CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SHADOWS AT NOON
MAYA
Some people say bad news has a sound.
A shattering. A gasp. A scream.
But for me, it was silence.
The kind that wraps around your ears like cotton and makes the world feel too still. It was a pause between joy and grief a breath held so long it begins to ache.
The day had started perfectly. Too perfectly.
We had just returned from Madrid. Damian had promised a week of doing nothing. No press. No emails. No strategy calls. Just us.
He was humming in the kitchen, barefoot, wearing one of my sleep shirts. Making eggs he didn't even like because I was craving them. We were laughing about something Lola had said in a group chat. It felt... stupidly beautiful.
"Let's get out of town," he said, tossing eggs onto a plate. "My grandmother keeps asking when you'll come visit. I think she wants to interrogate you over tea."
"I think she already did," I said, smiling. "But I'd love that."
He kissed my forehead. "It's a deal then. This weekend."
By afternoon, he was gone.
Not emotionally. Physically. Off to a last-minute investor lunch his assistant begged him to attend. "Two hours, tops," he'd said.
I remember waving from the balcony as the black car pulled away.
I didn't know it would be the last time I saw him conscious that week.
THE CALL
It came from an unknown number.
I answered casually, thinking maybe it was the dry cleaner or the food delivery guy.
"This is St. Frances Medical Center," said a calm, clipped voice. "We have a patient under the name Damian Voltaire. He was brought in following a multi-vehicle accident on the East Highway."
My mouth went dry. I blinked. "I I'm sorry, what?"
"There was significant impact. He's in critical condition. Are you listed as an emergency contact?"
I didn't remember how I responded. All I know is that I was suddenly running barefoot, disoriented, choking on my own breath as I grabbed keys and nearly slammed into the elevator door.
At the hospital, everything smelled like bleach and fear.
They led me to a cold waiting room. White walls. Plastic chairs. A TV playing a wildlife documentary no one was watching.
A nurse with kind eyes touched my shoulder. "He's alive," she said gently. "There's internal damage. A broken leg. Several ribs. There's trauma to his head."
I didn't ask what kind of trauma. I couldn't.
My mind looped around one thing: He's alive. But for how long? And as who?
THE WAITING
Hours passed. Then more. The sky changed outside. I didn't move.
Lola came. She brought food I didn't eat and water I didn't drink. She held my hand. She told me to breathe. But my body didn't trust breath.
My phone buzzed constantly calls, texts, news alerts. I shut it off. I didn't want the world in here. Not in this awful, sterile, sacred pause.
Doctors came. Said words like "stable but unconscious" and "responding to treatment". They said there was hope.
But I wasn't looking for hope. I was looking for him.
His laugh. His sarcasm. His stubbornness. His heat.
I just wanted Damian back.
GRANDMOTHER VOLTAIRE
She arrived like a storm in pearls.
Black gloves. Hair pinned perfectly. A driver shadowing her steps.
She walked straight to me, looked me in the eye, and said, "You must be the one my grandson refused to stop talking about."
I nodded. My voice failed.
She sat beside me, as if we were two queens waiting for news of a fallen soldier.
"When his mother died," she began quietly, "he was ten. He didn't speak for a week. Just stared out the window like he was waiting for her to walk back through the front door."
She turned to me. "He learned to mask his pain with perfection. Charm. Control. But under it all, he's just a boy who fears abandonment."
I swallowed hard.
She studied me. "You love him?"
"With everything," I whispered.
"Then you wait. No matter how long. You wait until he returns."
THE SECOND NIGHT
Sleep was a myth. I drifted in and out of restless twilight, haunted by memories his voice, his touch, the way he said my name like it was a prayer.
I wrote him letters in my head. Sang to him in the dark. Sat by the machines just to listen to the rhythm of his heart.
Nurses started learning my name. One offered me her own coffee. Another left me a blanket.
But no one gave me what I wanted:
*Damian, awake. Whole. Mine.*
THE THIRD NIGHT
His hand twitched.
Just once. Barely a whisper.
I stood so fast I knocked over my chair.
But his eyes didn't open. The monitors didn't change. The nurse came and said it could be reflex. Could be nothing.
Or it could be the beginning.
THE FOURTH NIGHT
I started praying. Not to any god I was taught about but to him. To the version of him that made scrambled eggs for me barefoot. To the man who fought for me in boardrooms. To the boy behind the empire.
I whispered to his body. Told him stories. Laughed into the silence so he'd remember what it sounded like.
And then, without warning, his lips moved.
One word.
"Maya."
Barely audible. But it cracked the world open.
His eyelids fluttered.
I hit the call button so hard I thought it might break.
The nurse came running. Then two more. They flooded the room like angels. One put a hand on my shoulder and said, "Talk to him. Keep him here."
So I leaned in. "I'm here. I'm not leaving. You're safe, okay? Just stay. Stay with me."
His eyes opened.
And they were "his" eyes.
Tired. Bloodshot. But knowing.
"Hey," I whispered, tears finally spilling.
He tried to smile.
And just like that without music, without a dramatic cue, without fanfare he came back to me.
Bit by bit. Breath by breath.
And I knew then, without doubt:
Love doesn't save people.
But it waits for them.
And when they're ready it brings them home.