74. TESSA
TESSA
Consciousness came in waves, first the stabbing brightness, then the acidic taste in my mouth, and finally the steady beeping that meant I was alive. But it was the warmth of his hand in mine that drew me from the chasms of darkness into the sterile hospital room.
“Tessa?” His voice—that deep baritone I’d know anywhere—cracked with emotion.
Something pressed against my mouth and nose, heating with each painful breath. Through the fog, I made out Blake’s face above me, his tuxedo shirt wrinkled, like he’d been wearing it for days.
“I’m here,” he said softly, his composure warring with something raw in his eyes. “I’m right here, Cupcake.”
That nickname. It pulled me further from the depths, even as my body cataloged each ache: the sharp pain in my lungs with every breath, the vicious throb behind my temples, the cool drip of fluids through my IV.
“Blake?”
He dropped his head, and I caught the slight tremor in his shoulders before he straightened. His fingers never left my skin, tracing small, soothing patterns on my palm, as if reassuring himself I was really there.
“Do you remember why you’re here?” The professional tone couldn’t quite mask the undercurrent of fury and terror in his voice.
My gaze drifted around the private ICU room, taking in the array of monitoring equipment. That’s when it hit me. Eli. The drink. His threat against Blake.
“Did he hurt you?” I tried to sit up.
He stopped me from moving. “You’re lying in the ICU after nearly dying, and you’re worried about me ?” His chuckle was rough. “That’s so perfectly you that it hurts, Cupcake.”
“But he said?—”
“He didn’t hurt anyone else.” Blake’s free hand curled into a fist at his side. “And he’ll never hurt you again.”
The clinical fluorescent lights cast shadows under his eyes, highlighting the muscle working in his jaw. I’d seen Blake angry before, but this was different.
“He’s gone?” I managed.
Blake’s gaze swept over me, cataloging every monitor, every tube, every mark Eli’s poison had left on my body.
Something dangerous flickered in his eyes.
“He deserved a fate far worse than what he got. If you hadn’t been fighting for your life …
” He left the sentence unfinished, but his grip on my hand tightened.
“The tea!” I jerked upright, or tried to, but he pressed a hand to my shoulder again. “It’s in your house. You need to get rid of it before anybody touches it!”
Blake’s features shadowed into an almost-unrecognizable version of himself. “He laced your tea?”
I nodded.
Blake’s jaw hardened. “You consumed poison in my home.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a revelation, one of disgust.
“The whole time I was protecting you, he was still …” He cut himself off, running a hand through his already-disheveled hair.
He stepped away to make a call to his staff, and I watched how he paced, his shoulders rigid with tension. Even across the room, he kept glancing back at me, as if afraid I’d disappear if he looked away too long.
When he returned, his fingers immediately sought mine again.
“They’re okay?” I asked about his staff.
“They’re fine. Police are on their way to my place to get it.”
Good. That was good. God, if Maria had …
“I can’t believe this happened,” I said. “I honestly never suspected him.”
“I know.” His other hand came up to brush a strand of hair from my face, lingering longer than necessary.
“I should have listened to you.”
“This isn’t your fault.” His words came out fiercely.
“When you told me you suspected someone was poisoning me, I thought you’d gone off the deep end.”
A ghost of a smirk touched his lips. “I had gone off the deep end a little. The mere possibility that someone was trying to hurt you …” He shook his head. “It made me snap.”
“How …” I swallowed hard. “How did Eli die?”
Something shifted in Blake’s expression, a darkness passing behind his eyes like storm clouds.
“He intended to poison me,” he said carefully. “There was a scuffle. He was the one who ended up poisoned.”
I searched his features. The tight line of his mouth, the way his eyes met mine steadily but with a silent warning. Don’t ask any more questions, Tessa. Let me protect you from this.
In that moment, I understood. Eli could have gone to prison, but Blake had chosen a more permanent solution. I should have been horrified. Instead, I felt a deep sense of security washing over me. This brilliant, complicated man would tear the world apart to keep me safe.
I laced my fingers through his, accepting everything that went unspoken between us. His eyes watched my gesture carefully, understanding dawning in their depths that I accepted him, all of him. The darkness. The light. The morally gray lines.
He leaned in, close enough that I could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. “Do you want to know why I’ve always called you Cupcake?”
Hope bloomed in my chest as I nodded.
Blake paused.
“Because there was this one moment when my world changed forever.” His voice dropped lower, meant only for me.
“It was after Sarah, after I’d shut down from everyone.
I heard singing coming from the kitchen.
Your voice. You were dancing while you baked cupcakes, completely lost in your own happiness.
Your back was to me, so you didn’t even know I stood there, watching you. ”
His thumb brushed across my knuckles as he continued, “For the first time since Sarah left, I felt something crack through the darkness I’d surrendered to.
There you were, this pure light, reminding me that good people existed.
And as I watched you dance and sing, I found myself smiling for the first time since Sarah left me.
It was like your joy was contagious, and in that moment, I wondered if it was possible that, one day, I might feel happy like you.
That maybe, someday, I could feel whole again. ”
Blake swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“That was the moment I fell in love with you, Tessa. I didn’t even know if you’d ever look at me that way, and afterward, I tried to bury it.
I was too broken, too hardened. But every time I said that name, Cupcake, I was back in that kitchen, watching you dance, falling in love with you all over again. ”
Tears pricked my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He trailed a finger down my cheek. “Because I couldn’t plant those seeds of possibility in me. The closest I came was two years ago, and then I let fear take the wheel. But it’s always been you, Cupcake. Through everything, it’s only ever been you.”
My soul devoured his words, wanting to eat them, imprint them into my DNA. Words that I wanted to call up anytime I wanted them to sing to me. I wanted to snuggle with them at night and drink them on days when I felt sad.
“I love you, Blake,” I whispered. “It’s always been you too.”