Chapter 23 #2
Naija murmured something, pointing toward the far wall where the Garcia family would be presented.
Alessia nodded immediately, her gaze already calculating, her mind adjusting the invisible grid.
There was no hesitation. No second-guessing.
Just a sequence of clean, efficient decisions, one flowing into the next like a well-rehearsed dance.
I didn’t need to be here.
Everyone in the room knew it. The hotel’s project manager kept glancing at me, puzzled.
Garcia’s sommelier, there to discuss the wine display, gave me a polite, confused nod.
Even Naija, an hour ago, had caught my eye for a brief, knowing moment before turning wordlessly back to her tablet.
My presence was an anomaly. A CEO had no business shadowing a PR walkthrough.
Any other day, I would have made up a reason. Just checking on the structural progress. Wanted to see the lighting mock-ups. Thin excuses that no one believed, least of all me.
But not today.
Today, I had a reason. A legitimate, concrete, and terrifyingly important reason to be here.
Every year, like clockwork, Alessia would get sick around this time.
There was no medical explanation, no predictable date.
Just the certainty that, as the leaves turned, she would be felled for exactly one brutal day.
A total system crash. She’d be reduced to a feverish, shivering bundle on the couch, incapable of fetching her own water.
Before me, Felicity had been her guardian. Once I was in her life, it became my sacred, unshakable duty. I used to clear my entire week, a silent vigil, waiting for the signs while desperately hoping that this year, the pattern would break, while simultaneously being ready for when it didn’t.
My eyes were locked on her when I saw it—a slight, involuntary shiver, a subtle tension in her shoulders.
Then she sneezed.
I was at her side before the echo faded, my hand hovering just behind her back, not quite touching.
“I’ll get the car ready,” I said to Naija, my voice low and urgent. “Stay with her. I’ll be right back—”
Alessia turned her entire body toward me, her eyes narrowing in pure confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re sick.”
Her eyebrows shot up. Then a slow, incredulous smile spread across her face.
“Are you… manifesting right now, Cassian?”
“What? No.” I shook my head, horrified at the suggestion. “You sneezed.”
She kept looking at me, that amused, impressed curve still on her lips.
“Good catch. I can see why you’re the boss.” She turned, plucking her tablet from the table. “I’m not sick. I sneezed because of the dust. Speaking of which…”
She strode off, already issuing instructions.
I kept my eyes on her, my internal alarm still faintly blaring.
“Do you think it’s today?” I asked Naija without looking away.
“Could be,” Naija hummed, noncommittal. She tapped her own tablet awake and opened a calendar. My eyes scanned it.
“We’re two days into the week. Nothing has happened yet.” She shrugged. “Could be today. Could be tomorrow.”
The entire week on Naija’s calendar was meticulously blocked out with contingency plans—tasks redistributed, meetings shifted—all designed for the precise moment Alessia would go offline.
My gaze snagged on the weekend.
“Spa day?” I read aloud.
Naija didn’t miss a beat.
“I deserve to relax.”
“But why does it say ‘Use Alessia’s card’?”
She snapped the tablet’s cover shut.
“Like I said. I deserve to relax.”
I didn’t press further.
Then another thought surfaced.
“Why are you talking to me nicely?”
She glanced at me, her expression unreadable for a moment. Then she shrugged, a single, elegant lift of her shoulder.
“You’re not my boss’s stupid husband anymore.”
She turned and walked away, falling into step beside Alessia without a backward glance.
Ouch.
The title—or lack of it—hit like a sucker punch. Not her husband anymore. That reminder was a special kind of hell.
I stayed within arm’s reach the entire day, a silent shadow hovering at the periphery of her work. Alessia shot me a couple of questioning looks, but never told me to leave.
I took it as a win.
There was no sign of the sickness. Not yet. But there never was. That was the terrifying, predictable part of it. One moment she’d be laughing, and the next, the color would drain from her face as if someone had pulled a plug, leaving her limbs heavy and useless.
So even though it might not have been today, my attention never wavered. Before she left with Naija, I pulled Naija aside, my voice low.
“If anything seems off tomorrow—anything. Even a cough. Let me know.”
Hours later, I was in my kitchen, rolling a cold water bottle against the back of my neck, when my phone buzzed on the counter.
Naija: She just took tomorrow off.
I dropped the bottle onto the counter, turned, and heard it thud to the floor behind me. I didn’t look back.
I went straight to our room, grabbed the go-bag I’d kept packed and ready by the door all week, then remembered.
I pivoted and sprinted back to the kitchen.
My eyes scanned past the water bottle now lying on the floor. I pulled the fridge open and reached straight for the second shelf, where the tall glass bottle I’d brewed fresh every morning that week was waiting.
Boiled water, steeped herbs, strained, cooled. Just in case.
Every unused batch was poured out at night. Every morning, a new one was made.
I screwed the cap on tight, wrapped it in a towel, and nestled it into my bag. My movements were automatic, efficient, driven by a deep, practiced urgency.
I grabbed my keys and was out the door.
I didn’t slow down, didn’t think, didn’t breathe properly until my car was idling outside her building and I was finally, finally looking at her front door.