Chapter 11 #2
“Oh, poor dear,” she adds. I roll my eyes at her concerned tone. “Please let me know if you need something.”
“Yes, thank you.” Rafael watches me with self-indulgent satisfaction. I glare back. We have a staring contest for the duration of time it takes Cristina’s footsteps to fade.
“Poor dear?” I narrow my eyes in suspicion. “What have you done to Cristina?” Cristina, with her no-nonsense Romanian upbringing, should know better than to be Vela’d, but she’s Play-Doh in his hands.
Rafael smirks knowingly, the dimple appearing (as if to show me this is how I tricked her), and he shrugs. “We bonded over mutual interests.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I would, in fact, like to know what a sixty-something, kind, loving Romanian grandmother and a thirty-something, smooth-talking, backstabbing Mexican American bachelor have in common.
“Was it your mutual interest in women’s gymnastics?” I ask, arching a brow in question and earning another dimple-baring smile. A rush of warmth surprises me. He said I wasn’t in hell, but the lack of cold air and oxygen would disagree.
“You’re funny, E. You should let your guard down more often.” His words are a much-needed bucket of ice.
“My guards are intact, thank you very much, and don’t call me that.” I cross my arms, adding another barrier between us. “Any other conditions?”
Rafael, unbothered by my tone or glare, flattens a very male hand against the wall beside my head, his arm muscles cut as if chiseled from stone.
The tattoo along his bicep peeks out from beneath his shirt sleeve, and I swear another minute in this bathroom is going to accomplish what the accident didn’t.
I push air through my nose and force my eyes to stay on his face.
“Only one more.” The signature, challenging gleam enters his eyes as he leans in, close enough my breath hitches.
“Okay. What?” I half whisper, half rasp, torn between my desire to put distance between us and my reluctance to concede a step. I make myself tall instead. “My firstborn?”
“Close.” His full lips pull to one side. I have a strong feeling I’m not going to like whatever he’s about to say. “Don’t fall in love with me,” he says, low and husky.
“Oh Go-o-o-od,” I groan, covering my face with my hands. “You can’t possibly be the only person in this entire world who can help me.”
“Entire world? Maybe not. But your circle of closest confidants? Possibly.” Humor accentuates his tone, as if this is some joke to him, and it mortifies me further. “Anyway, I thought you’d appreciate that last condition because you—”
I hold up a hand, refusing to look at him. “Stop, please. This is humiliating enough for me without having to waltz down memory lane.” The stroll down Elevator Incident Lane was enough. But another memory of the earlier months at Media Lab tugs at me.
We were sitting through a late-night meeting, during which we had a similar conversation to the one we’re having now.
I outlined my very serious, very professional conditions for working together on a local grocer’s account—our first shared client—one of which was that he wouldn’t fall in love with me.
It was meant as a joke. A line I’d seen in a movie or read in a book. Light and fun.
Only it wasn’t entirely a joke.
A hopeful (mostly silly) part of me that was slowly learning to open up envisioned the possibility of our friendship evolving.
Eventually. Because he was charming and easy to be around.
He made me laugh and he’d figured out quite easily how to pull me out of my head, to stop me from overthinking, to get me to loosen up.
He’d bring in oversized lunches because he’d always “accidentally” pack extra—usually things I liked.
He’d doodle in the corners of my planners or leave ridiculous sticky notes on top of my files—like This one’s cursed. Burn it.
So yes, there was a point—one infinitesimal, blink-and-you-miss-it moment in time—when I believed Rafael might be easy to love. How naive I was.
“I’m not trying to humiliate you,” he says, the humor fading. A trick.
“You might be more convincing if I didn’t know you.”
Rafael’s jaw works like he wants to say more, but he drops his hand from the wall. His demeanor shifts, turning serious. Almost like the distance between us has stretched by feet, and it doesn’t have the relief-inducing effect I imagined.
“There’s another thing. Not a condition, but …” He hesitates. I tense immediately. “Just a complication.”
My pulse stutters. “Okay …”
I want to make a joke about the suspense killing me, but the sudden coolness in his gaze sends my anxiety into a sprint.
“They tried reducing your sedation last night.”
My stomach hollows. “What?”
“They lowered the dosage—just a little—to see if your body would start to come back on its own. But … it didn’t go well.” He looks down at his hands. “Your vitals crashed. You were in distress. They had to sedate you again because it wasn’t safe.”
The words dig into me like claws.
“What … what does that mean?” I can’t keep the panic from my voice.
His eyes connect with mine. Almost sad. “They said your body should’ve started waking up by now, but it hasn’t.” He swallows. “They’ll try again in a few days, but if it doesn’t work, they’ll have to change course. Move you to a long-term facility because the hospital needs the bed.”
“Long-term?” I breathe. “As in give-up-on-you storage.”
“No! It’s not like that,” he says quickly. “But it’s not ideal. It’s farther. Less access. Gemma’s pushing back, but it’s only Gemma and a Julia Popovici who are legally allowed to visit you … based on your consent.”
The words hit like a kick to the chest.
“Shit.” It slips out on a breath. A very young, very naive version of Evie Pope signed a medical consent form almost a decade ago, adding only her best friend and her great-aunt.
Not that I would have added Rafael Vela to the list. Not in a million years.
“But you were at the hospital,” I point out.
Rafael shifts from one leg to the other. “Yes.”
“How?” His sudden aversion to eye contact piques my curiosity. “Rafael.”
His head jerks up, his features suspiciously sheepish. “I know Dr. Wagner from before … and I told her we were together.”
“Together?” I choke out, horrified. “Like together together?
He doesn’t answer because his face says it all. “Technically, we are together. Every day. Longer than most couples who are together. I let her assume the rest,” he says, offering a one-shoulder shrug.
The urge to tug out tufts of his unfairly thick hair is overwhelming, but I curl my fingers into my palm instead. “You are …”
“… the only one who can help,” he finishes, daring to offer a chaste smile. “It’s also made it easier for others to come see you.”
Grinding my teeth, I consider fighting this particular battle. But I know when the odds are stacked against me, and currently, their weight is pretty crushing.
I stretch onto my tiptoes and into his space. “This isn’t the end of this discussion,” I say.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good.” I hold his gaze a second longer. “So, we have what—a few days in the hospital and then you can’t help me?”
“Until Gemma finds a way to modify the consent or keep you in the hospital, because that’s the best place for you,” he says. “Regardless, we’ll figure it out.”
Rafael says this like a promise, like he needs me to believe him … and I know I have to.
Because I can’t start this by thinking we’ll fail.
“Is that it, then? Are those all the conditions?” My voice comes out strong and steady, nothing like how I really feel. The desperation termites are swarming, fast and frantic.
Rafael holds my gaze like he’s trying to see through me, but my guards are White House–level secure. “That’s it,” he finally says.
Despite the tightness in my chest, I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and move to the last part of getting Rafael on board. I hold out my hand. “All right then, it’s a deal?”
Rafael glances at my hand before pressing his palm to mine—flesh-and-bone hand ghosting against something not quite there. I can’t feel him exactly, but I feel. An energy. A flicker of awareness that ripples through me, and it silences my thoughts.
I keep my features neutral as he says, “Deal.” And like that, we become reluctant partners.