CHAPTER 54AureliaLevi
Aurelia
A blinding white light pierced through the pounding in Aurelia’s head as she cracked her eyes open.
It took a moment to register where she was…a hospital bed. Again. Stark white walls slowly came into focus with the soft, rhythmic beep of monitors filling the background.
How did I end up back here?
Muffled voices drifted from directly outside her door, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She tried to sit up, craning her neck toward the sound, only for blinding pain to tear through her ribs. A sharp cry escaped her lips before she could stop it.
The voices outside her room went silent. The door swung open a second later, and Levi rushed in with a doctor close behind.
He was at her side in an instant, his emerald eyes scanning every inch of her as if he needed to make sure she was still whole—and still there . When his gaze met hers, she saw everything he was feeling written plainly across his face: worry, relief, guilt, and fear.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. It was all there in his eyes. And then it all came flooding back, the images of Selene, the knife, and the blood— so much blood —threatening to overtake her.
Her body trembled as the memories crashed over her, and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. Without a word, Aurelia reached for him.
Levi swallowed hard and took her hand in his, his thumb gently tracing over her knuckles, his eyes locked on hers like he couldn’t bear to look away.
He was here, and for the first time in days, she felt like she could finally breathe.
For the first time in days, she didn’t feel alone.
Aurelia was discharged several hours later, after yet another round of exhausting interviews with the police about the attack.
Levi drove her home in silence. She didn’t have the energy or the right mindset for conversation anyway. The pain medication they’d given her before she left the hospital left her groggy and emotionally exposed.
By the time they reached the house, the first light of dawn had begun to creep across the sky, as if the night itself were trying to erase all evidence of what had happened.
Levi helped her inside with the gentlest of touches, settling her into their bed.
She fell into a heavy, drug-induced sleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
When she awoke, it was late afternoon, and the house was quiet.
After slowly meandering out of the bedroom, she was surprised to find Levi was still there, sleeping on the couch.
At some point, he had changed into lounge clothes, though she had no idea where they’d come from, considering he had moved out as she requested.
He looked utterly spent, lips slightly parted as his chest rose and fell with deep, even breaths.
His thick lashes fanned across the dark circles under his eyes, telling her how little sleep he had gotten in the last few days. His usually neat hair was a mess, fanned across the pillow in waves, as if his hands had spent the night running through it in worry.
Aurelia let herself study him. The way his face looked peaceful in sleep, even as the weight of everything he carried etched lines across his features.
She was so lost in thought that she startled when a deep, gravelly voice cut through the quiet.
“Despite the overwhelming satisfaction of my wife ogling me in my sleep,” Levi murmured, lips curving faintly into a smirk, “nature’s calling. And I’d hate to ruin this moment by pissing my pants.”
He hadn’t opened his eyes, hadn’t moved a muscle—except his delicious mouth.
Aurelia’s face burned with embarrassment. She quickly schooled her expression before he could catch the flush rising in her cheeks. With forced indifference, she shot back, “I wouldn’t call it ogling. More like…observing an unexpected house guest. There’s a difference.”
Levi’s eyes snapped open, the teasing smirk fading as his gaze swept over her. Worry filled his expression, followed by something deeper, like raw sorrow and regret. Without a word, he stood and disappeared into the bathroom.
Aurelia exhaled, thankful for the brief reprieve to gather her thoughts. When he returned, she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him. Her heart clenched painfully at the sight of him.
Yes, he was devastatingly handsome, but it was more than that. It was the way his grief and remorse showed plainly in his face; in the way his eyes couldn’t seem to meet hers for long.
He sat back down on the sectional, this time close to her, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight as if he were holding himself together by sheer will.
“I know that you wanted me out of your house,” he began quietly. “After everything that happened…I obviously couldn’t leave you alone. Not like this.”
Aurelia frowned.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand to stop her.
“Auri, please…let me finish,” he said, his voice rough.
She nodded silently.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he admitted, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. “All I’ve done these past few days is think about this. About us .”
He blew out a slow breath. “I put my house on the market. Been crashing at Isaac and Grace’s.”
That admission surprised her.
“After living here with you, I couldn’t go back. That place…it was a prison before I met you. Now it’s a tomb. Home is wherever you are.”
Another crack splintered through the walls around her heart.
“This isn’t an excuse—please don’t think that. But I need to explain what went through my head when I saw you in that hotel room.”
Aurelia steeled herself, the memory of that night flashing painfully behind her eyes. But this was what she had wanted, right? To understand him…to hear him?
Levi swallowed hard, his voice thick with emotion.
“I told you about my past relationships. How I’ve been used for my name, my money. How I’ve been cheated on over and over. I never told you the details…I thought if I didn’t talk about it, it couldn’t touch me anymore.
“But it did. It shaped me in ways I didn’t even realize until I saw you standing there, in that hotel room.”
His eyes went distant, trapped in the memory.
“I saw him first. Kyle. Lying there. Naked. Like he didn’t have a care in the world. And then I saw you…wrapped in nothing but a sheet.”
He choked on his next words.
“Suddenly, I wasn’t in that hotel room anymore. I was fifteen again.”
