The night stretched thin around her long after the lights dimmed and the corridor hushed. Willow didn't sleep.
Every time her eyelids fell, the scene replayed—Miles's calm betrayal, Christy's sympathetic tilt of the head, Zane's small, irrevocable nod. One lie, four witnesses, and she was rewritten.
She lay still under hospital linen, fingers tracing the ridge of the brace on her arm. The plaster itched. The monitor kept time beside her like a metronome for fury. They thought she believed them. Let them. Tomorrow, she'd begin her own version of the story.
Dawn arrived pale and indifferent. Blinds sliced the light into trembling ribbons across the floor. Kara came with her clipped warmth—vitals, IV swap, the quiet not-looking of a professional who understood that sleep and peace weren't the same thing.
"You'll have visitors again," Kara said, studying the monitor. "Want me to shorten the time?"
"No." Willow's voice was steady, almost foreign to herself. "Let it run long."
Kara hesitated, then offered a nurse's knowing smile that didn't ask questions. "All right. Long it is."
Two hours later, Zane stepped from the elevator—pressed charcoal suit, clean shave, every button aligned. Only the shadows beneath his eyes betrayed that he hadn't slept either. He'd spent half the night replaying her thank you from yesterday. It shouldn't have mattered. He was maintaining a fiction, helping a friend. And yet.
At the nurse's station, Kara looked up and read him easily. "She's awake."
"I assumed."
"Still fragile," she added, pointed. "Be kind."
His mouth twitched. "I'm trying."
Willow sat upright against the headboard, her injured arm cradled carefully against her ribs. The brace dug into her skin in places she didn't dare scratch. Morning cut through the blinds in narrow gold ribbons, striping blanket, bandages, and the empty water glass on the tray.
When Zane entered, it was without announcement—just the faint whisper of polished shoes on tile. Cold air and soap—not Miles's cologne. He took exactly as much space as required and not an inch more. Shirt pressed, cuffs buttoned, tie straight; fatigue lined the edges of his eyes. He stopped near the foot of the bed, hands in his pockets, gaze briefly on the untouched fruit.
The moment she saw him, her face rearranged—open, uncertain, faintly hopeful. The perfect performance of someone missing pieces.
"Morning," he said.
"Morning." Her tone was even. "You're early."
"Traffic was light."
"That's what people say when they don't know why they're here," she murmured.
He almost smiled. "Maybe I don't like being late."
He took the chair but didn't drag it too close. The space between them was deliberate. Elbows on knees, fingers interlaced—the posture of a man who controlled conversations by appearing patient. Only this wasn't a meeting. This was improvisation.
"I've been trying to remember," she said after a pause, voice soft but probing. "The time we were together."
His hands tightened, then released. "We are."
"Right." She frowned, tracing fog. "But when… and how?" A faint laugh escaped her, self-deprecating. "It's like reading someone else's diary."
He leaned back. Sunlight cut across his jaw in pale stripes. "Weeks," he said finally. "After things ended with Miles. We spent time together—a couple of weekends, mostly. Lunches. A dinner when meetings didn't run late."
She nodded slowly, as if the pieces might one day fit. "And then?"
His throat worked. "And then you had an accident."
The sentence sat between them, too clean, too rehearsed.
"So we were already… together?" she asked.
"Yes."
"How together?"
"Close enough to care about each other," he said.
A small spark moved through her. He was careful, measured—almost honest in his lie. She wanted him off-balance, just enough to feel it.
"Tell me something," she said, voice mild, almost shy. "Have we passed the stage of… just talking?"
He froze, then gave a short, startled laugh. "What?"
"You know." She held his gaze. "The stage where people only talk."
His jaw flexed once. When he spoke again, the words came slow and unblinking. "Yes. We did."
Her breath caught—she didn't let it show. He didn't look away, didn't soften it. He said it like a fact—like a choice.
For a moment, she forgot which of them was pretending.
She looked down at the blanket, feigning thought. "I don't remember that," she murmured.
"I know," he said.
The calm certainty threw her. It wasn't arrogance or apology—it was a man trying to believe the story he'd built.
She changed direction. "What was I like?"
