The afternoon stretched endlessly as James battled Victoria's fever with gentle determination. Every attempt to leave her side, even for the most basic necessities, triggered waves of panic that left her clinging to him with desperate strength. Finally, after what felt like hours of negotiation, Victoria agreed to let him fetch towels and a bowl of cold water, but only under the condition that he remain within her sight at all times.
Her eyes followed his every movement with laser focus, tracking him like a wounded animal afraid of being abandoned by its only source of comfort. The intensity of her surveillance was both heartbreaking and suffocating, a constant reminder of just how drastically her condition had deteriorated.
It wasn't until five in the evening that Victoria's fever finally broke enough for her to sit up without assistance. The improvement was marginal but noticeable, and James seized the opportunity to attempt what he had been dreading all day.
"Victoria," he said, reaching for her phone on the nightstand. "You need to call Davidson. You should go home and rest properly."
The words hit Victoria like a physical blow. Her face crumpled, and she reached for him with trembling hands, her fingers finding purchase on his shirt sleeve.
"Please don't send me away," she whispered, her voice breaking. "James, I want you back. I need you to take me back. Please."
James stared at her in disbelief, his mind struggling to reconcile this broken woman with the formidable Victoria Sharp he had once known. The sight of her begging, of her pride crumbling so completely, triggered something raw and uncomfortable in his chest.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked, his voice sharper than he intended. "Why are you lowering yourself like this? This isn't you, Victoria. This pathetic, desperate person isn't who you are, and it's painful to watch."
Victoria's eyes filled with fresh tears, and she seemed as confused by her own emotional state as he was. She had always prided herself on her composure, her ability to command any situation through sheer force of will. Yet here she was, reduced to tears over and over again, unable to control the flood of emotions that seemed to overwhelm her at every turn.
"I don't know," she admitted, her voice small and lost. "I don't understand why I can't stop crying, why everything hurts so much. Was I always such a crybaby?"
Her vulnerability was like acid on James's already raw nerves. He couldn't bear to see her like this, couldn't stand the way her brokenness made his own carefully constructed walls threaten to crumble.
"Get back the strong woman," he said, his voice gaining intensity as he tried to pull the Victoria he remembered from the wreckage before him. "Get back the confident you, not this person. This isn't who you are."
Victoria nodded through her tears, desperately wanting to be what he needed her to be, what she had always been. But the strength he was asking for felt impossibly far away, buried beneath months of sleepless nights and the crushing weight of his absence.
James felt a flicker of relief at her agreement. "Good. Your clothes are dried up. Change into them and give Davidson a call. I'll be outside waiting."
But as he moved to stand, Victoria's hand shot out to capture his, her grip desperate and pleading.
"I can't be strong without you," she said, the words torn from somewhere deep inside her chest. "I need you, James. Please. I know I'm a horrible woman, but I can't leave. No, I won't leave. I've finally found you, and I won't let you out of my life again."
The raw honesty in her confession hit James like a sledgehammer. This wasn't manipulation or strategy. This was Victoria at her most vulnerable, stripped of every defense and artifice, laying her heart bare in a way that terrified them both.
James's frown deepened as frustration and something that felt dangerously like longing warred within him. "You need to leave. I've got work, and so do you."
Victoria struggled to her feet as James stood abruptly, her legs shaky but her resolve unwavering. "If you want to go to work, then I won't stop you," she said, her voice gaining a thread of steel that reminded him of the woman she used to be. "Just know that wherever you go, I will follow."
"You're being unreasonable and selfish," James said, his voice grating with barely controlled emotion. "You've always been like this. It's either your way or no one else's."
He walked out of the bedroom, desperate to put distance between himself and the magnetic pull of her desperation. But Victoria followed, her bare feet silent on his hardwood floors.
"Yes, I am selfish," she said, and there was something almost triumphant in her admission. "I am very selfish. If it means getting the man I love, then I would do whatever it takes. I'll play foul, I'll play dirty, I'll tear down every wall between us just to get you back."
Her words stopped James in his tracks, hitting him with the force of a confession and a threat rolled into one. The love he heard in her voice was real and desperate and absolutely devastating to his carefully maintained emotional distance. It wound him deeply because part of him, the part he was trying so hard to suppress, still responded to that love with an intensity that frightened him.
"You don't love me Victoria. This isn't love. You're just obsessed over a possession you no longer have."
"No. I will not accept that. You don't get to define my emotions, anything else but that. I know how I feel and how I hurt. No one can change my feelings for you, not even you, so please don't undermine my love." Victoria corrects James leaving him speechless. She still thought of him. Still had only him in mind.
However, right now, with his heart already broken and his defenses crumbling, he couldn't handle the weight of her devotion.