I inhaled sharply, and the pain punished me for it. Clara lifted a straw to my lips. “Small sip.” The water tasted like mercy. I swallowed and tried again. “Did they get it?” She glanced toward the door. “The surgeon will explain everything, but yes. The procedure went better than expected.” I closed my eyes. Better than expected. Not perfect. Not miraculous. But enough. Enough to keep breathing. Enough to remember. Evan. His text came back like a blade sliding between my ribs. We’re getting a divorce, Jessica. I don’t need the burden of a sick wife. The pain in my body suddenly seemed honest. The pain from Evan was dirty. Cowardly. It had no right to exist inside a hospital room where people fought so hard to stay alive. Then another memory surfaced. Mark. The chair by my bed. His calm voice. The trash in your life has finally taken itself out. My insane joke. If I survive this, maybe we should just get married and call it a day. His answer. Okay. My eyes opened. “Mark,” I whispered.

“So Clara told you.”

“She started to. Then you appeared like a guilty secret.”

Mark pulled the chair closer and sat down. The same chair. The one he had dragged to my bedside before my surgery. The sight of him in it made something inside me loosen.

“I was a patient,” he said. “Observation after a minor procedure. My security team wanted a private room. I refused.”

“Why?”

“Because private rooms are too quiet.”

The answer was simple. Honest. Lonely.

I looked at him more closely.

“Who are you, Mark?”

He folded his hands.

“My full name is Marcus Grant.”

The name meant nothing at first.

Then it did.

Grant.

Grant Medical Center.

The plaque in the lobby. The new surgical wing. The foundation commercials. The charity galas I had seen on local news while eating cereal at midnight, thinking people like that existed in a different universe.

“You’re that Grant?”

He looked mildly uncomfortable.

“My grandfather founded Grant Industries. I run the foundation now. Among other things.”

I blinked at him.

“You own the hospital?”

“No. That would be a conflict of several kinds. But my family funded a large part of the oncology wing.”

I let my head sink back into the pillow.

“Oh my God.”

“You didn’t know.”

“Obviously I didn’t know. Do you think I’d propose marriage as a joke to a hospital benefactor?”

His gaze held mine.

“You didn’t propose because of money.”

“I didn’t propose at all. I made a deathbed joke.”

“You weren’t on your deathbed.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“No,” he said quietly. “I didn’t.”

A silence settled between us.

Not awkward. Heavy.

I looked at the tulips.

“Why are you here?”

He answered without hesitation.