Chapter 18
Jonnas
Jonnas had never hated his office before, but now he wanted to burn the entire floor to the ground. The moment he walked back into the hospital Monday morning, he felt it. The whispers, the tension, and the way conversations stopped half a second too late when he passed.
Normally, none of that would’ve bothered him. He’d spent years building enough authority that people rarely questioned him openly, but now, every glance felt like it touched Dani too, and that made him furious.
“You look murderous.” Jonnas barely looked up as Jessica stepped into his office and shut the door behind her.
“You filed the complaint against Dani and me. How am I supposed to look?” he asked, getting straight to the point.
Jessica sighed heavily. “I filed a mandatory disclosure.”
“You blindsided me,” he growled. “You should have come to me first.”
“I protected the hospital before somebody else weaponized it publicly.”
His jaw flexed hard. “And in the process, you made Dani think she destroyed my career.”
Jessica’s expression softened immediately. “I didn’t know she’d react like that.”
“That’s because you don’t know her,” Jonnas breathed.
Silence settled heavily between them, and then Jessica crossed her arms slowly. “No, but I know women like her very well.” Jessica’s voice gentled slightly. “The kind who panic the second they become someone else’s complication.”
The accuracy of it landed like a punch to the chest. Because yeah, that was exactly Dani.
Jonnas leaned back heavily in his chair and scrubbed a hand over his face. “She ran.”
Jessica blinked. “What?”
“She left town because she thought this would ruin me.” Something that looked suspiciously like guilt flickered across Jessica’s face.
“She loves you,” she said quietly.
The words hit him hard, even though he already knew, not just because Dani had said them, but because she’d tried sacrificing herself for him. And God, that nearly destroyed him.
Jessica studied him for another long moment before muttering, “You’re really gone for her.” Jonnas laughed, rough and humorless.
“I’d quit tomorrow if they forced me to choose.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Jesus.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. Jessica moved toward the chair across from his desk and sat down slowly.
“For what it’s worth,” she said quietly, “I never thought you pressured her.”
Jonnas finally looked at her fully. “Then why file it?”
“Because hospitals protect themselves first.” Bitterness edged her voice now.
“And because if I didn’t file it internally, someone else would’ve taken it external.
” She held his gaze steadily. “This way I could control the investigation.” His anger cooled slightly at that, not completely, but enough to think clearly again.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Jessica sighed. “The board interviews both of you. HR reviews timelines, reporting structures, ethics policies—” She hesitated. “And they’ll probably offer Dani a transfer.”
Rage hit instantly. “No.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “That’s the part you’re angry about?”
“She loves her department,” he said.
“She also slept with her administrator,” Jessica reminded. The bluntness stung because technically she wasn’t wrong.
“She’s not being punished for this,” he insisted.
Jessica’s expression softened slightly again. “Jonnas—"
“No.” His voice sharpened. “She already thinks she’s ruining my life. I’m not letting them make her feel disposable, too.” Something flickered across Jessica’s face then. Understanding, maybe, or maybe even respect.
“God,” she muttered quietly. “You really love her.” Jonnas looked past the glass walls of his office toward the busy hospital floor below.
Everything he’d spent years building existed here.
His career, his reputation, his future, and somehow none of it felt as important anymore as the woman currently sleeping in a cabin three hours away, carrying his child.
The realization should’ve terrified him; instead, it made him calmer.
His phone buzzed softly against the desk with a text from Dani.
Dani: I miss you.
The breath left his lungs instantly. Jessica watched the entire change happen across his face. “Oh,” she whispered softly.
Jonnas stared at the message for a long second before typing back immediately.
Jonnas: I’m counting the hours until I get back to you.
Three dots appeared almost instantly
Dani: Be careful driving. It’s storming again.
His chest physically ached. Because even now, she worried about him first.
Jessica stood slowly from the chair. “You know,” she said quietly, “most people spend years trying to find someone who loves them like that.” Jonnas looked down at the text again—at the tenderness hidden inside something so simple.
Be careful driving.
And suddenly he realized something that made everything else feel smaller. The hospital investigation wasn’t the real conflict anymore. The real battle was convincing Dani to marry him, because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
By the third day of driving back and forth between the hospital and the cabin, Jonnas was running almost entirely on caffeine, anger, and whatever terrifying emotion Dani had turned him into. He didn’t care.
Every night he drove back to her, and every morning he left before sunrise with her sleepy and wrapped around him, like letting go physically hurt her. Honestly, he felt the same.
