48. CHAPTER 45 #2
I didn’t ask how he knew. I wasn’t going to question the bond between them.
The recent stories Orion had told me about his relationship with father prior to his illness, were enough to understand the connection between them.
Those stories always pulled me back to my own family—those rare moments I’d sought out in my mind of my father looking at my brothers with the kind of pride Orion described, but nothing came to mind.
My brothers had always been a disappointment to him, and he never hid it.
It was part of why Debo had left Paris six months ago, and why even I hadn’t spoken to him since.
The thought dimmed something inside me, but I pushed up a brief smile and sat down. I picked up the book from the bedside table and started where we’d left off.
Orion brought another chair over from the corner of the room, and sat across from me, elbows on his knees, watching us.
I could feel his eyes on me, even when I kept mine on the page.
There was a sadness there he was trying hard to hide, but I recognised it anyway.
The tension around his mouth and jaw gave it away.
My heart felt very heavy. I wanted to put the book down and wrap my arms around him, but I made a promise to myself to save it for later.
His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and let out a breath.
“It’s work,” he said below a whisper. “I’ll step outside.”
I nodded and kept reading.
About thirty minutes later, the nurse came in to check Henrik’s vitals, murmuring to herself as she adjusted the machines and made notes. Seeing Orion still hadn’t returned, I closed the book, rose, and gave her space.
When I stepped back into the corridor, he was nowhere in sight.
I crossed to our wing and found him in his office. The lights were low. He was sprawled on the couch, his legs splayed apart, his head tipped back on the cushion. His tie was now completely undone, and his phone lay on the floor, its screen dark.
He didn’t notice me at first, so I stood there, taking him in—the tension still clinging to his frame even in sleep, the faint shadows under his eyes.
I walked over, slipped out of my shoes, sank to the rug between his knees without saying a word, and rested my head on his lap.
I felt him still immediately. Then his hand came down to my hair, his fingers threading through it slowly, holding on like he needed something solid. And I was happy to be his anchor.
Neither of us needed to speak. Being here, sharing this space, was enough.
His fingers carding through my hair felt so good, I almost moaned into his touch.
For a while, that was all there was—the sound of his breathing, the distant hum of the estate, my cheek resting on the warm solid line of his thigh, and the need to caress my way through his entire body.
“Did he wake up?” he asked after a moment, his voice a low thrum above me.
“A bit,” I said. “He moved his fingers once while I read to him. He was calm mostly.”
Orion breathed out, almost a sigh. His hand paused, then began moving again in that slow languid pattern that sent electricity moving through my body.
“I heard you,” he said. “From the hallway. I heard your voice.”
I angled my head slightly, looking up at him. “I thought you were on a call.”
“I was…but I still heard you.”
There was a weariness in the way he said it, as if he'd been stretched too thin all day and only now allowed himself to feel something.
“You should sleep,” I urged softly.
“I should—” His mouth pulled into a wry line. “Every time I close my eyes, I see him in that bed. Or I see the board members raising hell. Neither option is particularly restful.”
I shifted a little, turning so I could see more of his face. From this angle, the strong lines of his features I was used to looked fragile, and worn down.
“Talk to me, then,” I whispered. “Tell me what’s in your head.”
He let out a soft, humourless huff. “You don’t want to live inside my head right now, Léa.”
“I married you,” I reminded him gently. Though not willingly at first but still… “I signed up for it.”
His hand tightened a fraction in my hair at that, pausing, then he started to stroke again and I stifled a moan to hear him talk. This moment wasn’t about me or my needs.
“I keep thinking—” He started, swallowing.
“I keep thinking I should be doing more. Fixing something. Solving something. Calling another specialist, even though Gérard deemed it useless. Still I feel the need to research anything that can be helpful. Because somewhere in my head it feels like there’s some clause I’ve missed, some loophole I can use in negotiating my father out of dying. ”
His voice cracked on the last word. Just a little. Enough to tear at my already aching heart.
“You’re there,” I said. “You sit with him daily. You hold his hand and talk to him. You watch me read to him. That’s not nothing, Orion. That’s everything.”
He absorbed the words without comment. I could feel his eyes on me.
“And you?” he asked. “Who’s taking care of you while you’re taking care of me?”