His voice dropped to a haunted whisper as he told her about the worst day of his life—coming home to find his mother storming upstairs, his father’s car parked outside, and a stranger’s car in the driveway.
“I followed her…right into their bedroom,” he rasped. “My father…his mistress…both naked and asleep. My mother started yelling and woke them up, and the woman jumped out of bed naked, wrapping herself in my mother’s bed sheet. Images from that scene have haunted me.”
Aurelia gasped, a hand flying to her mouth.
“My mother threw the woman out, started screaming at him. My father was so angry that he had been caught, that he—he pushed her. She lost her balance and fell down the stairs. Hit her head on the edge of a step. Broke her neck…she was gone before even reaching the bottom.”
He blinked rapidly, shoulders curled in.
“She wasn’t perfect…but she didn’t deserve that. And my father? He got away with it. Bought his way out of every repercussion and consequence. Told me I’d be next if I opened my mouth.”
Aurelia’s heart ached for the boy who’d lived through that nightmare.
“I never realized how much that moment shaped me. How every relationship after that felt like the same betrayal. I walked in on every single one of them cheating on me. And every time…it brought me right back to that day.”
His eyes found hers again, full of anguish and regret.
“But none of that excuses how I treated you, Auri. You didn’t deserve what happened to you—and you definitely didn’t deserve what I said to you that night.”
He dug his fingers into his scalp, gripping his hair like he needed the pain to keep talking, his whole body coiled with remorse he didn’t know how to carry,
“I judged you through the lens of my trauma. I was a coward who ran away when you needed me the most. And I will regret that for the rest of my life.”
He took a shaky breath.
“I’m not asking for forgiveness—I don’t deserve it. I am asking for a chance to earn it…to show how much you mean to me. Because I’m done running. From myself. From this. From us .”
Aurelia sat there, breathless. Charles’s words again echoed through her mind.
Everyone comes with baggage, Aurelia. But sometimes…it’s the way we carry it that makes all the difference. Don’t let fear choose for you. And don’t shut the door before he’s even had the chance to fight for you.
Hadn’t she done the same thing in the beginning? Physically ran away on their wedding day? Pushed Levi away when fear took hold?
She stilled, taking in every line of Levi’s face, the raw sincerity in his eyes, and the fragile hope that she would let him fight for them.
Right then, Aurelia made the easiest choice of her life.
She would fight too. For herself and for the man who had become her home.
Levi
It was agony waiting for her to react.
Levi had opened up completely—his heart, his regrets, his broken past—and now all he could do was sit there and hope. Hope she wouldn’t turn away. Hope he hadn’t already lost her forever.
Then, at last, she moved.
Her uninjured hand gripped his hand, fingers curling tightly around his. The contact was so sudden, so sure, it stole the air from his lungs. He looked down at their joined hands in disbelief, not daring to hope too much, as his heart thudded painfully against his ribs.
She didn’t say a word…but she didn’t have to. That simple gesture told him everything. It’s a start.
Slowly, cautiously, he lifted his gaze to her face, searching for any sign of hesitation.
He found none, and for the first time in what felt like forever…he let himself breathe.
Closing his eyes, he soaked in the moment. The feel of her hand in his. The faint, familiar, fragrant mix of florals and fruit enveloped him and calmed every frantic thought in his head.
When he opened his eyes again, she was still looking at him. Levi knew he had never seen anything more beautiful.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, his voice raw.
Aurelia gave him a small, knowing smile.
“There’s plenty of blame to go around,” she whispered back. “Our relationship had cracks in its foundation from the beginning.”
Then, with a soft sigh, she reached up and gently cupped his cheek. Her touch was warm, grounding him.
“I’m absolutely going to make you earn my forgiveness, though,” she added, a wicked sparkle lighting her tired eyes.
Levi’s heart gave a helpless, hopeless lurch.
He was definitely screwed.
Though this time, he welcomed it. He would fight like hell to prove he was worthy of her love—and of the honor of being her husband.
He knew it wasn’t forgiveness. Not yet…but it was hope , and for now, that was enough.
There was so much work to do, so much to repair, if they were ever going to have the relationship they both deserved.
Looking back, it was painfully clear how quickly they’d rushed into this, especially the physical side of their relationship.
He had fallen into old patterns again, letting work take over, staying late at the office instead of coming home to her, instead of prioritizing her and building something real between them.
The weight that lifted, however, was now replaced by a different one—the weight of the wedding rings still in his possession.
He hadn’t given them back or dared bring them up, and she hadn’t asked for them.
His ring remained on his finger, a constant reminder of the vow he refused to break, even when it felt like everything had fallen apart. But she deserved more. Their beginning deserved more.
A real wedding. Not the courthouse disaster Owen had thrown together. Not a day that existed only in the blurry snapshots of paparazzi gossip columns.
That memory didn’t sit well with Levi, the residual anger from that day bubbling to the surface.
No…If they were going to rebuild, he wanted to do it right.
Which meant one thing: he needed to plan the perfect proposal.
To do that, he needed to solicit a little outside help from someone who could give him perspective.
His mind drifted to Estrella, remembering her earlier offer...
It was time to swallow his pride and schedule that appointment. No way was he leaving anything to chance, not if he was going to fight for her with everything he had.