Chapter 5 I want you to marry me
CHAPTER 5: I want you to marry me
Lily lay asleep on the hospital bed, her face tight with pain even in unconsciousness, eyelids fluttering as though every breath hurt. Seeing her like that… small, sweating, curled into a fetal position, hugging her stomach, made my throat ache.
After I got the call at the club from one of her new friends, informing me that she had been rushed to the hospital, I have never felt more afraid and powerless.
I wiped away a stray tear, while smoothening her hair back gently, whispering, “I’m here, Lily,” even though she couldn’t hear me.
The door burst open and Cherry rushed in, hair tangled, eyes wide and frantic.
“Vera… what's going on. How is she? I rushed here as fast as I could. Did the doctor say anything?” she gasped, going straight to Lily.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “It's her appendicitis.”
“Oh no.”
“The doctor said they need to operate immediately,” I whispered. “But we have no health insurance. They won’t do it unless we pay upfront. She’s in too much pain, Cherry. And they won’t even prep her until the payment is made.” My voice cracked against the tightness in my chest. “I don’t have the money. I don’t have anything.”
Cherry’s breath caught. “What about Justin? Did you try to get your payment from him?”
I swallowed hard. “I did. I called him earlier, and I asked for an advance. He refused unless I…” my throat closed up, my lips quivered, and my voice trailed off.
She stepped away from the bedside, and moved close to me, eyes narrowed. “Unless what, Vera?”
Hot tears rolled down my cheeks.“Unless I… agreed to what he wanted.”
I couldn’t bring myself to spell it out, but she understood what I meant.
Her face contorted with fury. “That pig. You’re not going to do that. You are not!” She paused, and looked at me. “Vera… don't tell me—”
“I didn’t say yes.” My voice trembled. “Yet. But I don’t know what else to do,” I replied, wrapping my trembling arms around myself, shame, hot behind my eyes. “They won’t help her. And she’s getting worse.”
My stomach rolled again, and I felt light-headed. I blinked.
Cherry noticed and stepped closer, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“Vee, are you okay?”
“Yes. I think…all this is getting to me.”
Her face softened. “You need to take it easy.”
She went to her bag and pulled out an envelope which she practically shoved into my hands. “Here. Take this. It's five thousand. It’s all I have saved. I know it's not much, but it can help in some way.”
I stared at it, my eyes welling with tears. Overwhelmed, I drew her into a hug.
“Thank you so much, Cher. You’ve been more than a friend. I don't know how to repay you,” I whispered, voice clogged by emotion.
She pulled back slightly, smoothing back stray tendrils from my face. “Don’t worry about it. You’re like a sister to me… you and Lily.” She paused. “I'm just worried about how we're going to get the rest of the money.”
We both knew that even if Justin had agreed to give me my advance payment, it wouldn’t have been near enough as well.
I pressed the envelope tightly to my chest, panic setting in again.
The doctor said that we needed at least fifty thousand to cover all the hospital bills. I had only five hundred which I had managed to save since I started working, plus this one from Cherry.
I thought of Damien… of calling him. I couldn’t help wondering if I had made a mistake in running away from him. But I quickly cut off that thought.
I drugged him, stole his money, and ran away. Damien was not a forgiving man. I had no doubt that he'd do worse things to me at first sight, or worse, he might hurt Lily.
My stomach twisted. “Cherry… it isn’t enough. We’re still so far off.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Vera.”
I shook my head, forcing a smile. “No. It’s not your fault.” But my voice cracked, and I pressed a shaking hand to my forehead.
Suddenly, the heat rose in my head, too bright, too heavy, and my vision narrowed. The room seemed to tilt, and I sucked air in shallowly.
Cherry’s voice cut through the haze, muffled, panicked.
“Vera?” She grabbed my arm. “Sit…sit down—”
My knees went weak and the world dropped out from under me before I could respond, then everything went blank.
The sound of beeping machines drifting in slowly was the first sound I heard.
I blinked myself awake, disoriented, and noticed that the ceiling had a different colour. The room wasn't the same one Lily was in.
The lighting was dimmer, warmer, and there was the soft beep of a monitor beside me. I jerked upright, panic clawing at me.
“Lily?” I gasped. “Cherry?” I gasped and tried to get off the bed, despite the weariness in my bones.
But the next second, I froze completely.
There was someone sitting in the chair at the foot of my bed.
