Chapter 341
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Chapter 341:
“When he woke up in agony,” Grandma Wolfe said softly, “he refused the painkillers. He grabbed the surgeon and threatened him if they took his leg p>
“Why?” Jocelyn cried, tears spilling hot down her cheeks. “Why would he risk his life? He has all the money in the world p>
Grandma Wolfe tightened her grip on Jocelyn’s hands.
“Because he told his father,” Grandma Wolfe whispered, “that if he lost his leg, he would never have the right to walk toward the girl he loved p>
The world stopped.
All the air was sucked out of the conservatory.
Jocelyn’s mind went completely blank.
The girl he loved. Three years ago. The tattoo on his chest. It was her. It had always been her. He had endured the absolute fires of hell — had let doctors break and rebuild his bones — just so he could stand perfectly straight when he finally came to claim her.
Jocelyn collapsed forward. She buried her face in her grandmother’s lap and began to sob, deep and uncontrolled. It was a violent, ugly cry. The guilt, the heartache, and the overwhelming, crushing weight of Gaston’s love broke her completely open.
She thought of every time she had doubted him. Every time she had accused him of playing games. She had been stabbing a man who had already bled half to death for her.
𝗗о𝘸𝗻𝗹о𝖺𝗱 P𝘋𝘍ѕ 𝖿𝘳𝘦𝗲 𝘰𝗻
By the time Jocelyn drove back to Manhattan, the sun was setting behind the skyline.
She walked into the dark, silent penthouse and didn’t bother with the lights. She moved through the darkness like a ghost, straight into the master bedroom, and collapsed onto the bed. She crawled to Gaston’s side of the mattress, grabbed his pillow, and pulled it tightly against her chest.
It smelled exactly like him. Cedarwood, expensive whiskey, and warmth.
Jocelyn buried her face in the fabric. Fresh tears soaked into the cotton.
She pulled out her phone and stared at his contact name. Her thumb hovered over the call button, her chest aching with a consuming need to hear his voice.
But she looked at the clock. It was the middle of the night in Europe. He was almost certainly exhausted from negotiations. She couldn’t be selfish.
She locked the phone and let it drop to the floor. She curled into a tight ball around his pillow and cried until sleep finally took her.
Thousands of miles away, in a luxury hotel suite in Frankfurt, Gaston sat in a leather chair rubbing his aching temples. He had just survived a brutal ten-hour negotiation.
He picked up his phone and opened his messages with Jocelyn.
Nothing.
A bitter, self-deprecating smile touched his lips. He assumed she was still furious about the tattoo and his psychotic possessiveness. He tossed the phone onto the desk and decided he would close the deal tomorrow and fly back to New York immediately to face whatever was waiting for him.
3:00 AM in New York.
The penthouse was dead silent.
Jocelyn thrashed on the massive king-sized bed, the sheets tangled tightly around her legs. She was trapped in a terrifying, hyper-realistic nightmare.