Chapter 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

Holding Roe's lifeless body in my arms immediately thrusted me back to seeing my mother in the hospital.

The paramedics were on her in no time and airlifted her back to Boston, so she could be near her oncologist. Laurel rode in the helicopter with her. Once I ensured they were on their way, I had Olivia cancel the party and ask everyone to go home. I didn't say goodbye to our guests, rushing to my own helicopter to catch up to Laurel and Roe at the hospital.

The rush of adrenaline hasn't worn off, and I think a small part of me hasn't allowed myself to address the trigger of what happened tonight. My focus is only on Laurel and Roe.

When my helicopter lands on top of my apartment building, I race down to the parking garage.

I climb into my black Bugatti and race out of the garage faster than I probably should, but all I can think about is getting to the hospital. I weave in and out of traffic, racing against the clock. I check my phone, but there's no message or missed call from Laurel. Having been in her situation, I wouldn't blame her.

I wipe my hand over my mouth but flinch when I see my reflection in the rear-view mirror. Dried blood is caked across the back of my hand. I didn't even bother waiting to see where Kellan went after Roe collapsed. Last I saw of him was when he fell to the floor against the wall in a slump, holding his hands to his face. I know I fucked him up, but I don't give a shit. Fucker deserved it.

My tires screech against the pavement when I reach the hospital parking garage. I swing into the closest spot and run through the large automatic doors of the emergency room.

I stop at the front desk.

"Hi," I say to the nurse, breathless. "My name is Lennon Harding. My wife Laurel Harding was airlifted here with her sister, Monroe Caulder."

"Oh, yes," she says, her brown eyes softening. "Your wife told us you would be coming. They took your sister-in-law into the exam room, but your wife should be just down the hall." The nurse presses a button behind her desk. Followed by a loud high pitch buzzing sound, the door with a large red stripe painted across it clicks. I grab the handle and swing it open. My eyes scan the hall, frantically looking for Laurel, and when I see her standing at the end of the hallway with her face in her hands, memories slam into me, stealing the air from my lungs and forcing me to stop dead in my tracks. I've been here before. Every step is instinctual, as if I've taken this same path. Because I have. I must have been so intently focused on finding Laurel, I hadn't realized I'd done the same drive from my apartment building to the same hospital. I parked in the same garage and ran the same walkway leading to the large automatic doors. Muscle memory kicked in, rearing its ugly head.

This isn't exactly a situation I want to relive.

I blink, panic starting to set in. Slapping my hand to my chest, over my heart, I take a breath in. I swear, I see myself six years ago, standing in this same hallway talking to the doctor. The one who handed me a clip board with a blank line, waiting for my signature.

But then I blink again, and the doctor and I disappear. All I see is Laurel. She's still standing with her back against the wall and her face buried in her hands. Her shoulders rack with sobs.

I run down the hall, calling her name. "Laurel!"

She gasps, snapping her head up to the sound of my voice. If my heart wasn't winning out, I swear my knees would give out. Laurel's face guts me. A broken heart, filled with fear, her faded red lip quivers. "Lennon?"

"I'm here," I tell her, immediately pulling her to me. I place my hand on the back of her head and hold her against my chest.

She curls in on herself, allowing me to hold her. I kiss the top of her head and run my hand down the length of her back.

I place both my hands on her mascara-streaked cheeks, willing her to look up at me.

When she does, my fractured soul splinters, the cracks widening. Seeing my wife broken tears me apart.

"Where is she?" I ask her.

"In there." She tries to tell me, hitching her thumb over her shoulder. Every word is choppy and caught at the end of a hiccupped breath. "When we got here, they immediately wheeled her into the room."

"Do you know how she is?"

"No," she says, tears spilling from her red eyes. "They haven't said anything. No one has come out. But the paramedic did tell me on the ride here that they called her oncologist. He's in there, too. I think."

"Okay." I nod, unsure of what to say. I take a breath and run my fingers through Laurel's windswept hair. "What's important is that they're with her. I'm sure the doctors will figure out what's happening."

"I hope so." She frowns, but I can see she isn't entirely convinced. She's terrified. Her eyes are glossed over as if she's not exactly here in the hallway with me. She's in her own mind again, pulling herself back into her shell.

She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chill. I slide out of my suit jacket and drape it over her shoulders. As if on auto pilot, she slips her arms in, staring at the floor as she mutters, "Thank you."

"Come here." I wrap my hand around hers and walk her over to the opposite wall. We fall back against it and slide to the floor. Nurses down the hall and at the far station give us a sideways glance, but they don't say anything to us. I'm unsure why. Maybe they can see the fear and pain in Laurel's eyes. The emergency room is eerily quiet. It's odd, considering this is a hospital in the heart of downtown Boston.

