Chapter 167 Sincerity Begets Sincerity
Chapter 167 Sincerity Begets Sincerity
Lorelei's POV
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Don't be." He reached out, hesitated, then gently squeezed my shoulder. "I hope he wakes up. I hope he's okay. And I hope—" His voice caught slightly. "I hope you find a way to be happy. Even if it's not with him."
He turned to leave.
"Julian—"
He paused, looking back.
"Thank you," I said. "For understanding. For not making this harder than it already is."
He nodded once, then walked away, his footsteps echoing down the hospital corridor.
I watched him go and felt something break open in my chest—not relief exactly, but a strange mixture of grief and liberation.
I'd hurt him. I knew that. But I'd also freed us both.
---
I was still sitting there, staring at the surgical lights, when Cynthia appeared.
She took one look at my face and sat down beside me. "Julian just left. He looked—" She paused. "What happened?"
"I called off the wedding." My voice sounded distant, disconnected. "Told him I couldn't marry him."
"Good." Cynthia pulled me into a hug. "Because you would have been miserable. And so would he."
"He saved me." The words burst out against her shoulder. "The beam was falling and Dante pushed me out of the way and took the hit himself and now—"
"I know." She held me tighter. "But he's strong. He's going to be okay."
I wanted to believe her. But all I could see was his eyes rolling back. His body going slack. The blood in his hair.
Please, I prayed to whatever was listening. Please let him be okay.
---
At 6:30 PM, a doctor finally emerged from the trauma bay.
He was young—maybe forty—with tired eyes and the particular expression doctors got when they had to deliver news that could go either way.
"Family of Dante Ashford?"
I was on my feet before he finished the sentence. "I'm his sister."
He gestured for me to follow him to a private consultation room.
---
"I'm Dr. Thomas," he said, sitting down across from me. "I've been overseeing your brother's care. Mr. Ashford suffered a subdural hematoma—bleeding between the brain and the skull. We performed an emergency craniotomy to relieve the pressure."
The words were just sounds. I couldn't process them.
"Is he—" My voice came out as a whisper. "Is he going to be okay?"
Dr. Thomas's expression was carefully neutral. "The surgery was successful. But there's significant swelling in the brain tissue. We won't know the full extent of the damage until the swelling goes down and he wakes up."
"What does that mean?"
"Brain injuries are unpredictable, Ms. Ashford. Some patients make full recoveries. Others experience complications—memory loss is common with this type of injury. He might not remember recent events. Or he might have gaps."
My chest tightened. "He might not remember me."
"That's possible. Yes."
I stared at my hands, trying to process this. He might wake up and not know who I am.
"When will he wake up?"
"Could be hours. Could be days. We're monitoring him closely." He paused. "Can I see him?"
Dr. Thomas hesitated. "He's in the ICU. Normally we only allow immediate family—"
"Please." The word came out broken. "I need to see him. Please."
Something in my face must have convinced him, because he nodded slowly. "Fifteen minutes. That's all I can give you right now."
---
The ICU was quiet except for the sound of machines—beeping, humming, the particular rhythm of life being monitored and measured.
A nurse led me to bay seven. "Fifteen minutes," she said gently. "Then you need to let him rest."
---
He looked small.
That was my first thought—completely irrational, because Dante Ashford had never looked small a day in his life. But lying in that hospital bed, surrounded by machines and tubes and wires, he looked diminished somehow. Vulnerable in a way I'd never seen him.
His head was bandaged—white gauze wrapped around his skull, covering the left side where they'd operated. His face was pale, almost grey against the white sheets. An IV line ran into his left arm. The oxygen cannula in his nose was a reminder of how close he'd come.
I moved closer on legs that felt disconnected from my body, pulled the chair up beside his bed, sat down, reached for his hand.
His skin was cool. Not cold—not dead—just cool. I wrapped both my hands around his, trying to warm it, and felt my throat close up.
"Hi," I whispered. "It's me. It's Lorelei. I don't know if you can hear me. The nurse said sometimes people can, even when they're unconscious. So I'm just going to talk. Okay?"
No response. Just the machines.
I took a shaking breath.
"You can't keep doing this. Throwing yourself in front of danger for me. Running into burning buildings. Taking bullets. You can't—" My voice broke. "I'm not worth your life, Dante. I'm not worth any of this."
I pressed his hand against my forehead, feeling tears slide down my face and drip onto our joined fingers.
"I called off the wedding. Told Julian I couldn't marry him. I was going to go through with it—I was going to stand up there and say vows I didn't mean to a man I don't love because I thought it was safer. Easier. I thought I could make myself stop feeling what I feel for you."
The machines kept their steady rhythm.
"But I can't. I've tried. God knows I've tried." My throat closed around the words I couldn't say—the terrible truth that made everything else a lie. "Even knowing what we are. Even knowing this is unforgivable. Even knowing we share the same blood—"
I couldn't finish. The words lodged in my chest like shrapnel, cutting me from the inside.
I can't stop loving you. Even though I should. Even though it's wrong. Even though we're brother and sister.
The thought was a scream I couldn't voice. A sin I couldn't confess. A truth that would destroy us both if spoken aloud.
I sat there holding his hand, crying silently, and wished I'd been brave enough—or cruel enough—to walk away before it came to this.
---
The fifteen minutes passed too quickly. The nurse appeared in the doorway, her expression apologetic. "I'm sorry, but you need to let him rest now."
I nodded and stood, still holding his hand.
"I'll be back," I whispered. "I'm not going anywhere. I promise."
I pressed a kiss to his knuckles and forced myself to let go.
---
I made it to the hallway before I collapsed.
My back hit the wall and I slid down to sit on the floor, and I finally let myself fall apart—great, wrenching sobs that shook my whole body, tears that wouldn't stop, the kind of crying that came from somewhere deep and primal and completely beyond my control.
He might not remember me. He might wake up and not know who I am.
A hand touched my shoulder.
I looked up through my tears.
An elderly man stood there—tall, white-haired, with sharp grey eyes that looked familiar in a way I couldn't quite place. He was dressed in an expensive suit, his posture military-straight despite his age.
"You're Lorelei Bennett," he said. Not a question.
I nodded, unable to speak.
"I'm Malcolm Ashford. Dante's grandfather." He studied me for a long moment, then sat down beside me on the floor—movements careful but deliberate, as if this concession cost him something. "I won't pretend to understand what's between you and my grandson. I won't pretend to approve."
His voice was measured, controlled, but I heard the strain beneath it—the reluctant acceptance of a man backed into a corner by circumstances he couldn't change.
"But he's dying in there. The doctors won't say it outright, but I can see it in their eyes. And if there's even a chance—" He paused, his jaw tightening. "If there's even a chance that you being here makes a difference, then I'm willing to set aside what I think is right."
The tears came harder. He wasn't giving me his blessing. He was making a bargain with the devil to save his grandson's life.
"He needs family right now," Malcolm continued, and the word family landed like a stone between us—heavy with all the things it meant and all the ways we'd twisted it into something unrecognizable. "Whatever else you are to each other, you're that. So I'm asking you—as his grandfather, as the man who raised him—don't leave him alone in there."
I wanted to tell him I couldn't. That staying was the cruelest thing I could do. That my presence was poison, not medicine.
But I only nodded.
Malcolm stood slowly, offering me his hand. I took it and let him pull me to my feet.
"Talk to him," he said, his voice rough with something that might have been grief or might have been resignation. "Tell him to come back. Sometimes they can hear us. Even when they seem far away."