Chapter 13
It pays to have a chauffeur. But it really pays when that chauffeur happens to be a war-trained driver who can weave through traffic like he’s dodging landmines. And it’s especially helpful when your bodyguard is trained in first aid and immediately starts working on your mother in the backseat.
While Topher’s assistant called ahead to make sure a room was ready, the car raced through the city. Forget waiting for an ambulance. We got to the hospital in record time.
As soon as we arrived, Topher’s mother was whisked into a hospital room. Topher and I were all alone in the waiting room, the hospital eerily quiet. Topher sat beside me, staring down at his hands.
I shifted in my seat. “You know, she’s got a lot of strength. Whatever happens, she’s not the type to give up easily.”
Topher exhaled, still not looking up. “Yeah, I know.”
There was a pause before I added gently, “It’s okay to feel worried, though.”
He hesitated, his gaze still fixed on his hands. “I’m not worried.” The crack in his voice made it clear he wasn’t convincing either of us.
I waited, sensing there was more beneath the surface.
After a moment, he glanced up at me briefly before looking back down, his posture rigid.
“My mom…” His voice was low and uncertain, like he wasn’t sure if he should be saying anything at all.
“When she was raising me, she did everything she could, you know? Worked multiple jobs and always made sure I had something to eat, even when she didn’t.
But it wasn’t enough. We were poor. ‘Electricity-getting-shut-off’ poor.
‘Not-knowing-where-you’re-going-to-sleep’ poor. ”
His words hung in the air, and their weight hit hard as the tension built in his face. “It all started after my dad left. He completely disappeared. And then it was just the two of us, struggling every single day. We lost our house.”
“That must have been hard for both of you.” I kept my tone gentle, letting him know it was safe to keep talking.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It was. We stayed in cheap motels, sometimes in the car. My mom tried to make it seem like an adventure, but I knew, even as a kid, I knew how close we were to losing everything. I had to drop out of school for a while to help her make ends meet.”
“You dropped out of school?” I tried to keep the shock out of my voice, but my heart ached at the thought of him, a kid, giving up his education to survive. “How old were you?”
“Twelve,” he replied, his eyes distant, as if he were looking back at a version of himself he hadn’t thought about in a long time.
“That’s such a young age to go through something so painful.”
He nodded, clearing his throat. “Yeah. I lied about my age and worked whatever jobs I could. I bagged groceries and delivered papers. It was hard. But we made it. Eventually, we scraped enough together to get a tiny apartment. I went back to school, and I got a scholarship to pay for it. And my mom saved every penny. That’s why she’s so proud of her little house. She bought it herself.”
He nodded, his face tightening. “There was no one. No friends offering money. No family swooping in to save the day. We had to help ourselves.”
“That must have felt isolating,” I said softly. “Like you had no choice but to grow up faster than anyone should have to.”
“Yeah. And I promised myself I’d never be that powerless again. Never let her, or myself, go through that again.”
As his words settled between us, my heart twisted. Even as a kid, he’d been so resilient, so strong. “You were carrying so much, even at twelve. That must have been incredibly difficult. And now you’ve built so much.”
He gave a small, humorless laugh, but I could see a hint of pride beneath the pain. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“And now you’re working like you can never stop because you’re still trying to make sure you never lose everything again.”
He looked up at me, his eyes filled with something unspoken, as if he hadn’t fully realized that himself.
“Yeah,” he admitted after a pause. “I can’t stop.
It’s like... if I stop, if I let go for even a second, everything could fall apart.
No matter how many houses I own or how many deals I close, it’s always there. The fear. The pressure.”
Topher’s face changed. The tough exterior he’d been holding onto slipped, just a little. Worry flickered in his eyes. “What if... what if I lose her?”
Without thinking, I reached out and took his hand. No one was around to see it. There was no audience, so there was no reason to pretend. But in that moment, I didn’t let go.
His grip tightened around my hand, and we sat there for a while, just like that.
Eventually, he shifted closer to me, his hand still in mine. He glanced up, and there was something softer in his gaze. He studied me for a moment. “You really are something.” His voice was low, sincere. “You talk to people. You make them feel better. You should do that for a living.”
I blinked, caught off guard. No one had ever said something like that to me, and for a moment, I didn’t know how to respond. “I do need to get a real job. I was thinking, I don’t know, maybe I’ll work at a movie theater or something.”
He raised an eyebrow. “A movie theater? Come on, you should be doing something that lets you connect with people, something that matters. Like being a therapist.”