I rest against the wall and bend my knees, not wanting them to stick out into the hallway. Laurel sits down beside me and rests her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arm around her and lay my cheek on the top of her head. I stare at the blank white wall, holding back my own emotion. I wait for Laurel to speak first. I know sometimes words aren't needed when you feel lost and helpless.

Minutes pass by in silence. My hand pulsates and aches, bruises already blooming under the dried blood.

"I'm sorry, Lennon," Laurel whispers beside me.

"Laurel." I say her name with as much energy as I can pull together, making sure she knows how sincere I am in this moment. "You don't have anything to apologize for."

She adjusts herself beside me enough to look up at me. Her tears have dried. For now. But the pain and fear are still lingering in her indigo eyes.

"How long have you known?" I ask her. I can't bring myself to say the word cancer. It's the same disease I watched drain the life out of my mother, and now Laurel has been forced to watch it do the same to her sister.

"A couple months." She inhales an unsteady breath. "She's been going through chemo treatments since before we got married."

I think back to all the times I saw the vacant, far off, distant look in Laurel's eye. It grew every day, transforming into something bigger than the day before. It was clear the burden of carrying Roe's secret was weighing on Laurel.

"But there's something else I need to tell you." She swallows, sitting up. She places her hand over mine. I look down at the emerald cut diamond. The stone shimmers, even under the dull hospital lights.

"What is it?" I whisper.

"You often asked why I suddenly changed my mind after turning you down when you first proposed."

I nod, closing my mouth and letting her answer the one question that's been on my mind since the day I found her in my office, sitting behind my desk, barefoot.

She looks back down at her hand. "After you proposed the first time, Roe came over to my apartment and told me about her cancer diagnosis. She told me she had the money for her first rounds of chemo treatments but wasn't sure she'd have enough for the surgery when the time came. I offered her my savings and all the money I had, but she refused. I couldn't sleep that night." She traces the back of my hand with her finger, and fresh tears spill, her voice straining as she continues. "Kellan used the trust fund my parents left for me when they died, and Roe had used hers when she and Steven bought their house after they got married. Our family money was running dry." She turns her head back up to look at me. "But then you messaged me that night, and I found a way to pay for Roe's surgery without losing my entire savings."

"By marrying me." I swallow.

"Yes." She frowns, her eyes softening. "I didn't plan on using your money for her surgery. Only my own. But this way I wouldn't lose everything by doing it. Roe didn't want that for me. I tried to get her to tell our uncle since he has money, but she quickly shot that down. She didn't want him to know or anyone else in case the media picked up on the story. She didn't want our family name to make headlines again, only this time they would be painting her as the victim. First her brother, now cancer. I understood, and if she wanted me to keep a secret, I wasn't going to deny her that. I would have taken this to my grave if that's what she wanted."

I nod and lay my head back against the wall. I can't explain it. I'm not upset at her for keeping Roe's cancer a secret. A bond between sisters is something I will never completely understand. But I do have brothers I would do anything for, and I would have done the same if I were in her position.

I'm not na?ve in thinking Laurel married me simply because she'd always cared for me in some way. I was cruel to her in the beginning, leading with my cold, black heart. It was easier to lure the dark side of me out while keeping the scared and vulnerable side in.

But I'm in love with Laurel—I always have been—and seeing her this way, knowing she's going through the same pain with her sister that I was in with my mother, makes this black heart of mine shatter into a million tiny pieces. I want to take her pain away, but I know I can't. That's the thing about cancer. It doesn't give a shit about you. It takes and takes until there's nothing left in its wake.

"I'm sorry, Laurel," I say, rolling my head back down to her. I rest my thumb on her mascara-streaked cheek.

"What are you sorry for?" Her eyebrows tightly knit. "I'm the one who married you for money."

"So did I," I retort, a fact that tastes sour on my tongue.

"True."

"But I am still sorry."

"For agreeing to marry me for money?"

"No." I draw an invisible line down the side of her face. "I'm sorry your sister is sick, and you've spent the last few months having to carry that secret alone."

Her bottom lip quivers as tears spill over her red-lined lashes. It's written on her face, her love for me. But I told her I didn't want her telling me until she was ready. Until she felt like her soul was free. Although her secret is out now, it doesn't manipulate the facts. Her sister is dying, and there's nothing she can do. All I can do now is be there for her.

"Thank you." She sobs, but I catch her breath with a kiss.

I hook my fingers under her chin and lift her face to mine. I gently press my mouth to hers.

She cries against me, her mouth turning down against mine. Her lips part as she gasps for air, sobbing. I wrap my hand around her face, and she places hers over mine.

I want to wrap my entire body around hers—anything to comfort her and make her feel safe.

But I can't.

After our kiss, she pulls my hand away from her and stares down at the dried blood. She traces the bruises and still-open cuts.

