Hailey's Pov

“This” Kingsley’s knees hit the hard marble floor.

The sound is dull, faint - covered my the gossips of the guests.

The hall fell silent as everyone stood in shock. No one could react as they watched Kingsley heaving heavily on his knees,his face twisted in agony and pains.

And then his body followed abd he laid on the cold floor, struggling to breath.

Subconsciously, I moved to his side,and crouched down to pick him up from the floor.

I placed his upper body on my laps as I fanned him vigorously.

Amidst the emergency, the media teams were flashing their bright camera light, ok and off, taking pictures of the incident until they blur at the edges of my vision.

“Kingsley.”

My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It’s stripped bare, sharp, unpolished.

I reach for him and my hands sink into warmth.

For a moment, my mind refuses to understand what I’m touching. Then the smell hits me—metallic, unmistakable—and my fingers come away slick and dark.

Blood.

Too much of it.

I press my hands back down, harder this time, instinct overriding my thought. My palms slide against his side, trying to find where the damage ends and where he begins. The silk of my gown darkens instantly, soaking up the evidence of something that was never supposed to happen.

This wasn’t part of the deal.

“Don’t move,” I say, though he isn’t moving at all. “Don’t—just—”

My words fracture as his breath stutters beneath my wrist. It’s shallow, uneven, but it’s there. Relief crashes into my chest so hard it almost hurts.

“There,” I whisper. “That’s it. Stay with me.”

The banquet hall dissolves around us. It becomes noise without meaning—voices overlapping, shoes scraping, glass shattering somewhere behind me.

Brandon’s voice cuts through it all, calm and commanding, sharp enough to carve order out of chaos.

“Seal the exits. Phones down. Anyone filming gets escorted out.”

Security surges forward. Guests protest, then quiet under firmer hands. Someone kneels near me, saying something I don’t register.

I didn't look up.

Kingsley’s face has gone pale, the color draining from him in a way that feels unnatural for someone who stood so solidly moments ago. His lashes flutter, but his eyes didn’t open.

“Hey,” I say, leaning closer. My breath shakes against his cheek. “You don’t get to do this. Do you hear me?”

His jaw tightens faintly. A sound slips from him, low and involuntary, and my fingers curl reflexively, as if I can hold him here by force alone.

His dry, colourless lips broke into a thin smile for a brief second.

Paramedics finally push through the crowd. Hands replace mine, gloved and efficient. Someone tells me they’re taking over.

I hesitated.

For one stupid, irrational second, I didn’t want to let go. My hands feel like the only thing keeping him tethered to this side of the room.

Then I pulled back.

The air feels colder immediately.

They lift him onto the stretcher. The movement pulls a sharp sound from his throat, and my chest tightens in response, my body echoing his pain without permission.

“I’m here,” I said, walking alongside them. “I’m right here.”

The ambulance doors slam shut behind us, and the world shrinks to white walls and harsh light.

The siren starts up, a wailing scream that vibrates through my bones. I sat rigid on the narrow bench, knees pressed together, hands clasped so tightly my fingers ache. Across from me, the paramedics move with practiced urgency—cutting fabric, calling numbers, snapping instructions back and forth.

They cut away Kingsley’s shirt.

The sound of scissors is obscene in its calmness.

Fabric falls open, exposing skin already bruised and bloodied. Electrodes are placed. A mask covers his mouth. I watch his chest rise and fall, too shallow, too fragile for someone who looked untouchable standing under ballroom lights.

“Are you his wife?” one of them asks without looking at me.

“No,” I answer too quickly.

The word echoes in the small space.

Then, after a pause I can’t seem to shorten, I added, “Fiancée.”

It feels unreal in my mouth. It felt heavy, Like something borrowed but my heart skipped excitedly when I pronounced those words.

This was supposed to be simple, Strategic. He was supposed to be a name beside mine, a shield in boardrooms and headlines—not this. Not a body bleeding because he stepped in front of something meant for me.

The ambulance swerves. My shoulder hits the wall, but I barely feel it. My eyes are fixed on him, on the way his brow creases faintly as if even unconscious, he’s still fighting something.

As they peel back the last of the fabric, something else catches my eye.

A scar.

High on his collarbone, thin and jagged, silvered with age. It doesn’t belong to tonight. It’s old—old enough to have faded into the story of his body.

My breath stutters.

I know this.

Not logically, not clearly. But the recognition hits like pressure behind my eyes, sudden and disorienting. My hand lifts before I realize I’ve moved, fingers hovering inches from his skin.

I didn’t touch him.

Heat radiates off him, palpable even through the air.

For a split second, something presses at the edge of my mind—sunlight, dust, a voice calling my name—but it fractures before it can form. Pain pulses briefly at my temples, sharp and insistent, then fades.

I lower my hand slowly, curling my fingers into the bloodstained fabric of my gown.

Who are you?

The thought isn’t a question. It’s a realization.

I don’t know the man I just agreed to marry.

The siren cuts off abruptly as the ambulance slows. The sudden silence rings in my ears. The doors are thrown open, cold night air rushing in, followed immediately by the bright, sterile light of the emergency bay.

Everything moves fast again.

Shoes squeak against tile, Voices overlap. The gurney is rolling before I fully register it, my body following automatically, step for step, as if proximity alone might keep him from slipping away.

We reach a thick red line cutting across the floor.

A doctor steps into my path, hand raised—not aggressive, just final. His eyes flick to my ruined dress, to my hands still faintly stained despite the hurried wipe in the ambulance.

