't pressured her. He had done the exact opposite.

Richard looked as though he might faint.

"But my company—"

Ethan turned toward him.

"If Emma says no, there is no wedding."

He paused.

"And there is no deal."

Emma searched his face for manipulation. For calculation. For victory.

She found none. Only certainty, and beneath it, something that looked almost like fear of the answer he might get.

He slipped the hospital visitor pass back into his wallet.

"I'll be downstairs."

He walked toward the door. His hand rested on the handle for just a second.

Without turning around, he said quietly, "Thirty minutes."

Then he left.

The door clicked shut.

For several seconds, no one spoke.

Richard suddenly rounded on Emma. His eyes were red. His voice broke.

"You don't understand."

Emma looked at her father.

"No."

He covered his face with both hands.

"You don't understand what I've already done to make today happen."

Those words hung in the room like a storm cloud.

Emma felt a cold knot form in her stomach.

"What do you mean... what have you done?"