Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
VIOLET
It had been three hours since we’d landed in Austin. Countless hours since I’d abandoned Hazel to a flight attendant and let Griffin have his way with me at thirty thousand feet, and now she was paying for my selfishness.
“Should we call a doctor?” He pushed his chair back and rushed across the suite, his work forgotten. The moment his fingers touched her cheek, his face paled. “She’s like a radiator. That isn’t normal, is it?”
“No, but—”
“We need to get her to a hospital.”
The raw panic in his voice made my stomach drop. Griffin never lost control—not in interviews, not during crashes, not ever.
“Griffin—”
“Now. Right now.” He was already reaching for his keys. “What if it’s meningitis? What if her brain—”
“Stop.” I caught his arm, my fingers wrapping around his wrist. His pulse hammered against my thumb. “She’s not dying.”
“But the fever—”
“Is 38.3. High, but not emergency room high.”
He stared at me like I’d suggested we ignore a fire alarm. “Are you mad? She’s burning up. Babies die from fevers.”
“Neglected fevers. We’re not neglecting anything.”
“Then why is she so hot?”
“Because they spike fevers fast. It’s what they do.” I shifted Hazel in my arms, trying to project calm while guilt gnawed at my insides and something warm and terrifying bloomed in my chest watching Griffin fall apart over his daughter. “Let’s call a doctor first. Someone who can come here.”
Griffin ran both hands through his hair, his fingers visibly shaking. He was coming apart at the seams, and it was the most attractive thing I’d ever seen.
Christ. What was wrong with me?
“What if we wait too long? What if by the time they get here, she’s—”
“She won’t be.”
“You don’t know that.”
He was right. I didn’t know that. But one of us had to stay rational, and Griffin looked about two seconds from scooping Hazel up and sprinting to the nearest emergency room.
“Look at her,” I said, my voice gentle. “She’s fussy, but she’s alert. She’s not lethargic. She’s not vomiting.”
Griffin crouched beside me, studying Hazel’s face with the intensity he usually reserved for telemetry data.
“But what if—”
“No what-ifs. Just facts.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt. “High fever, some fussiness, but she’s responsive. That’s manageable.”
“She’s two months old and burning up in a foreign country.” His voice pitched higher, and I had the ridiculous urge to smooth the lines from his forehead. “Nothing about this is manageable.”
“Griffin, breathe.”
“Don’t tell me to breathe. My daughter is sick.”
A lump formed in my throat at the way he said “my daughter” with such fierce love. Julian had never sounded like this about anything, least of all me. Had never looked at me with this kind of protective devotion.
What would it be like to have Griffin look at our children this way? To know that no matter what happened, he would fight the entire world to keep them safe?
Our children.
Where the hell had that come from?
I pushed it away before it could take root, but the damage was done. The image lingered, Griffin cradling a baby with my dark hair and his green eyes, looking at them with this same fierce devotion.
“I know. Which is why we’re going to handle this properly.” I reached for his phone, my fingers brushing his palm. The contact sent sparks up my arm. “You have the Aedris medical team’s number?”
“Why?”
“They’ll know someone good who makes house calls.”
Griffin’s hands were shaking as he scrolled through his contacts. While he paced and talked to a doctor, I took note of the tension in his shoulders, the way he kept glancing at Hazel like he was afraid she might disappear.
“She’ll be here in twenty minutes,” Griffin said, hanging up.
“See? Twenty minutes. We can handle twenty minutes.”
“What if her temperature spikes before then?”
“We monitor it. Take her clothes off to cool her down. Give her water if she’ll take it.”
Griffin immediately started unbuttoning Hazel’s sleep suit, his movements careful despite his obvious panic. His large hands worked the tiny buttons with infinite gentleness.
“There,” he said. “Better?”
Hazel did seem slightly more comfortable in just her nappy. Still too warm, but not quite radiating heat the way she had been.
“What else?” Griffin asked, his green eyes fixed on mine with desperate trust. “What else can we do?”
The way he looked to me for answers, like I was his anchor in the storm.
“We wait.”
“That’s it? We just sit here?”
Griffin’s leg bounced with nervous energy, and without thinking, I reached out and placed my hand on his knee. He tensed under my palm.
“I should research infant fevers,” he said, his voice rougher. “Figure out what else we might need to do.”
“You should stay calm.”
“I am calm.”
I raised a brow, letting my thumb trace a small circle against his kneecap. He drew in a deep breath.
“Fine, I’m not calm. My daughter is sick and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Griffin, she’s going to be okay.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“But what if it’s not? What if I’ve already failed her?”