“You look awful.” Jonnas glanced up from the boardroom table as Elias walked in carrying coffee.
“You’re my best friend,” Jonnas muttered. “Try lying occasionally.”
“You haven’t slept, have you?” Elias asked.
“Haven’t had time for sleep,” Jonnas said.
Elias set the coffee down in front of him before taking the seat beside him. “How’s Dani?”
The tension in Jonnas’s shoulders eased slightly just hearing her name. “She’s trying very hard not to panic.”
“And you?” Elias asked.
Jonnas laughed. “I’m one HR meeting away from committing a felony.
” That earned him a snort. Unfortunately, he wasn’t joking.
The last forty-eight hours had been brutal with board interviews, lawyers asking him a million questions over and over again, and ethics reviews.
And underneath all of it, the ugly implication that he’d somehow manipulated Dani into their relationship. The thought alone made him sick.
“She still blaming herself?” Elias asked quietly.
“Yes,” Jonnas said.
“Figures.” Jonnas leaned back heavily in the chair, exhaustion settling deep into his bones.
The board meeting started in thirty minutes, and afterward, Dani had her interview.
The idea of her sitting alone in front of administrators while already emotionally wrecked made something violent twist in his chest.
“She shouldn’t have to do this,” he muttered.
“No,” Elias agreed. “But neither should you.” The door opened before Jonnas could respond, and Jessica stepped into the room holding a folder against her chest. Immediately, something about her expression made Jonnas sit up straighter.
“What’s wrong?” Jonnas asked.
Jessica shut the door carefully behind her. “The board found something.”
Ice slid down his spine instantly. “What kind of something?”
Jessica hesitated, which was a bad sign. Then quietly she said, “One of the complaints wasn’t anonymous.” The room went completely still.
Jonnas’s jaw tightened immediately. “Who else put in a complaint against us?” he asked.
Jessica looked furious now. “Dr. Harris.” Recognition hit instantly. Dr. Harris was in emergency medicine. The guy was in his mid-forties, divorced, and worst of all—he was a man who’d been hitting on Dani for months before Jonnas ever touched her.
Rage exploded through his chest so fast he physically stood from the table. “That fucking—”
“He claimed you created a hostile environment after learning he’d expressed interest in her.
” Jonnas saw red—absolutely fucking red, because now it made sense.
The rumors, the timing, the escalation. It wasn’t about concern.
It was about jealousy. That smug son of a bitch had weaponized hospital policy because Dani chose someone else.
“You need to calm down,” Elias warned immediately.
“No,” Jonas growled. He grabbed the edge of the conference table hard enough that his knuckles whitened. “He cornered her in the supply room last month.”
Both Elias and Jessica froze. “What?” Jessica asked sharply.
Jonnas’s chest heaved with anger. “She didn’t tell me until after we got together.” His voice dropped dangerously low. “He asked her out repeatedly and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Jessica’s expression turned murderous. “Did he touch her?”
“No.” The word cracked out instantly. “But he intimidated her enough that she started avoiding certain shifts.”
Then Elias muttered, “Oh, he’s fucked.” Damn right he was, because suddenly this wasn’t just about protecting Dani from gossip anymore.
This was about the fact that another man had made her uncomfortable enough to change her behavior at work.
And Dani—being Dani—had probably minimized it because she was used to making herself smaller instead of making trouble.
Jessica opened the folder slowly. “We also pulled badge access logs.”
Jonnas frowned. “Why?”
“Because Harris claimed you were meeting Dani privately during work hours before the pregnancy.”
Understanding hit instantly. “They checked security records.” Jessica nodded once. “And, what did they find?”
A slow smile spread across her face for the first time all day.
“And according to the logs?” She slid the folder across the table toward him.
“The first time you were ever alone together after-hours was the fundraiser.” That was the night everything changed.
Relief punched through him so hard he nearly sat back down.
There was proof that he didn’t abuse his authority, and there was no secret affair.
There was nothing but one reckless night that became something real afterward.
Elias let out a low whistle. “Well, that’s inconvenient for Dr. Creepy.
” Jonnas barely heard him, because all he could think about was Dani, and about how terrified she’d been.
How convinced she was that this scandal would destroy him, and suddenly all he wanted was to get back to the cabin and hold her until she understood something very clearly.
She wasn’t the thing ruining his life. She was the thing in his life that was worth fighting for.