Not a doctor. Not a nurse.
A man.
His attention was fixed on his glowing phone screen. I could see the tightness in his jaw, as he kept scrolling through his phone.
Almost as if he felt my gaze, he looked up.
My breath hitched, recognition flashing through me.
It was him. The man from the club.
The one who caught me. The one with the controlled voice and unreadable eyes. The one who unnerved, and made me uneasy with the sheer power and authority that radiated from him in waves.
I didn’t know him. But I didn’t need to be familiar with him to know that he was the kind of man that could influence so much with a little less than a wave of a hand.
A man powerful enough to make me miserable if he so wished.
Every muscle in my body went stiff.
He looked impossibly out of place in this small hospital room, sitting in that chair, one leg crossed over the other…composed as though this were a drawing room and not a hospital.
Unconsciously, my eyes wandered. His suit was immaculate, the posture effortless, and the cocoa brown eyes he fixed on me were cool and appraising.
The scent that drifted off him smelled heavenly… expensive. The scent of citrus, sandalwood, musk and something darker, snagged in my throat, sparking another recognition through me. It was the same scent I perceived when he broke my fall.
My first reaction was instinctive and animal-like. I recoiled under the sheet, pulling the blanket up as if a thin cotton could be a shield, as my heart hammered against my ribs.
He put down his phone. He didn’t react, but appeared to regard me without surprise, as if I were simply another item of interest to observe.
“Who are you?” I managed, voice small and brittle. I had no idea of his name, nor who he was. I believed that I had no right to speak to him.
Maybe, it was because of what I'd been through, but I couldn't help feeling that it was a weakness he could exploit.
He looked at me for a long moment, indulgent almost.
He slightly tilted his head, a trace of amusement in his eyes. “Silas,” he said, with a crispness that made the syllable sound like a verdict. “Silas Rutherford.”
The name meant nothing to me, didn't ring a bell.
He watched me with the faintest hint of curiosity.
Or maybe it was that suspicion at my ignorance, as though noting the way I did not know him was another detail he would store away.
My heart thumped erratically in my chest. Where was Cherry? And where was Lily?
I looked up, and saw that he was still observing me coolly.
This man made me nervous. I didn’t know him. He looked like a powerful man who had no business with someone like me.
I ram my tongue over my dry lips.
“What—” My voice rasped. “W-what are you doing here? What do you want from me, sir?”
“You’re awake,” he murmured. “Finally. You gave your friend quite a scare,” he said, ignoring my question.
The way he spoke…measured, controlled, as if nothing in the world surprised him, made the hairs on my arms rise.
I clutched the sheets tighter like a safety net.
“Where’s Lily?” I croaked. “Why isn’t she here—”
“She’s safe,” he answered calmly. “She’s being taken care of.”
I let out a breath of relief, but my panic didn’t ease, because in a split second, I thought: how did he know about Lily?
I opened my mouth to press him further, my fingers curling deeper into the sheets.
“How did you even—how did you find me?”
He didn’t answer that. Instead, he leaned slightly forward, voice low and unwavering, and said something that made the room shrink around me.
“Congratulations.” His tone didn’t change, didn’t warm up. “You’re pregnant.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, gripped by confusion.
“What? W-what are you— No,” I whispered, shaking my head violently. “No, that’s—not…”
But then the memory rushed in, sharp and sickening. That night. The night that began it all. The night that I finally resolved to leave Damien.
It was the night that Damien had drugged and passed me off to a man I could neither remember nor recognise to gain a business favour.
Memories of Damien hitting me, pinning me down, forcefully injecting me while I sobbed and begged him to stop… all came back to me.
My stomach twisted, nausea burning through me. “Oh God,” I choked out. “Oh God… no.” “No—no, that’s not—”
But the memories mercilessly continued to slam into me. I remembered Damien’s rage. The feeling of consciousness and strength leaving my body as I slipped into oblivion. The sickening heavy feeling of worthlessness and filth that had never left since that morning when I awoke, alone and naked between the sheets.
Nausea rose like a tidal wave.
My hand flew to my mouth, to stop both the nausea and the sob threatening to break out.
The man, Silas Rutherford, watched me quietly, without pity, without cruelty either. Simply observing. Calculating.
He watched every reaction with unnerving stillness, as if documenting them.
“What do you want from me?” The words scraped out before I could stop them.
He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t blink.
“I want you to marry me.”