Chapter 248: Chapter 250: He can’t protect you
Later, after Alexander had left and her mother had dozed off in the chair and the room had settled into its evening quiet, Damien sat beside her bed and looked at her with the expression she’d been watching him try to manage all day.
"Say it," she said.
"Say what?"
"Whatever you’ve been not saying for three days."
He was quiet for a moment. His thumb moved across her hand slowly.
"He’s not wrong," Damien said finally. "About the twice."
"Damien..."
"I know you’re going to tell me it’s not my fault. I know the rational argument." He looked at her. "I’m telling you that sitting here watching you flinch at noises and pretend you’re sleeping when you’re not..." He stopped. "I just need you to know that I see it. And I’m not going anywhere. And I’m going to spend however long it takes making sure there isn’t a third time."
Aria looked at him for a long moment.
"Okay," she said softly.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I hear you." She shifted carefully, making room. "Now stop sitting in that chair and come sit here. My neck hurts from looking down at you."
He looked at the narrow hospital bed skeptically.
"Damien."
He got up and carefully settled beside her, her head finding the space below his shoulder with the ease of something practiced and familiar. She felt him exhale...properly, fully, for what sounded like the first time in days.
"The nightmares are getting shorter," she said quietly.
He pressed his lips to the top of her head and didn’t respond, and she knew he was filing it away...the confirmation of what he’d suspected, offered now because she was ready to give it.
"Good," he said finally. "That’s good."
Outside, the hospital hummed with its ordinary nighttime business. Inside, the monitors beeped steadily, and Aria closed her eyes, and for the first time in several days the darkness behind her eyelids felt like rest rather than threat.
She was still holding his hand when she fell asleep.
****
Three days before discharge, Alexander arrived early.
Aria knew it was him before the door opened....his knock was different from Damien’s, different from her mother’s, different from the nurses’. Precise. Three times, evenly spaced, the knock of a man who did everything with intention.
"Come in," she called.
He entered carrying coffee....real coffee, from the place two blocks away that she’d mentioned once in passing...and a paper bag that smelled like the almond croissants her mother loved. He set them on the small table by the window, then turned to look at her with the particular expression she’d started to recognize as his version of good morning.
"You look better," he said.
"I feel better." She nodded toward the coffee. "Is one of those for me or are you just being cruel?"
Something shifted in his face....not quite a smile but adjacent to one. He handed her a cup and sat in the chair beside her bed, and for a few minutes they just existed in the quiet of the morning, drinking coffee while the hospital woke up around them.
It was, Aria thought, one of the stranger developments of her life....sitting in comfortable silence with a man she’d known for three months who shared her cheekbones and her stubborn streak and twenty five years of missing each other without knowing it.
"Your mother isn’t here yet," he said.
"She went home to sleep in an actual bed. I made her." Aria wrapped both hands around her cup. "She was starting to look worse than me."
Alexander nodded. His eyes moved around the room briefly....taking everything the way he always did, mapping exits and sight lines and probably half a dozen other things she’d never fully understand about how his mind worked.
"I want to talk to you about something," he said. "Before Damien gets here."
Aria looked at him over the rim of her cup. "That’s never a good opening."
"No," he agreed. "I suppose it isn’t."
He set his coffee down and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. The posture made him look less like a forty billion dollar empire and more like a person, which she suspected was entirely intentional.
"I want you to come to Singapore," he said. "After discharge. My estate there has security infrastructure that makes anything available in New York look modest. Gated compound, full time protection team, medical staff on site. You’d have privacy, space to recover properly, everything you need."
Aria was quiet for a moment. "Singapore."
"I have a facility there that manages my personal security. Twelve full time staff. The estate itself is....it’s large. You’d have your own wing, complete privacy. Your mother would be accommodated. You could bring anyone you wanted."
"Anyone I wanted," she repeated carefully.
"Including Damien," he said, with the specific evenness of a man delivering a line he’d practiced. "If that’s what you want."
She studied her father’s face. Watched him hold her gaze without flinching, which she’d noticed was something he did....met difficult conversations head on, never looked away first. She’d wondered more than once if she’d inherited that too.
"How long?" she asked.
"As long as you need. A month. Three months. However long it takes for the situation with Harold to be fully resolved and for you to feel,,,," He paused, choosing the word carefully. "Settled."
"Settled," Aria said. "That’s a diplomatic way to put it."
"I’m trying to be diplomatic."
"I noticed." She set her cup down on the tray beside her. " Why Singapore specifically? You have properties closer. You mentioned one twenty minutes from here."
Something moved across his face. Quick, but she caught it.
"Singapore is further," she said.
"Yes."
"Further from Harold. Further from Damien’s enemies. Further from everything that’s been happening."
"Yes," he said again.
"Further from Damien."
The room was very quiet.
Alexander sat back in his chair and looked at her with an expression she couldn’t entirely read....complicated and layered and old in a way that had nothing to do with his age. "I won’t pretend that’s not part of it," he said finally. "I think distance from the situation would benefit your recovery. All of the situation."
"My relationship is part of the situation now."
"The enemies your relationship has brought into your life are part of the situation."
"That’s not the same thing."
"Isn’t it?"
Aria looked at her father steadily. "Say what you actually mean. Not the diplomatic version."
Alexander was quiet for a moment. Then he said, very evenly: "He can’t protect you. He’s proven that twice. And I can."
