Chapter 46
CASSANDRA
New Year’s Day is perfect.
The sky is a pale blue ribbon, the streets quiet, as if the city has finally decided to take its long winter nap.
We bring Clara home from the hospital just after noon. She hates the wheelchair. Alex pushes it like it’s the most natural thing in the world while pretending he doesn’t notice her glare.
Damien opens the villa door with his left hand.
His right side still aches, and there’s a tightness when he moves, but the wound turned out to be nothing too serious.
Several stitches, some painkillers, and a round of antibiotics.
He keeps brushing it off like it’s nothing.
I keep looking at the bandage under his shirt, thinking of how close I came to losing him.
Clara sniffs the air as we roll her inside. “Hell of a place. And is that rosemary I smell?”
“It’s the roast for tonight,” I say proudly.
“Alright,” she says, trying to sit up straighter. “Help me stand before my legs go numb.”
“Doctor’s orders,” Alex says, which would sound stern if it weren’t spoken so softly.
He slides an arm around her waist, and she pushes up, testing, biting back a flinch.
They move together without discussing how—she uses his shoulder as a brace, her hand on his arm.
When she’s steady on both feet, she lets out a breath and pretends she never needed him. He pretends not to notice.
We guide her to the room Damien had prepared last night—fresh linens, a low cozy chair by the window, a vase of crisp winter flowers.
He tried to convince the doctors with the phrase “the best home care money can buy,” and when that didn’t do it, he convinced them by being Damien—immovable, calm, and somehow scarier when he smiles.
Private nurses will be here tonight. A physiotherapist tomorrow.
I draw the curtains back and the winter sun spills in, washing Clara’s face, making her look fresher than she has in months. Her room looks south over the garden. The bare trees hold pockets of light as they wait to bloom again. Lanterns along the stone path sway in the breeze.
“Don’t tuck me in like an old lady,” she says as I fold the duvet over her legs. “I’m not eighty. I still have all my teeth.”
“Show-off,” I say, and she grins.
“Tell me if the pain spikes,” Damien says from the doorway. “Nurses will arrive at seven. Until then, I’m your tyrant.”
“You’re everyone’s tyrant,” Clara says with a grin. “I’ll manage. Go celebrate your new year.”
“This is the celebration,” I tell her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “We brought you home.”
She softens at that, then yawns. “Alright. Brief nap. But if I wake up and you’ve put an old lady shawl on me, I will become homicidal.”
We help her lower back onto the pillows. She tries to argue until sleep comes in like a tide and carries her off. It’s honest sleep, the kind you get when the body finally believes it’s safe. Her face relaxes. Her hands stop making fists. I stand there three extra beats just to watch it happen.
The new year’s sun warms the parquet in stripes. I can taste rosemary in the air. A new calendar hangs on the wall, brand-new squares waiting to be filled in with ordinary everyday miracles, one of them happening in eight months or so.
We walk Alex to the front door. I can almost hear his thoughts, heavy and private. He turns the knob, then stops.
“She’ll be fine,” I say.
He nods, eyes looking off toward Clara’s door. “I know.”
“She’ll also try to fire her nurse within twelve hours,” Damien says, deadpan. “But we will not allow it.”
Another nod. He clears his throat. “I’ll swing by tomorrow morning.” He looks at me as if asking for approval, then thinks better of it. I save him the trouble.
“She’ll like that,” I tell him. “So will I.”
“Hell, make it tonight,” Damien says. “Ring in the new year with actual people.”
“Actual friends,” I correct.
“I’d like that.”
He manages a smile and puts his hand on Damien’s shoulder.
They don’t say anything out loud, but I know they’re communicating—something about debts and brothers and the new year we almost didn’t get.
Then Alex pulls on his coat and steps out into the cold, heading down the walk with his hands in his pockets, shoulders square against the wind.
I close the door and turn to find Damien looking at me like a man starved. The grin starts slow, wicked and warm, lifting one corner of his mouth before it takes the other. He’s been good—gentle, careful, occupied with medical orders and house staff, but I know that look all too well.
“Oh no, I know what that face means,” I say, trying to sound stern and failing miserably.
He steps closer, wraps his good arm around my waist, and breathes me in. “Now that I’ve finally got you all to myself,” he says, “it’s time to christen our bedroom. You’re not in the east suite anymore.”
“Christen?” I question playfully.
“Consecrate,” he amends, smile going feral. “Dedicate. Choose your sacrament.”
“Clara’s asleep,” I remind him.
“And she’ll stay sleeping.” His mouth brushes my temple. “It’s New Year’s. We need a good prelude for the year ahead.”
I tug his shirt gently away from the bandage. “Stitches,” I remind him. “You’re not immortal.”
“Not yet,” he says. “But I plan to live a very long time, and it starts upstairs.”
I try to tame my smile, but it disobeys. The year outside is bright, cold, and brand-new. My sister is sleeping safely in a sunlit room. And the man I love is alive and grinning like sin. I take his hand.
“Fine,” I say. “But quietly.”
He laughs, low and pleased. We walk hand in hand through the warm light of the hall toward the stairs.