After that conversation, Orion never came to my office again.
The last time I saw him was at the project wrap-up. Louis had brought me along as the contractor's representative, and Orion was there as the client for the final inspection. Louis, as always, was a true gentleman. After learning about my complicated past with Orion, he hadn't pressured me to respond to his feelings quickly. He'd simply said he was willing to wait—until I sorted everything out.
In the car afterward, there was silence.
I sat in the passenger seat. Orion sat in the back, head lowered, eyes on his lap, saying nothing. I had made everything so clear. He wasn't the type to torture himself.
After this project ended, we probably wouldn't see each other again for the rest of our lives.
That winter in Belgium was brutally cold. Snowflakes lashed against the windshield, turning the world outside into a white blur.
Then, suddenly, a blizzard hit. The tires skidded. Louis swerved sharply to the right, but the car had a mind of its own.
I was thrown against the window.
In the distance, another car was speeding toward us, its headlights slicing through the storm like twin daggers.
Before the collision, a familiar scent surged toward me. Orion's arms wrapped around me, pressing my head firmly against his chest.
Something hard pressed into me through the fabric of his shirt.
I blinked, stunned.
It was a ring.
The ring I had thrown away.
The car collided with a deafening crunch. Metal twisted, glass shattered. Everything became white noise.
Somewhere beneath it all, Orion's voice cut through, low and hoarse. "Rora, I'm sorry."
When I opened my eyes again, Orion was still in the ICU, fighting for his life. Monitors beeped steadily, tubes ran here and there, and a faint mechanical hiss punctuated the otherwise silent room.
My left hand was fractured.
Louis had made the best possible emergency maneuver, but he was the least injured of the three of us. He came to see me later, guilt written across his otherwise calm face.
I didn't blame him.
After all, in a situation like that, self-preservation is the first human instinct. Only a lunatic would instinctively risk their life to save someone else.
I sat there, numb, outside the ICU, staring at the sterile glass doors, waiting for news that might never come.
My mind refused to focus.
The ring—his ring—still burned against my chest beneath my jacket.
The first people to arrive were five lawyers who had flown in from New York. They carried briefcases and thick folders with them.
One by one, the lawyers laid out a stack of documents in front of me. I flipped through the pages, trying to make sense of the dense, incomprehensible legal jargon. My eyes scanned the lines, but most of it was gibberish to me.
My hands shook as I reached for the pen. I could barely breathe. And then I noticed two lines, written in language simple enough for me to understand, yet heavy enough to crush my chest:
"In the event of Orion Durnavelle's death or incapacitation, all assets will unconditionally transfer to Aurora Kennedy."
"Not even the individual in question has any right to revoke this arrangement."
I covered my face and finally broke down sobbing.
At the edge of life and death, he used his life to say he loved me. Then he told me he was sorry.
I froze. My eyes blurred as tears began to sting and roll down my cheeks. My knees felt weak, threatening to buckle beneath me. I covered my face with my hands, my body trembling, and finally allowed myself to break down in uncontrollable sobs.
At the edge of life and death, he had used his life to declare his love. He had risked everything, made arrangements I barely understood, and yet had simply said, in the most devastatingly quiet way: I'm sorry.
How could someone love another person so fiercely, yet act in a way that hurt them so arrogantly? My mind could not reconcile the love with the pride, the devotion with the secrecy.
It made no sense.
It shouldn't make sense.
One of the older lawyers, his hair streaked with gray and eyes softened by age, stepped forward. He placed a steady hand on my shoulder, and his touch carried a weight of understanding that words could never achieve. "I've watched Orion grow up since he was a boy," he said gently. "I know him better than most. What he did… it wasn't cruelty. It was necessity. He had to protect you from a world that wouldn't understand his vulnerabilities. Letting you see him weaker than he was… it would've been like asking him to die."
He let out a long, weary sigh, as if releasing a burden he had carried for decades. "Byron Flynn is cunning and relentless. Orion had no choice but to navigate his traps, to fight in ways you never saw. All of this… everything that hurt you… it was part of keeping you safe, even if it didn't feel that way at the time."
But even as I listened, my chest felt like it was being crushed by an invisible weight.
People weren't supposed to be like that, were they?
To love so fiercely and yet wound so deeply at the same time. To protect by hurting. To hold the world at bay by sacrificing their own connection to it.
I stayed silent, unable to speak, unable to move.
My gaze wandered almost unconsciously back toward the ICU, to the sliding glass doors beyond which Orion lay unconscious. The machines beeped steadily, measuring his breath, his pulse, the fragile thread keeping him tethered to life.
I didn't know if I could ever forgive the arrogance, the silence, the pain. But right now… I only wanted him to survive.
My tears blurred the machines, the room, the world.
All I could focus on was him.