After Five Hours

HAILEY'S POV

Time stops meaning anything in the VIP waiting wing.

I sat in a leather chair that’s too soft to be comforting, my back straight, my hands folded in my lap like I’m waiting to be called into a meeting instead of waiting to find out if the man behind double doors is going to live.

The blood on my dress has dried.

It’s no longer red. It’s turned a dull brown, stiffening the fabric where it soaked in. I keep noticing it in my peripheral vision, like a stain that refuses to be ignored no matter how many times I look away.

The hallway is quiet in that expensive way hospitals reserve for people with money. Thick carpet. Muted lights. No echoing cries. No chaos. Just the low hum of machines somewhere behind the walls and the red “IN OPERATION” sign glowing steadily at the end of the corridor.

It hasn’t changed.

Footsteps approached, I didn't look up until they stopped in front of me.

My grandfather was the first person I registered—his posture still rigid, his expression carefully controlled. Brandon stands beside him, phone in hand, jaw tight. They look less like family and more like executives arriving late to a crisis.

My grandfather didn't say anything at first. He drapes a cashmere coat over my shoulders, his hands lingering for half a second longer than necessary.

“You should go home,” he says gently. “Change. Rest. The staff will inform us when—”

I laughed.

It came out sharp and too loud, cutting through the quiet hallway in a way that makes even Brandon glance at me.

“Absolutely not.”

My grandfather stiffens slightly. “Hailey—”

“I walked a dying billionaire into this family tonight,” I said, my voice flat. “If he doesn’t make it through the night, I’ll be right here to hear it. Not from staff, not from a call. 

From a doctor.”

The coat slides off my shoulders as I shrug it away. 

I didn't look at him when I did it.

He didn't argue again.

Brandon leans back against the wall near me, crossing his arms. For a while, none of us spoke. The silence stretches, thick and uncomfortable, broken only by the faint movement of nurses passing at the far end of the wing.

My eyes drift back to the doors.

I kept seeing his face right before he fell.

That infuriating, arrogant half-smile. The one that made it feel like he knew something I didn’t. Like he knew exactly how much I was beginning to owe him and found it amusing.

The deal presses down on me like a weight.

I had cornered him. Used the one thing he couldn’t ignore—his missing mother—to make him agree to a marriage he never asked for. I’d told myself it was clean, it was transactional, that men like Kingsley Geralt understood this kind of thing.

And he’d repaid me by taking a vase to his ribs and head for me.

Twice.

My fingers curled against my thigh.

Brandon breaks the silence. “Tyler and Lillian didn’t get far.”

I turned my head slightly. “I assumed as much.”

“Security intercepted them at the gates. Police are questioning them now.” His mouth tightens.

 “Tyler is crying. Says it was an accident, Lillian’s blaming the decor.”

That earns a breath of air through my nose,not quite a laugh.

“Of course she is.”

“They’re both being held for assault pending further investigation.”

“Good.”

I didn't feel satisfied, I didn't feel anything about them at all.

All I want is for the man behind those doors to stop being a hero and start being the arrogant prick I agreed to fake a marriage with.

Minutes stretch into hours.

Nurses come and go. Doctors pass without stopping but yet the red sign stays lit.

I didn’t move from the chair. At some point, Brandon sat beside me, my grandfather steps away to take calls, his voice low and controlled as he speaks in hushed tones about contingencies and optics.

None of it reaches me, it wasn't my business.

I kept staring at the door.

I kept thinking about the scar.

Five hours passed.

I knew because the clock across the hall finally changed, the digital numbers blinking over as if mocking me for counting.

Then, without warning, the red light clicks went off.

The hallway seems to inhale all at once.

The doors open.

A surgeon stepped out, pulling off his mask with a tired motion. His shoulders sag slightly, like the weight of the night has finally caught up to him.

His eyes lift and landed on me.

Directly on me.

I stood before I realized I'd moved.