Being a "reluctant patient" was an understatement. I was downright hostile. After two days in the medical suite, my body might have been healing, but my spirit was fraying. I was used to being independent and solving my own problems. Now, I couldn't even get a glass of water without a nurse hovering over me.
Worse than the nurses was Dante. He had become the most overbearing, micromanaging caretaker imaginable. He ignored the medical staff for hours, insisting on personally overseeing my recovery. He would show up with meal trays from Elara, watching me take each bite as if I were a prisoner refusing food. He checked the readings on my monitors, his brow furrowed in concentration. He even learned to change my bandages, his touch surprisingly gentle and clinical, contrasting sharply with the violence I knew he was capable of.
This constant closeness felt like a unique form of torture. The vast penthouse felt claustrophobically small, shrinking to the bed and the few inches between us when he leaned over to adjust my pillows or check my incision. Each time, I held my breath, acutely aware of the clean, masculine scent of his soap, the warmth of his body, and the way the muscles in his forearms tensed. It was maddening.
"I can do it myself," I snapped one afternoon, trying to push myself up against the headboard. A sharp pain in my side made me wince and fall back with a gasp.
Instinctively, he was there, his hands on my shoulders, easing me back into a comfortable position. "I told you not to exert yourself," he said, his voice a low rumble. "You tore the internal stitches. The doctor was clear."
"I'm not a child, Moretti," I shot back, frustrated by my weakness and his annoying competence. "And I'm not an invalid. You can stop hovering. Go run your multi-billion-dollar company and leave me alone."
"My company is running itself," he replied, his gaze intense. "This is more important."
"Why?" I demanded, almost exploding with the question. "Why are you doing this? The debt is paid. We're even. You don't have to play nurse out of some misguided sense of honor."
He straightened up, the familiar mask of control sliding back into place, but I noticed the crack. I saw the raw guilt in his eyes.
"This has nothing to do with honor," he said, his voice lowering. He pointed to my bandaged side. "That wound is a permanent reminder of my failure. You're in this bed, in this tower, because I failed to protect you. Every beep of that machine shows my carelessness. So no, I will not leave you alone. I will not leave your side until I know you are fully healed. It's the least I can do."
He wasn't just repaying a debt. He was doing penance. The realization was unsettling and revealing. He viewed my wound not as an attack by his enemy but as a failure he created. He was determined to atone for it, one annoying, overprotective gesture at a time.