“A therapist?” I scoffed. “I can’t afford a decade of school. I haven’t even finished college.”
I had so much debt, so many reasons why this wasn’t possible. Yet, looking at him, I saw how open and sincere he was, and I felt something inside me soften. Maybe he wasn’t as far removed from my struggles as I’d thought.
Sure, he was a billionaire, living in a world of luxury I could hardly imagine, but he hadn’t always been that way. He’d known the weight of poverty, the gnawing uncertainty of whether tomorrow would be any better than today.
I could see it now, the way his workaholism wasn’t about the need to pay bills anymore; it was deeper than that.
It was the trauma of knowing what it felt like to have nothing and the fear that it could all slip away again.
He wasn’t just driven by ambition; he was driven by the same fear that haunted me, the same insecurity that gnawed at the back of my mind.
But while I was still stuck in the fight to survive, he was on the other side of it, clinging to what he had built as if it could vanish any second.
We weren’t as far apart as I’d thought. We were both shaped by the same fear, though his manifested in relentless work and mine in constant worry. Maybe, just maybe, we understood each other more than I’d ever imagined.
He looked deep in my eyes, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. My heart pounded so loudly in my ears that I was sure he could hear it, too. There was something in his eyes, something warm and steady that made me feel like the whole world had narrowed down to just the two of us.
Topher’s gaze lingered, his face inches from mine, and I swore he was about to lean in. My pulse quickened, and heat rose in my cheeks. Was this really about to happen? Were we going to cross the line between what was real and what was pretend?
I could almost feel the kiss before it even happened, the tension hanging in the air so thick it was hard to swallow. And, for a split second, I let myself imagine what it would feel like to have his lips on mine, the world falling away, and everything shifting between us.
But then, right at the edge of that moment, the door to the waiting room swung open, and the sound snapped us both out of it.
Alex walked in.
Of all people.
“Hey,” Alex said, glancing between me and Topher like he’d interrupted something.
Which he had.
“Your mom’s going to be okay, Mr. Brodie. She was just dehydrated. I’m assisting her doctor, and they asked me to tell you that you can go in.”
Topher immediately sat up straighter, his jaw tightening as he fixed his eyes on Alex. There was a sharpness in his expression that I hadn’t ever seen before.
“Thanks, Alex,” I said quickly, trying to ease the sudden tension in the room.
Alex glanced at me, then back at Topher. "I can stay with Kathleen if you want to go see your mom. I'm on break for another twenty minutes, and the waiting room coffee is terrible. I could grab her something better from the staff lounge."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Topher's hand was still in mine, but suddenly his grip tightened—firm, possessive, almost territorial. His thumb had stopped its reassuring circles. Alex had never held my hand like this, like he was afraid to let go, afraid that if he did, I’d slip away, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t ever let that happen.
Inside, I felt a strange rush of happiness. There was a flutter in my chest, a warmth spreading through me. It was like a quiet reassurance, a feeling of safety, like for once, someone wanted to keep me close. I wanted that too.
"That won't be necessary." Topher's tone was sharp. "She's coming with me."
Alex blinked, clearly caught off guard. "Oh, I just thought—family only, usually—"
"She stays with me," Topher said firmly.
Alex raised his hands in a small gesture of surrender. "Alright, I'll leave you two to it."
He gave me a quick nod before heading out.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I turned to Topher, eyebrows raised. “What was that about?”
Topher’s shoulders were still tense, his fists balled at his sides. “I don’t trust him,” he muttered, his eyes blazing. “I don’t like the way he looked at you.”
My heart skipped a beat. The intensity in his voice and the hint of possessiveness took me completely by surprise. And the part of me that had secretly been craving Topher’s attention couldn’t help but like it.
I opened my mouth to respond, but Topher sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice quieter now. “It’s been a long day, and I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s okay.” I kept my tone light even though my heart was racing. “Stress does weird things to people.”
Before either of us could say more, the door creaked open again, bringing us back to the present.
“Time to check on your mom,” I said softly, nodding toward the hallway.
Topher nodded, his expression softening as we stood and moved toward her room. My pulse quickened, not from the rush of walking but from the memory of that brief moment when I thought he might kiss me.
As we stopped in front of the door, I realized something that made my breath catch.
We were still holding hands. We had been holding hands the entire time, and neither of us had let go.
His grip was steady, almost like he was afraid to release me, and the truth was, I didn’t want him to.
I looked at our hands, intertwined, and felt a quiet certainty settle over me.
If he didn’t seem to want to let go, well then, neither did I.