STEPHAN
My chest ached like someone had parked a truck on it.
Yesterday she finally opened her eyes after a month of machines beeping and doctors shaking their heads.
I had been the first face she saw. For one stupid heartbeat, I let myself hope that the coma had wiped the slate clean, that the woman who used to look at me like I hung the moon was back.
Then the first words out of her mouth were "divorce me."
I had walked out without another word, but I hadn't left the driveway.
I stood beside the black Bentley, keys dangling from my fingers, staring at the front door like an idiot.
Ten minutes, Twenty, Thirty… "Sir… are you going anytime soon?" my chauffeur asked and I shook my head gesturing for us to leave but the moment I opened the car door.
Hoping I will hear her voice as she comes running out in that silk robe, hair messy, eyes wide with panic. "Stephan, wait…I didn't mean it didn't go."
That's what the old Jasmine would have done. The one who used to chase me down hallways begging for five more minutes of my time.
But this Jasmine? She probably already had Henry on speed dial, giggling about how she would finally scare me off.
I refused to get in the car and shut the door once more at the thought of Henry.
Henry hadn't shown up once while she was in the coma. Yet the second she woke up, I knew he would crawl out of whatever hole he was hiding in. I wasn't leaving her alone with him. Not again.
I leaned against the hood, arms crossed, jaw tight. The morning sun warmed the metal under my palms, but inside I was ice.
I had cried for her, the kind I hadn't shed since high school. I slept in that damn hospital chair every single night, holding her hand, whispering stupid promises about starting over if she just woke up.
When she was no longer responding and things were getting too tight I had decided to transfer her to the mansion, hoping I would see her often here.
And she wakes up and asks for a divorce.
A bitter laugh scraped out of me. Who was I kidding? She never cared.
I was still deep in my thoughts. until I heard light, fast footsteps, almost skipping. Giggling. Actual giggling, bright and bubbly, echoing down the grand staircase like wind chimes.
"Yay! You are not gone!"
I jerked upright as Jasmine burst through the front doors like a tornado in silk pajamas, dark hair flying, storm-cloud eyes sparkling with something I hadn't seen in years pure, unfiltered joy.
She skidded to a stop in front of me, breathless, grinning so wide her cheeks dimpled. "Come eat, Stephan!"
I stared at her like she had grown horns. "Eat?"
"I said, ' Come eat!" She laughed again, the sound so light it punched straight through the ache in my chest.
This was Jasmine from high school, the girl who used to drag me to the rooftop with stolen cafeteria cookies, eyes shining as she told me her dreams.
Not the cold woman who had spent the last six years making me regret every vow I had ever made.
She stepped closer and the faint scent of her vanilla shampoo hit me, making my stupid heart stutter.
"I don't eat breakfast," I muttered, already stepping back. "You should know that."
"But now…" She sighed, soft and dramatic, then did the unthinkable.
She wrapped both arms around my left bicep and hugged it like a teddy bear.
Familiar in a way that made my throat close up.
This was the first time in three years of marriage she had touched me voluntarily.
"You have to eat," she said, voice muffled against my sleeve. "Please?" I could feel the force please coming out of her lips.
I tried to tug my arm free. Gently at first but weird, her grip didn't budge.
What the hell? I was six-foot-three, two hundred pounds of muscle from years in the gym and boardroom wars.
She was five-six on a good day, slender, delicate. Yet her fingers locked around my arm like steel cuffs.
"Get your hands off me," I growled, yanking again.
But she didn't let go. Instead, she looked up at me with those big storm eyes and smiled slowly, mischievous, utterly unafraid.
"See? I am not ready to let you go. If you feel like you're not going to eat, then…" I raised an eyebrow.
"Then what?"
She tilted her head, considering. "Then I will carry you into the dining room."
I laughed once, disbelieving her word. "What?"
Before the word fully left my mouth, the world tilted.
She bent, slid one arm under my knees, the other behind my back, and lifted like the All two hundred pounds of me into the freaking air.
Like I weighed nothing.
"What the…Jasmine!" I barked, arms flailing for balance. My legs kicked uselessly. The ground dropped away. I was… bridal-carried. By my wife. In front of the entire household staff.
The maids froze mid-step, silver trays clattering. Elena's eyes looked ready to pop out of her head.
"My lady! Drop the young master!" Elena cried, chasing after us in her black shoes, apron flapping like a surrender flag.
Jasmine didn't even break stride. She marched up the front steps, through the double doors, down the hallway, humming a little tune under her breath. I could feel every flex of her arms strong, steady, warm. Her heartbeat thumped against my side, fast but calm. Like this was normal. Like carrying a grown man was just another Tuesday.
I was too stunned to fight properly. My brain kept short-circuiting between this is humiliating and how is she this strong? and a tiny, traitorous she smells like home.
We reached the dining room. She kicked a chair out with her foot smooth way and plopped me into it like I was a sack of groceries.
I landed with an undignified oof, gripping the table edge to steady myself. My face burned hotter than the coffee on the sideboard.