"We should get this looked at," she says, swinging her eyes up to mine. "Now's the perfect time considering we're in a hospital."

I shrug, the corner of my mouth tilting to a smirk. Despite the cloud of darkness looming over us, I still see light.

"Mrs. Harding?"

Laurel and I both snap our heads to the other side of the hall. A doctor with a white lab coat steps out of Monroe's room. He gently allows the door to shut behind him.

Laurel scrambles to her feet. She meets the doctor in the middle of the hall, and I'm quick to be by her side. I place my hand on the small of her back as she holds her hands in front of her, nervously wringing her fingers. Her knuckles fade to white before turning red again.

"Is my sister okay?"

The doctor nods, and Laurel's shoulders relax. She's still wringing her fingers, but she's not as tense.

"I'm Monroe's oncologist, Dr. White," he says, placing his hand to his chest. "I've been treating your sister ever since we discovered her cancer eight months ago."

"Eight months?" Laurel gasps. She quickly snaps her head in my direction before looking back at the doctor. "Eight months?" she repeats.

"Yes." Dr. White's eyes dart between us. "Monroe has been diagnosed since the end of last year."

Laurel slowly lifts her hand to cover her mouth. I wrap my hand around her waist, pulling her closer. "I'm sorry." She blinks. "I didn't know."

"We're all lucky you brought her in as fast as you did," he explains. "I feared since Monroe was going through this alone that she might have someone there for her in a situation such as this one."

Relief washes over me momentarily, thankful she wasn't unconscious long enough to end up on life support like my mother was.

"But she hasn't been alone," Laurel explains. "Her husband Steven has been with her every day, taking care of her."

Three lines crease the doctor's forehead as he continues looking between me and Laurel. He appears just as confused as we are.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Harding, but your sister has never mentioned her husband, nor has he been to any of her appointments."

"I don't understand. Steven's been going to all her chemo treatments."

The doctor stares at us blankly, unsure what to say. "I'm sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Harding, but Monroe hasn't had a treatment in well over a month. Her scans were showing an aggressive progression of cancer cells moving to other parts of her body."

"But what about the surgery?" Laurel's face pales as her jaw drops. "Can't it be removed with surgery?"

"Unfortunately…" He shakes his head. "Surgery is no longer an option. The cells have multiplied in too many areas, and one of the tumors has latched itself onto a blood vessel making it inoperable. It would be impossible, at this point, to eliminate all the cancer cells. Monroe declined all chemotherapy or radiation treatments after we discussed her situation and the likelihood she would make it out the other side of chemo. The risk was worth more than the outcome. The cancer has weakened her immune system, which ultimately caused her to collapse the way she did."

Laurel sobs again, this time turning into me. She places her head on my chest, and I wrap my arms around her, squeezing her tightly.

"Again," the doctor says, "I'm so sorry. You're welcome to go in and see her. She's asleep, but we have her on an IV drip, and she's being closely monitored. We'll have her moved to the oncology floor here in a few hours."

The doctor disappears down the hall, stopping at the nurses' station.

My arms are still wrapped around Laurel's shaking body. I kiss the top of her head and soothe her as much as I can, but it isn't until this moment do I realize I'm falling apart as well.

Holding Laurel is the only thing keeping me together. I'm thrust back into my nightmare, reliving the pain and grief I felt with my mother. Monroe isn't my sister, but she is family. Laurel is my family.

"Do you want to go in and see her?" I ask Laurel.

She pulls away, wiping at her swollen eyes. She nods and looks up, her eyes searching mine. "Yeah, I, um…" She looks down at her hands. They're tucked inside the long sleeves of my jacket. It's swallowing her, but it doesn't matter.

"Don't worry about it," I reassure her. "I'll have Ray bring some of your clothes."

Her round eyes soften. "Thank you."

"Of course." I kiss her on the lips. "I'll let you two have some time. I'll go see if I can track down a nurse to help me clean this up." I hold my hand up, turning it over.

"Good, you should." She lightly smiles, running her hand up the length of my arm. I start to walk away, but before my hand leaves hers, she tugs on my fingers. I look over my shoulder.

"Don't go too far," she says, a very weak, ghost of a smile tugging on her lips. "Please."

"I won't," I promise her. I wait until she turns on her heel and stands in front of the door. She looks at me with her hand pressed against the door, not quite pushing on it.

Sadness. Fear. Pain. Guilt. Every emotion I can possibly think of is written across her face as she looks at me one last time before pushing through the door.

I leave my wife, and groggily head toward the nurses' station. I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, making sure to keep my head down, unwilling to look toward the room where I last saw my mother. An ache pulsates and thumps in my chest. I guess even when I'm awake, I can't escape my nightmare. Now Laurel's living in my nightmare, too.