Dr. Whitmore nodded. He explained more—margins, pathology, follow-up, recovery—but my mind caught only pieces. Clara adjusted something near my IV.
When he finally left, I turned back to her.
“Mark.”
Clara looked at the closed door as if hoping someone else would enter and rescue her from the question.
“Jessica, before you went into surgery, you said something to him.”
“I know what I said.”
“You asked him to marry you.”
“I was drugged, terrified, and abandoned. I’m not proud of the timing.”
Clara’s eyes widened.
“Do you have any idea who you just asked?”
I frowned.
“A decent man.”
She let out a small, shocked laugh.
“Oh, honey. That too.”
The door opened again.
This time, no doctor entered.
A man did.
He wore a charcoal suit, perfectly tailored, with a white shirt open at the collar. There was no hospital gown, no IV pole, no sign of the patient from the next bed except the face. The same strong jaw. The same serious eyes. The same quiet presence that had kept me from falling completely apart.
Mark Grant stood in my doorway holding a bouquet of white tulips.
I stared at him.
My drugged brain attempted to connect the man who had been in a hospital bed beside mine with this polished stranger who looked like he belonged on the cover of a business magazine.
“Are you…” I swallowed. “Are you real?”
One corner of his mouth lifted.
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing about you.”
Clara muttered something about checking another patient and hurried out, but not before giving him a look so loaded with meaning that I knew she had not told me everything.
Mark came closer.
He looked tired. Not weak exactly, but stretched thin, as though life had pressed hard on him and he had refused to break out of stubbornness.
He set the tulips on the table.
“I hear you won.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Good.”
His voice softened on the word.
I watched him carefully.
“You’re wearing a suit.”
“I am.”
“You were in a bed last night.”
“I was.”
“Were you actually a patient, or do rich men just nap in hospitals for dramatic effect?”
His smile deepened slightly.
