“Don’t pull that out!” another nurse scolded as they all chased me down the hall.

“Lila!” I wailed. A sob was growing, about to release while tears began streaming down my face.

I looked into each room, one at a time, the irritating nurses following right behind, yelling at me, threatening me. Darren and my parents then started yelling at them.

“Lila!” I was begging for her to answer, but with each room I came to and didn’t find her, my desperation grew.

My heart was hammering in my chest, the ache growing. My vision began to dim again, dread setting in.

I reached a room near the end of the hall and leaned on the frame, bracing myself while my limited vision wildly searched for her.

And then I saw her. She was bandaged and beaten to hell, but she stared back at me with wide-eyed recognition.

My vision returned, and my body relaxed while I took her in. Lila was alive. Thank God, she was alive.

Her eyes met mine, and relief flooded every part of me, tears stinging at my eyes. Joy that my nightmares hadn’t come true.

I wasn’t too late. I could fix this, fix us.

“Lila!”

I stumbled toward her and took her hands in mine as I leaned my forehead against hers. “Oh, thank God. Thank God, you’re alive.”

I couldn’t stop the tears. She was alive, fucking alive.

Every emotion of happiness and relief swept through me. The thought of losing her broke everything open inside me.

No more cages, no more walls. And no more living without her.

“Nathan, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice low and mumbled.

I pulled back and looked into her eyes. “You don’t remember?”

She shook her head, then winced in pain.

“You were in a very bad accident…” I trailed off, my gaze traveling down her body.

Her leg was all wrong, bent in an unnatural way and swollen. The sound of her breath was labored and uneven. Gauze covered her arm as well as her head, which was probably the source of all the blood she was talking about when she called.

Her face was swollen in a few places, bruises beginning to appear. I ran my hand softly down her cheek, which still caused her to flinch in pain.

“I’m so sorry. This wouldn’t have happened if I…” The list was never ending. If I hadn’t been attracted to her. If I hadn’t taken her. If I hadn’t…

“If you what?” she spat, her anger surprising me. “Hadn’t left me? Broken me? Left me a shell of the paper thin person I already was before you? If that’s even possible.”

Fuck.

I did all of that.

“All of those. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.” I could never say it enough, but I could make some of it up with my actions. I would show her.

“You didn’t do this physical damage to me. What you did was far worse.”

The guilt that weighed me down threatened to consume me. “Please, Lila, please!”

“Please, what?” she yelled.

Please be mine again.

“Please, I’ll tell you everything, anything you want to know if you… Can we start over? I need you so much.”

She was so angry, so hurt, that I couldn’t blame her for lashing out at me. I only asked for a chance, but I could have fucked things up bad enough she wouldn’t be willing.

“Why? Why did you leave me if you were going to beg for me back?”

My hands shook as we reached the tipping point. It was now, or she was never going to let me in again. I had to tell her what she never looked up.

“I’m so sorry I did this to you, to us. I was trying to protect you, and myself,” I said.

“Protect you from what, exactly? What did you need protection from?” she asked.

I swallow hard, my chest so tight trying to keep it all in. “From losing you the same way I lost…my wife.”

Her expression flickered, the anger ebbed away, but then bounced back. “And what were you protecting me from?”

“From the Marconi family.”

I watched as her eyes widened, indicating she knew exactly who I was talking about. She knew what they could do. I should have told her sooner so she could make her own decision, but I was so adamant about not getting close to her, it didn’t matter anyway.

But it did, because I’d found in her something I’d long been missing. Along with things I never had before.

“Why would you need to protect me from the Marconis?” she asked, bracing herself.

I let out a shuddered breath. “Because if they found out about you, they would kill you like they did her.”

She stared at me in shock. “Why did they want to hurt her?”

“They were trying to kill me,” I admitted.

“Oh.” Her lips formed a thin line.

“I can’t let that happen to you,” I said, trying to keep her listening, to understand.

Her eyes snapped up to me, and I saw anger flash across them. “So you let me go? Were you ever going to ask me what I wanted? Were you ever going to tell me and let me decide for myself to risk my life to stay with you or cut all ties? Do you feel anything for me?”

I grabbed her hand. “I feel so much for you. I tried to stop it. I knew it could happen with you—I sensed it from the beginning. The pull I feel to you is so strong. I tried to will myself not to develop these feelings for you, but you just won’t fucking be denied!”

I couldn’t escape her if I tried. Somehow, I was always meant to find her.

She shook her head. “I don’t understand what the fuck you’re saying.”

“I’m saying Darren was right. I tried so hard to deny it, to deny you, but he saw it. He said I was being selfish by leaving you, that I did it because I didn’t want to be hurt again, that I was a coward for it.” And I was. Anything to avoid the pain of more loss. “He was right. He saw it from the moment he arrived at the hospital when you were unresponsive.”

Her brow scrunched. “Dr. Morgenson? How do you know him, and what did he see?”

I shook my head, my heart racing in my chest. I’d tried to say it without saying it, but she needed to hear the words. Three words that made her a target.

“Just fucking say whatever it is you’re trying to say!” The exertion was too much for her, and she laid her head back down, face twisted in pain.

I stared at her, my mouth opening, then closing, as I tried to get them out. She had to know, had to hear, or there was no way she would let me get close again.