“Ms. Norway.”

My name lands with weight.

I look past him, watching Kingsley disappear deeper into the ER, swallowed by blue and green scrubs, by swinging doors that don’t wait for permission.

“I’m going with him,” I say.

The doctor doesn’t move.

“His vitals are dropping,” he says quietly. “We need to operate now. You cannot come any further.”

The doors swing shut in my face and I stood there staring at the closed door that separated me from Kingsley.

Chapter 6

HAILEY'S POV

I felt a pang in my chest as I thought of how Kingsley may be struggling for his life in the theater room.

A surge of emotions filled me as I kept staring into the blank space.

My brother patted my back as he led me to the waiting chair.

I slumped into a leather chair that’s too soft to be comforting, my back straight, my hands folded on my lap.

I cried, I prayed, and I hoped for Kingsley to awaken soon.

The blood on my dress has dried.

It’s no longer red. The bright red colour turned a dull brown, stiffening the fabric where it soaked in. I keep noticing it in my peripheral vision, like a stain that refuses to be ignored no matter how many times I look away.

The hallway is quiet in that expensive way hospitals reserve for people with . Thick carpet. Muted lights. No echoing cries. No chaos. Just the low hum of machines somewhere behind the walls and the red “IN OPERATION” sign glowing steadily at the end of the corridor.

It hasn’t changed.

Footsteps approached, I didn't look up until they stopped in front of me.

My grandfather was the first person I registered—his posture still rigid, his expression carefully controlled.

Grandfather looked at me with concern etched on his face without saying anything more he draped a cashmere coat over my shoulders, his hands lingering for a while comforting me.

“You should come home,” he says gently.

“Change. Rest. The staff will inform us when—”

The cold hard stare I gave grandpa made him to keep mute.

“Absolutely not.”

My grandfather stiffens slightly. “Hailey—”

“I walked a dying billionaire into this hospital tonight,” I said, my voice flat. “ I’ll be right here to hear it. When he awakes. Not from staff, not from a call.

From a doctor.”

The coat slides off my shoulders as I shrug it away.

I didn't look at him when I did it.

He didn't argue again.

Brandon leans back against the wall near me, crossing his arms. For a while, none of us spoke. The silence stretches, thick and uncomfortable, broken only by the faint movement of nurses passing at the far end of the wing.

My eyes drift back to the doors.

I kept seeing his face right before he fell.

That infuriating, arrogant half-smile. The one that made it feel like he knew something I didn’t. Like he knew exactly how much I was beginning to owe him and found it amusing.

The deal presses down on me like a weight.

I had cornered him. Used the one thing he couldn’t ignore—his missing mother—to make him agree to a marriage he never asked for. I’d told myself it was clean, it was transactional, that men like Kingsley Geralt understood this kind of thing.

And he’d repaid me by taking a vase to his ribs and head for me.

Twice.

My fingers curled against my thigh.

Brandon breaks the silence. “Tyler and Lillian didn’t get far.”

I turned my head slightly. “I assumed as much.”

“Security intercepted them at the gates. Police are questioning them now.” His mouth tightens.

“Tyler is crying. Says it was an accident, Lillian’s blaming the decor.”

That earns a breath of air through my nose,not quite a laugh.

“Of course she is.”

“They’re both being held for assault pending further investigation.”

“Good.”

I didn't feel satisfied, I didn't feel anything but anger and resentments towards them.

All I want is for the man behind those doors to stop being a hero and start being the arrogant cold, ruthless billionaire I striked a marriage deal with.

Minutes stretch into hours.

Nurses come and go. Doctors pass without stopping but yet the red sign stays lit.

I didn’t move from the chair. At some point, Brandon drew my cold body into his, comforting me as he could while my grandfather stepped away to take calls, his voice low and controlled as he speaks in hushed tones about contingencies and optics.

None of it reaches me, it wasn't my business.

I kept staring at the door.

I kept thinking about the scar-it felt familiar!

Five hours passed.

I knew because the clock across the hall finally changed, the digital numbers blinking over as if mocking me for counting.

Then, without warning, the red light clicks went off.

The hallway seems to inhale all at once.

The doors open.

A surgeon stepped out, pulling off his mask with a tired motion. His shoulders sag slightly, like the weight of the night has finally caught up to him.

His eyes lift and landed on me.

His long silence dreaded me.

I rushed to him.

“Doctor, how is my fiancee?” I asked with deep concern etched in my face.

“Ms Norway, Mr Kingsley is out of if danger for now”

“For now?” I stammered cutting the doctor off before he could complete the words.

“Yes, for now “ he replied.

“He is still unstable and needs to be monitored and taken well care of” the doctor informed me.

My body trembled slightly as I heard those words.

“Was everyone I loved meant to be hurt?” I asked myself unconsciously.

“What was I thinking?” I hit my head hard. I didn't even know when I had start thinking otherwise.

“Can I see him doctor?” I asked, trying to remain calm.

“Yes, Miss Norway, this way please,” the doctor escorted us into the room before closing the door behind us with the nurses inside, cleaning up the theater and his body.

My chest became so heavy when I saw how wounded Kingsley was. The wounds on his ribs, the marks from the shattered glasses, the amount of blood he lost.

His once bright face has lost it's beauty and his eyes were tightly shut, his lips cracked from dryness.

Instinctively, I walked over to his side, bent over him and kissed him, wetting his dry lips.

My hands hovered to his ribs- the mark.

Just then, a calm weak voice called out my name with a hushed tone.

“Hailey?”