Chapter 67: As Long as She Still Wants Him

Jealousy, leftover fear, and a loss he could not quite mask.

"It was him, wasn't it?" Louis asked again, his voice rough.

Elisa looked at him, her expression complicated.

After more than thirty hours in transit, this normally hard-edged man looked worn down. The dark circles under his eyes and the stubble along his jaw said everything about how badly he had been rattled.

And yet, after crossing half the world to get here, this was the first thing he asked.

Elisa felt the exhaustion rise like a wave.

"Yes. He happened to be in the hallway. He heard something, came in, helped me, and dressed my wound."

"So what now, Louis?" Elisa said. "Are you going to rip it off and do it yourself?"

Louis caught his breath.

"I almost died in that room," Elisa went on. "He was nearly six foot three, he had a knife, and he kicked through the security chain like it was paper. I called the police, but in the minutes before they got there, if Stephen had not shown up, you would probably be identifying my body at the morgue right now."

"You flew through the night. I thought you came to make sure I was okay."

She turned away, walked to the sofa, sat down, and pressed her fingers to her throbbing forehead. She did not want to look at him.

"But the thing you care about most is who touched my hand."

Louis stood where he was. His tall frame, usually so commanding, seemed to sag. Her words went straight through the last layer of his borrowed toughness.

He crossed the room in a few long strides, dropped to one knee in front of the sofa, and pulled Elisa into his arms.

"I was wrong."

He buried his face against her neck, his voice muffled, the edges shaking .

"Elisa, I'm sorry."

Elisa went still.

"I was in a meeting when Jonathan called," he said, arms tightening around her. "When I heard someone had broken into your room with a knife, my mind just went blank. The whole way here I kept thinking, what if I was too late, what if-"

He could not finish.

Elisa felt a faint warmth against her skin.

Louis lifted his head. His eyes were threaded red. He looked at her with a stubborn, almost desperate intensity.

"I do not doubt you. I'm jealous. Jealous enough, that I can barely stand it. Why wasn't I the one next to you when you needed someone most?"

His voice stayed steady, but the words landed heavily.

"I was scared that because he saved you, you'd look at me and see someone useless."

Elisa looked at this man who was almost never anything but certain, and felt the tired anger in her chest quietly dissolve.

She exhaled, lifted her uninjured hand, and rested it on the back of his neck, smoothing down his messed hair.

"Stop it," she said softly. "I'm right here. I'm fine. And don't do something that stupid again. Thirty-something hours without sleep-are you trying to kill yourself?"

Under the warmth of her palm, the tension finally left his spine.

He turned his head and kissed the back of her hand.

"Go lie down. I'll stay right here."

"You sleep first," Elisa said, pulling him up. "You need it."

In the end, they lay down together.

Louis curled around her from behind, his chin on the crown of her head, his arms locked tight around her waist. Only like this, with her pressed to him, could he get anywhere close to calm.

Exhaustion took him fast, into a light sleep.

Time passed. Night deepened.

In her sleep, Elisa's brow drew tight. Her breathing turned shallow and quick, and a fine sheen of cold sweat broke across her forehead.

Her dream was full of bone-cold water. Huge waves crashed down, dragging her into the black abyss. Salt water flooded her nose and lungs, ripping away every scrap of air.

She thrashed, reaching for something to hold onto, and found only empty dark.

"Don't go..."

Her eyes stayed shut. Her lips trembled hard, letting out a broken, barely audible murmur.

"Help me..."

Louis jolted awake.

He pushed himself up. In the dim spill of streetlight through the window, he saw Elisa with all the color gone from her face, both hands clutching the blanket to her chest, knuckles white.

"Elisa!" His chest clenched. He reached out and touched her cheek.

She did not wake. She was trapped deep in it, and a single tear slipped from the corner of her eye.

"Stephen..."

A whisper, thin as breath, slipped from her trembling lips.

Louis's hand froze in midair.

That name, in the silence of the room, sounded painfully clear.

Watching her struggle in the nightmare, Louis felt something invisible tighten around his heart.

He closed his eyes and forced down the bitterness rising in him.

"It's okay, Elisa." He leaned down, pulled her close, and held her tight. "It's okay. I'm here."

It did not matter who she called for in her sleep. What mattered was that she was here, alive, in his arms. The rest he could earn back, slowly.

Under his steady hold, Elisa's breathing eased, and she drifted into quieter sleep.

Louis lay awake until morning.

Seven a.m.

When Elisa woke, the space beside her was empty.

She sat up and saw Louis by the floor-to-ceiling window, already in a sharp black suit, speaking quietly into his phone.

He heard her move, turned, ended the call, and walked back to the bed.

"Something came up back home. Someone is leaning on back-channel contacts in the Curtis case, trying to get the verdict overturned. I have to fly back and deal with it now." He reached out and smoothed her sleep-tangled hair.

Elisa nodded. "Work comes first. Go."

"While I'm gone, I've replaced the entire security team." His tone left no room for argument. "Four people, around the clock. Don't fight me on this. It's non-negotiable."

Elisa knew last night had shaken him hard. She did not push back. "Fine. I understand. Be safe."

As they spoke, the room's doorbell rang.

Marshall's voice came from outside. "Elisa! You up? I've got this morning's materials sorted."

Louis's expression turned cold in an instant.

He reached the door in a few quick strides and pulled it open.

Marshall had been about to knock again. He looked up and found himself facing a man with an expression like ice.

He took in the stranger-half a head taller, radiating the kind of presence that made you step back-and swallowed.

"Hi, hi there. I'm looking for Ms. Roberts."

"You're the one who brought her onto this project?" Louis asked, fixing him with a hard stare.

Marshall shifted under it. "Yes. That is. I-"

"So your job was to get her attacked by an intruder in the middle of the night?" Louis let out a cold laugh. "Did you or your team do even one proper background check on the client before signing the contract? On their security situation?"

The color drained from Marshall's face.

He'd only heard about last night that morning, and it had shaken him badly. He'd come straight over to check on Elisa.

"I'm sorry. That was my oversight. I didn't expect things here to be this complicated..."

"Don't apologize to me. Your oversight almost cost her her life." Louis stepped forward, and the sheer force of his presence pushed Marshall back against the hallway wall.

He lowered his voice to something only the two of them could hear. "I don't care who your brother is. I don't care what your role is on this team. For the next five days, if anything else happens to her — anything — I will make sure neither you nor that royal foundation of yours ever finds a foothold in Emberfall City again."

Marshall's back hit the wall. Cold sweat ran down his spine. He nodded, again and again.

"Louis." Elisa came out, dressed, and took in the scene. "Stop scaring him. Last night was an accident."

Louis pulled back the edge in his manner instantly. When he turned to look at Elisa, his eyes had already softened.

"I'm leaving." He walked over to her, and with Marshall watching, and four bodyguards built like walls standing in the hallway, he bent down and kissed her firmly on the lips.

"Video call every night. Don't you dare ignore it."