“You are,” I answered simply. “Every time you let me in rather than push me away.” My hand moved to rest on his lap. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you.”
His hand slid from my hair to my cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth.
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.
I frowned. “I don’t like that sentence.”
“It doesn’t make it less true.”
“Well, I’m your wife,” I said. “So if we’re going to start evaluating what either of us deserve, we’ll be here all night. And I still have plans to get you into a shower and then into bed.”
That pulled a tired laugh out of him.
“You can be very commanding, you know that?” His head falling back against the cushion as he looked at me through hooded eyes.
“You like me commanding. Admit it,” I teased, my fingers tracing lazily down his thighs. “You love when I take the reins.”
The teasing smile was still on my lips, but Orion didn’t laugh. He didn't even smirk. He looked at me with an intensity so raw it made my heart stumble.
“I love you.” His voice dropped. The unfiltered confession whispered almost under his breath. “I love you so much I felt sick today when I couldn’t see you around the house. Yes, I knew where you were but still… every hour you were gone felt like a fever I couldn’t break.”
My heart stuttered. The playful air in the room evaporated, replaced by the sheer weight of his devotion. I pushed up a little, turning so I could really see him now. His eyes stayed on me, dark and bare in a way that shook me, even after everything we’d been through.
“You felt sick?” I echoed his words, my voice trembling. I forced a tiny, teasing tilt to my mouth, because if I didn’t lighten the mood right then, I’d cry.
“Physically unwell,” he affirmed. “It was very inconvenient. I’m sure there’s some clinical term for being obsessed with your own wife, but I had no intention of treating it.”
I bit back a smile. “Terrible condition.”
“Debilitating,” he said, but there was a faint smile in his eyes now. It made him look more like my Orion and less like a man being hollowed out by grief.
I pushed myself up onto my knees between his thighs, placing my hands on either side of his jaw.
“Hey, look at me.”
He did, as he likes to do these days.
“You are not failing anyone,” I told him. “You are allowed to be tired. You are allowed to sit down. You are allowed to come in here and fall asleep on a couch and forget to go back after a phone call. None of that makes you a bad son.”
He swallowed, his throat moving under my fingers.
“I didn’t know how to do this, Maia,” he admitted, his voice barely a whisper. “I know how to fight for the things I want. I know how to build things from scratch. I know how to play to win. I don’t know how to…watch him go.”
He finally stopped fighting the exhaustion.
I felt the tension snap as he slumped forward, his forehead dropping heavily onto my shoulder.
His hands, usually so steady and controlling, trembled at my waist before he gripped me with a desperation that felt painful.
It was the first time I felt the full, crushing weight of him—not just his body, but the years of expectation he’d been forced to carry alone.
A sting hit the back of my eyes. I blinked it away, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders and pulling him as close as the space allowed.
“You don’t have to know,” I tried to comfort him. “You just have to be here for him. For you. For me too.”
His hands splayed around my waist, his fingers moving through the fabric of my dress in restless, searching patterns, as if he were trying to internalize the feel of me through the fabric.
“Thank you,” he whispered, placing his forehead against mine, his breath grazing my lips.
“For which part?” I asked, my voice was very faint.
“For everything,” he muttered. “For staying with me, for being here… I’m not sure I would have survived this without you by my side.”
My heartbeat picked up at his confession. All I’d done was exist in his space, even before love bloomed between us. I didn’t think it was holding up space for him or helping him survive anything. In my mind, I had just been a girl trying to find her footing in a house that offered no warmth.
Now, looking at the raw desperation in his eyes, the truth finally dawned on me.
All this time, I had just loved him when he was at his most unlovable—unknowingly.
I had been the warmth in his heart, the voice in the depth of his silence, and the one person who refused to cower when he showed the version of him that terrified the world.
I shifted my palm on his thighs, feeling the tension coiled there, and moved closer on my knees. The space between us felt charged, full of unsaid things, and confessions that didn’t need words .
“You would have survived, Orion,” I said to him, my thumbs tracing the line just above his waistband. “But you shouldn’t have to just survive your own life. You’re allowed to lean on me. That’s what the ‘as much mine as I am yours’ part means.”