Claire continued.
“I stayed.”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened.
“I stayed when every woman I knew would have left.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it's true.”
“No.”
Nicholas shook his head.
“You stayed physically.”
Claire stared.
He continued.
“You disappeared everywhere else.”
Hannah stepped back slightly.
This part did not belong to her.
Claire whispered:
“You weren't supposed to survive like this.”
Nicholas looked at her.
The sentence landed strangely.
Claire immediately realized it.
“I mean the accident.”
He did not blink.
“You weren't supposed to survive like this.”
“Nicholas.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean you were supposed to recover.”
He stared.
“You were angry.”
“Miserable.”
“You hated everyone.”
“You wouldn't touch me.”
Nicholas’s voice lowered.
“So you drugged me?”
Claire shook her head violently.
“No.”
Hannah interrupted.
“We don't have proof she did.”
Nicholas turned.
Claire looked surprised Hannah defended her.
Hannah continued:
“We have proof your medication was tampered with.”
“That is all I can medically say right now.”
Nicholas looked back at Claire.
“Call Walter.”
Hannah hesitated.
“Now.”
She did.
Walter arrived four minutes later.
He entered the foyer and stopped.
Nicholas in wheelchair.
Claire crying.
Hannah holding evidence.
One look told him enough.
“What happened?”
Nicholas answered:
“My medication was tampered with.”
Walter’s expression emptied.
That was more frightening than shock.
“By whom?”
“We don't know.”
Claire said:
“She thinks it was me.”
Hannah replied:
“I said no such thing.”
Walter looked at Hannah.
“What do you have?”
She explained.
Mismatch.
Two bottles.
Lab result.
Unprescribed medication.
Doctor recommendation.
Walter listened without interruption.
Then he looked at Nicholas.
“We go to the hospital.”
Nicholas frowned.
“I hate hospitals.”
Walter stepped closer.
“Not negotiable.”
Nicholas almost argued.
Then stopped.
He knew Walter’s tone.
The older man had used it exactly three times in twenty years.
After Nicholas’s father died.
After a warehouse fire killed two workers.
After the accident.
Nicholas nodded.
“Fine.”
Claire immediately said:
“I’m coming.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“No.”
Her face broke.
“Nicholas.”
“No.”
“I’m your fiancée.”
He looked toward the silver ring on her hand.
“Not tonight.”
Walter called security.
Claire saw that.
“You’re throwing me out?”
Nicholas’s face showed no pleasure.
That mattered.
“No.”
“I’m removing uncertainty.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you stay in the guest wing until we know what happened.”
Claire laughed through tears.
“Prisoner in my own home?”
Nicholas looked around.
“Your home?”
She realized the mistake.
Hannah looked away.
Walter did not.
Claire grabbed her clutch from a side table.
“I’m leaving.”
Nicholas said:
“Then leave.”
She froze.
For years, Claire had understood one thing about Nicholas Valenti.
He hated abandonment.