The anguish in his voice cut through me. “You haven’t failed anyone.”
“I don’t know how to be a father. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You called a doctor. You’re monitoring her temperature. You’re here.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’s everything.”
He looked at me like he wasn’t sure whether to believe that, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that made my mouth dry.
Julian never nursed me through a fever. He had staff for that. To my father, I was nothing more than a project to be managed. But Griffin looked at Hazel like she was precious, irreplaceable. Like losing her would break him completely.
What would it be like to be loved like that? To know someone would move heaven and earth to protect you?
“I don’t know how to be what she needs.”
“You think I do? I read textbooks, but I’ve never had a baby spike a fever in my arms before. I’ve never been this terrified that I might lose someone.”
“But you’re calm—”
“Because you’re panicking. Someone has to keep a level head.” I met his gaze, and something electric passed between us. “But inside? I’m falling apart. Because she matters. Because losing her would destroy me.”
Griffin’s hand covered mine where it rested on his leg, his fingers warm and strong. “She matters to me too.”
“I know. That’s what makes you a good father. You don’t need to have all the answers.”
His thumb traced across my knuckles, the touch sending heat spiraling through me. Even in crisis, even terrified for Hazel, there was this pull between us. This awareness that made my skin tingle and my thoughts scatter.
A knock at the door broke the spell. Griffin shot to his feet and rushed to the door.
“Dr. Matthews? Thank Christ you’re here.”
She was younger than I’d expected, with kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. Professional but approachable, the kind of doctor who probably dealt with panicking parents regularly.
“I understand we have a sick little one.”
“She’s burning up,” Griffin said before she’d even set down her bag. “Fever of 38.3, maybe higher now. And she feels like, well, feel her yourself.”
He hovered behind the doctor’s shoulder, memorizing every move she made. The way he absorbed information, asked pointed questions, took detailed notes. It was impossibly attractive. This fierce dedication to getting it right.
Julian would have written a check and disappeared until the crisis passed.
“Good news,” Dr. Matthews said finally. “This appears to be a viral infection. Very common, especially after international travel.”
Griffin’s entire body sagged with relief. “Not meningitis?”
“No. Her reflexes are normal, and she’s alert and responsive. This is her immune system doing exactly what it should.”
After the doctor left detailed instructions and departed, Griffin immediately started organizing: creating charts, measuring out the first dose with scientific precision.
He’d be like this with everything. Feeding schedules, developmental milestones, school choices. Meticulous, devoted, present.
The kind of father I’d always wished for. The kind of father I’d want for my children.
The thought blindsided me again, more vivid this time. Griffin teaching a toddler to ride a bike. Reading bedtime stories with voices for all the characters. Panicking over scraped knees and first heartbreaks with this same fierce protectiveness.
I could see it so clearly it made my chest ache.
“You don’t have to document everything,” I said, pushing the dangerous thoughts away.
“Yes, I do. If something changes, we’ll need exact data.”
The methodical approach seemed to calm him, and some of my own anxiety eased watching him take control. When he administered Hazel’s medicine with gentle competence, pride swelled in my chest.
“See? You’re getting the hang of this.”
“Am I? Because twenty minutes ago I was ready to drag her to emergency.”
“You were scared. Now you’re thinking clearly. That’s what parents do, they adapt.”
The word ‘parents’ hung between us, loaded with implication. We weren’t parents. Not together. But sitting here in this hotel room, caring for Hazel through her first real illness, it felt like we were.
It felt like family.
We settled into our vigil, Griffin updating his chart every hour while I monitored Hazel’s breathing, her skin temperature, the subtle changes in her condition. Somewhere around midnight, exhaustion began to blur the edges of my careful emotional boundaries.
“This waiting is torture,” Griffin muttered, rubbing his eyes.
“Welcome to parenthood. Half of it is waiting and worrying.”
By 2 AM, Hazel’s temperature was down to 37.9. By 4 AM, it had broken completely, and she was sleeping peacefully for the first time in hours.
Griffin and I sagged against each other, emotionally and physically drained. His arm tightened around me, and I let myself enjoy the solid comfort of his embrace.
“She’s really okay,” I whispered.
His lips brushed my temple, so soft I might have imagined it. “Christ, I never want to go through that again.”
“You will, though. Babies get sick. It’s part of the deal.”
“Don’t tell me that.”
His chest shook with tired laughter, and I smiled. This easy intimacy, the way we fit together, it was insidious. It made me want things I couldn’t have.