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Chapter 302
Chapter 302:
June’s face was a portrait of raw, devastating emotion. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks.
Crawford’s right hand twitched against the white sheets. He lacked the strength to lift it.
June did not hesitate. She reached out with both hands, took Crawford’s large hand, and held it firmly against her chest — directly over her heart. She leaned down and pressed her forehead against his knuckles.
Even through the thick glass, Cole could see everything in her eyes. She was looking at Crawford with a devastating mixture of gratitude, horror, and a dawning, profound sense of connection to the man who had willingly placed his body between her and death. It was the look of someone confronting a life-altering debt they could never fully repay.
The realization hit Cole with the force of a bullet to the brain.
Ro𝘮𝖺ոc𝘦 an𝖽 pas𝗌𝗂𝗈ո 𝗼𝗻
June was alive because Crawford had absorbed the impact. Crawford had used his own body as a shield between her and death.
The euphoria that had filled Cole’s chest three minutes ago was instantly incinerated, replaced by a toxic, catastrophic jealousy. The acid burned the back of his throat. His blood turned to liquid fire.
He had taken boiling liquid for her, and she had patched him up with the cold efficiency of a machine before throwing him out of her room. Crawford had taken a car crash for her, and she was weeping — holding his hand to her heart, giving him the raw, unguarded emotion Cole craved more desperately than air itself.
Cole’s hands curled into fists so tight his fingernails cut into his palms and drew blood.
He understood, with absolute and horrifying clarity, that he was entirely locked out. The glass window separating him from that hospital room was a perfect physical manifestation of the wall June had built around herself. He was standing in the cold, dark hallway, forced to watch the woman he loved give her heart to another man in the light.
Cole’s breathing deteriorated into ragged, shallow gasps. The jealousy was eating him alive, tearing at the edges of his sanity.
He would not accept this. He would never accept this.
Cole stood completely paralyzed in the dark shadow of the hospital corridor, his eyes locked on the massive glass window of the intensive care unit.
His vision tunneled, narrowing entirely to the image of June pressing Crawford’s large hand flat against her chest, directly over her beating heart.
Cole’s lungs stopped working.
It felt as though someone had poured crushed glass down his windpipe. Every shallow breath dragged sharp, tearing pain through his chest. His hands were curled into fists so tight his fingernails had sliced through the skin of his palms. Warm drops of blood slid down his fingers and struck the cold linoleum floor. He did not feel the physical pain. The agony burning in his stomach was a million times worse.
He wanted to kick the ICU doors open. He wanted to tear Crawford’s hand away from her body.
But his boots felt cemented to the floor.