Chapter 4 The Doorway

Ryker's pov

I pushed past the nurse at the desk before she finished asking for my name.

“Sir, you can’t go through there.”

“Sienna Vale. Where is she?”

“Are you family?”

“I’m the emergency contact. Let me through.”

A second nurse stepped into the hallway. “Mr. Cross, the patient is in recovery. Visitors are limited.”

“I’m not a visitor.”

I kept walking. The corridor smelled of disinfectant and floor wax. My shoes left wet marks from the rain outside. A security guard started toward me. Blaze appeared from behind and spoke to him in a low voice. The guard stepped back.

I reached the door the nurse had tried to block. It stood half open. I pushed it the rest of the way.

Sienna sat in a chair by the window. Sunlight touched the side of her face. A blanket covered her legs. Her hair was pulled back loosely. She looked thinner than the last time I saw her.

Knox Sterling sat beside her, one hand resting on the arm of her chair. He looked up first.

Sienna turned her head. Her eyes met mine with polite interest and nothing more.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

The sound of her voice hit harder than I expected. I stood in the doorway and didn’t answer right away.

Knox spoke first. “Ryker. This isn’t a good time.”

Sienna glanced between us. “You know each other?”

“We do,” Knox said. “Business.”

I stepped inside. “How is she?”

“Stable,” Knox answered. “Which is why you’re going to keep your voice down and your distance.”

Sienna frowned slightly. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Knox told her. He looked at me again. “Wait outside. I’ll come speak with you.”

A senior doctor in a gray coat appeared behind me. “Mr. Cross, I need a word in the hall.”

I didn’t move. Sienna was still watching me with that same distant courtesy, like I was a stranger who had wandered into the wrong room.

“Who is he?” she asked Knox.

“Someone from the company you used to work with,” Knox said. “He heard about the accident.”

“Oh.” She offered me a small, careful smile. “Thank you for coming. I’m sorry, I don’t remember much right now.”

The doctor put a hand on my arm. “Hallway. Now.”

I followed him out. The door stayed open enough that I could still see the edge of her chair.

The doctor closed it most of the way and lowered his voice. “Ms. Vale has significant retrograde amnesia. The last four years are gone. Any sudden emotional shock could raise her blood pressure and stress the pregnancy. We are not taking that risk.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“You need to listen. She believes Dr. Sterling is her husband. That belief is currently protecting her. If you walk in there and try to rewrite her reality, you could send her into crisis. The fetus is fourteen weeks. We will not gamble with either of them.”

My hands stayed at my sides. “She doesn’t know me at all.”

“Correct. And for the next stretch of time that is how it has to stay.”

“I’m the father.”

The doctor’s expression didn’t change. “That information is not safe for her to hear yet. Dr. Sterling is the attending. He has made the medical decisions. You will respect them or security will remove you.”

I looked back through the gap in the door. Knox had leaned closer to Sienna. He said something I couldn’t hear. She nodded and rested her hand over her stomach the same way she used to when she thought no one was watching.

Knox stood and came to the doorway. He stepped into the hall and pulled the door almost shut behind him.

“You shouldn’t have come in like that,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have told her you’re her husband.”

“I told her what keeps her calm and the baby safe. The alternative was watching her spiral while her blood pressure climbed.”

“You had no right.”

“I had every medical right. You’re the one who signed the papers that put her on the street the same night a car hit her.”

I took a step closer. “Watch your mouth.”

“No. You watch yours when you’re near her. One wrong sentence and we could lose both of them. I will not allow it.”

The senior doctor cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. This conversation ends here. Mr. Cross, you may wait in the lounge if you insist on staying. You will not enter the room again without clearance.”

Knox looked at me for another second, then turned back to the door. He opened it and went inside.

I stayed in the hallway. Through the narrow opening I watched him return to the chair. He sat down and placed his hand on Sienna’s shoulder. She leaned toward him slightly, the way someone leans toward a person they trust.

She smiled at him, soft and real.

“Thank you for staying with me,” she said clearly enough for me to hear.

“Always,” Knox answered.

She looked at him and the word came out easy, without any doubt in it.

“Husband.”

I stood there with the door frame under my hand and the sound of that single word settling into the quiet hallway, knowing she had given it to the wrong man and there was nothing I could say to take it back.