Chapter 22 #2
I reach for her hand, because God, I have to touch her and let her know on some level I’m still here. I know I shouldn’t, but I know we both need this. Even if it’s only in her unconscious mind, I know she needs to feel my touch.
Her skin is warm beneath my palm. Her fingers are limp and unresponsive. I lean down and brush my lips against hers in the gentlest kiss. A goodbye I’m not ready to say.
“Mon trésor, I will find whoever did this to you. I will make them pay for every bruise, every memory they stole, and every second of pain they caused you.” The vow comes out low and gutted, meant only for her sleeping ears. “I swear on everything I have.”
I press another kiss to her forehead, careful to avoid her wounds. Then I force myself to release her hand. I stare for a moment, taking her in.
“Jax…” The whisper slips from her lips.
Her eyes are still closed. Her breathing is steady and deep. But she said my name.
And God help me, it’s the thin string that makes me believe she loves me. Somewhere in her heart, she still loves me.
Movement catches in my peripheral vision. I turn and Cash is standing in the doorway, his frame rigid against the dim light from the hallway. His gaze locks on Livianna, then snaps to me.
He heard her.
I start toward the door, but his hand lands on my shoulder, stopping me. “We need to talk before you go.”
I nod once because there’s nothing else to say. The stakes just shifted and we both know it.
We stride away in silence through the ICU, past the nurse’s station, down the elevator, and out into the parking lot. The evening air hits my lungs, cooler than the sterile hospital atmosphere. Streetlights flicker against the sky’s darkened canvas.
Cash stops near a row of cars and faces me. His expression is unreadable, but tension radiates off him in waves.
He gestures toward the hospital. “We need to discuss how to handle telling Livianna about losing your kid.”
The directness of it is brutal, but I appreciate him not dancing around it. “You heard what Dr. Smith said about forcing information upon her, so what are you thinking?”
“I don’t wanna tell her at all.”
“Understood, since it’s in your favor.”
“It’s not that, Jaxon.” He huffs a breath of frustration. “When she miscarried our baby, it destroyed her. She fell into heavy drug use and almost didn’t make it out. She OD’d one night.”
A memory slams into me with viscous clarity. New Year’s Eve when she was nineteen. We were at the same party.
She was drunk and mixing pills with alcohol. I spent the night taking care of her, making sure she didn’t choke on her own vomit.
She told me something that night. Through unshed tears and slurred words, she stared at the ceiling as we rode the elevator up to my suite and said she was terrified she wasn’t done “ending” people. She muttered something about bleeding out and how she was being punished.
It hits me now what she meant. Her twin sister. The child she lost with Cash. She carried that guilt like a death sentence.
And now she’s operating as an eighteen-year-old girl who never healed from that trauma. Damn, this just got a lot more complicated.
“She had a panic attack this morning.” I shove my hands into my pockets as bullets of memories involving Livianna pelt me with a ruthless awareness.
She used to cut on herself, use drugs and alcohol to escape, and she would have intense anxiety attacks. She pushed every boundary she was given as if she were trying to get a reaction. Because she was.
Fuck, this is worse than I initially thought.
“Before the accident today…” I clear my throat. “Her mental state was already fragile.”
“Exactly.” Cash’s shoulders drop. “If we tell her now while she’s confused and vulnerable, it could send her spiraling in ways we can’t predict. Especially since she doesn’t even remember being pregnant or being with you.”
The logic is sound, even though everything in me wants to fight it. “So we keep it to ourselves?”
“For now. I’ll talk to Dr. Smith. If he agrees it’s in Livianna’s best interest, that’s the route we’ll take.” Cash studies me for a beat. “Day by day. Until she’s stronger or…remembers on her own.”
“Agreed.” I pause, weighing my next words carefully. “There’s no need to let anybody else know about my relationship with her, either. It would only cause more upheaval for her.”
Cash purses his lips and dips his chin. “Right. I present as her boyfriend. We don’t tell anyone about you two or say anything about the miscarriage. All for her mental well-being.”
“Yes. All for her.”
The truce settles between us like a flimsy ceasefire. Two men who love the same woman, forced to work together to keep her alive and sane. What a wicked web this accident created.
“Day by day.” Cash extends his hand.
I take it. Our grip is firm, an agreement sealed in shared desperation and fear.
“Or until she remembers.” I squeeze, letting that thought creep into his thoughts.
He heard her say my name. And that means there’s a chance she’ll wake up and everything will twist once again.
He releases me and steps back. “You should go. Her family arrives tomorrow, and it’ll be confusing enough without you here.”
“I know.” My chest constricts, and I glance back at the hospital.
Somewhere in there, Livianna’s sleeping and dreaming of a life five years ago when she was eighteen and in love with the man standing in front of me.
But she whispered my name. In her deepest state of rest, when her brain couldn’t filter or protect, she called for me.
It’s a thin thread of hope in an ocean of loss. But right now, that’s all I have left.
I turn and trek toward my car, each step more hopeless than the last. Today I lost our baby. I lost her memories of us and my place in her life.
But hope remains. The belief that somewhere in her heart, buried beneath the trauma, she still knows me. She still loves me.
And dammit, I’ll cling to that hope until she either remembers or I have no choice but to let her go.