He hesitated. Boardrooms were easy. This wasn't. He'd never dated her; he'd only watched her across rooms, catalogued details he had no right to remember. Now she wanted him to build a past out of stolen observation.
"You were… particular," he said. "You don't like surprises. You pick lemon tarts over anything with cream. You eat watermelon to the rind and leave the fork spotless. You read on screens but still carry a paper book because the battery icon stresses you out. You hum when you debug—one note, low. You keep two hair ties on your wrist, even when your hair's already tied. You hate being cold but won't touch the thermostat at someone else's place. And you sing."
She blinked. "I sing?" How did he know that?
"Soft," he said. "Not for an audience. You stop when anyone notices."
Something flickered in her eyes—recognition and resistance sparking together. "Really."
"Yes."
She let the corner of her mouth tilt. "And you? What did I like about you?"
He stilled. Yesterday's tart had been simple: care, retreat. This was dangerous.
"You said I was predictable," he said finally. "And that predictability was underrated."
"Pragmatic," she murmured.
"You like pragmatic."
She met his gaze. "Did I say I liked it—or did you?"
He looked at her, steady, unreadable. For a long moment, neither moved.
"You're doing that thing again," he said.
"What thing?"
"Cross-examining."
She almost smiled. "Maybe I was a lawyer in another life."
"Maybe."
The space between them hummed. The monitor's soft rhythm filled it.
"How did we meet?" she asked.
"At Miles's engagement dinner," he said—too fast.
"Romantic," she said dryly.
"It wasn't." A beat. "You spilled red wine on my tie."
"That sounds like me."
"You didn't apologize."
"Also sounds like me."
"You said it clashed with my arrogance."
Her laugh slipped free before she could stop it. He felt it like a pulse in the room.
Kara entered, checked numbers, replaced a bag. "Pain?"
"Manageable," Willow said.
"Good." Kara's gaze flicked between them, caught something, left it alone. "Try not to make the machines jealous."
When the nurse left, the quiet settled again.
"You remember a lot," Willow said.
"I remember details."
"Details make a person."
"I know."
"What do you remember most?"
He should have deflected. He didn't. "That you never stayed where people put you."
She tilted her head. "Meaning?"
"You agree to things to see if they hold. Or break." Even. "Schedules. Expectations. People."
"Did that annoy you?"
"Yes."
"And yet you wanted me."
The line came soft, clean, lethal.
He held it. "You're recovering," he said. "Don't—"
"Don't what?"
"Don't turn this into proof." Quiet. Controlled. Too controlled.
She let him have the out—for now.
He rose, too quickly. His hand hovered near the bed rail, then withdrew. "Lead with your right when you stand. The brace shifts if you twist left."
"I'll remember."
"I spoke with your doctor. They plan to discharge you tomorrow."
Her brows lifted. "Tomorrow."
"I'll help."
"You don't have to—"
"I want to." No pause. No rescue from it.
She looked at him like someone measuring risk. "Zane," she said, and his name in her voice burned. "If I forget something again tomorrow… you'll remind me?"
Something unguarded flickered through him. "Yes."
"Good," she said. "Because I think we remember different things."
He didn't understand. But he felt it.
He drew in a breath. He wanted a moral geometry that didn't collapse under want. He wanted her.
Before his logic could rebuild, he leaned in. Paused. And then—because there was no other equilibrium—closed the distance. The first kiss was careful, barely pressure; a promise, not a possession. The second deepened before either of them could name it—warm, restrained, addictive.
Then he straightened, pulse steadying by force, and left before they could decide what it meant.
The door sighed closed.
Willow stared at it, disbelief opening in her like a window. Her lips were warm where the lie had learned a new trick.
In the corridor, Zane leaned against the wall, eyes closed for one long breath. His phone vibrated—ignored. The ward hummed around him. He walked toward the elevator with empty hands, feeling the weight of something he hadn't meant to carry.
Behind him, in a room that already knew too much about pain, a woman with a bandaged arm sat very still and recalibrated. She didn't trust him. She pretended she did. The pretending was its own violence.
Zane stepped into the elevator and met his reflection: the man who could do slow, who told just enough truth to survive it, who—for once—hadn't chosen the easy thing. With slightly trembling fingers, he started the car. He blew out a breath. And kept going.