The man who walked through the door wasn't the father I remembered.
Harold Cole stood taller than Frank, silver at his temples, a watch on his wrist that probably cost more than the Armstrongs' whole house. His suit was dark gray and looked expensive, the kind of expensive I used to wear before I threw it all away for a man who sees me as a juice box.
His eyes met mine, and I was expecting a warm smile at least, but he looked away with sharp disappointment.
"Dad..." I stopped when he raised his hand and sat beside me.
"Ariadne..." he began coldly.
Not Ary. Not Aria. Ariadne. The name he gave me when I was born, the name I stopped using when I ran off with Frank because Frank said it sounded too snobby, too rich-girl, and too much like my father.
I swallowed hard.
"Dad," I whispered again, and my voice cracked because three years had passed since I last said that word out loud, and it felt foreign in my mouth, like a language I'd forgotten how to speak.
He sat on the edge of my bed and looked at Frank with a cold and hard glare. "You're the doctor in charge of my daughter?"
Frank nodded fast. "Y...Yes, sir. Dr. Frank Armstrong. I've been monitoring her condition closely, and..."
"Monitoring her." My father snapped. "For three years. Has she improved or worsened?"
Frank opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
I watched him struggle; perhaps he was expecting me to help him, but I smirked instead and shook my head in denial.
Either it's love or foolishness; whatever it is that I had for him in the past is gone. Just that empty hole where my heart used to be, the one that opened up when I saw Dorcas on his shoulder, when I realized he'd been using me this whole time.
"You've been letting my daughter bleed for you, and you can't even keep her healthy enough to walk down a flight of stairs."
"With respect, Mr. Cole, Aria's blood type is rare, and the donations were necessary for—"
"She has a name." My father stood up, and even though Frank was taller, he looked smaller now. I'd never seen Frank so small before. "Her name is Ariadne. Use it, or don't speak at all."
Frank stepped back respectfully. "I'm sorry, sir."
The door creaked open, and a nurse poked her head in. "Dr. Armstrong, the board meeting is starting—"
"Tell them I'll be late."
"Actually." My father straightened his cuffs, slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. "You'll go to your meeting. I'll stay with my daughter."
Frank looked between us, dejectedly. But the hospital funding came from Cole Industries, and Cole Industries answered to Harold Cole, my father.
Frank swallowed his pride and walked out.
The machines beeping around me were the only thing that conquered the silence.
"You ran away from home to marry that man?" he finally said.
I didn't answer. What was I supposed to say? Yes, Daddy, I threw away everything for a man who sees me as a blood bag. Yes, I was so stupid I couldn't see what was right in front of my face.
"I was in love," I said, and even to my own ears, the words sounded stupid and small and pathetic.
My father laughed, but there wasn't any happiness in it. Just bitterness. Just pain. "Love." He spit the word out like it was poison. "You threw away your inheritance, your future, your health for love. And look where love has put you. In a hospital bed with nothing to show except a failing body and a husband who looks at you like a vending machine."
He wasn't wrong.
That was the worst part.
He wasn't wrong at all.
I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream that he didn't understand, that Frank was different in the beginning, that Frank used to hold my hand and look at me like I was something special. But the words wouldn't come, because even I didn't believe them anymore.
Frank had never looked at me like I was special. He'd looked at me like I was useful.
There's a difference.
I just hadn't wanted to see it.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded document.
"What's that?"
"A marriage contract." His voice was flat, like he always did whenever he had already decided on something. "You'll marry the man I've chosen for you, and I'll take you back. You'll return to the family and take your place in the company."
My chest went tight again, the same tightness I felt when I read Frank's text about the blood donation and the same tightness I felt when I saw Dorcas's photo. "You want me to marry someone else, Dad?" My voice came out higher than I meant it to. "I just got out of one marriage; we haven't signed the papers yet!"
"I want you to stop making foolish decisions and want you to be safe." His voice cracked on the last word, and for a second, I felt guilty. Dad was all I had, yet I left him for a scumbag.
"So you want to control me instead?"
"I want to protect you from yourself."
That stung more than I wanted to admit, because he was right. I had been my own worst enemy. I had chosen Frank and cut off my family. I had signed up for this life, and now I was paying for it with my blood and my tears and my dignity.
But I couldn't do it again.
I wouldn't.
I pushed the contract back at him, shoving it across the bedsheet like it was on fire. "No. I'm done being owned by men who see me as something to use. Frank used my blood. You want to use my future. I'm not signing anything."
"You've got nowhere to go."
"I'll find somewhere."
"With what money? With what health?" His voice rose for the first time, and the sound echoed off the hospital walls. "You can't even stand up without falling, Ariadne. You collapsed in a subway station. A stranger had to catch you before you cracked your head open on the concrete. Where exactly do you think you're going?"
He was right, and I hated him for it.
My fingers gripped the bedsheet so hard my knuckles went white. The tears were building behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I had cried enough for Frank Armstrong.
The door opened again.
I didn't look up at first, but then I heard footsteps very different from Frank's.
I looked up.
A tall man walked in. Dark hair falling across his forehead like he'd been running his hands through it.
His eyes were the color of whiskey, warm and sharp at the same time, and they landed on me like he'd been looking for me his whole life.
Black shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. I could see the muscles in his forearms, the veins, the strength.
He was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, and I hated that too.
Because why now? Why when I'm pale and weak and hooked up to machines, when I look like death warmed over?
"You...." I whispered.
A dimple appeared on his face as he smiled. "Yes, Me."
"Draven." My father introduced him. . "You're the one who saved her?"
"I was at the station," Draven said, walking closer. "She collapsed. I couldn't just walk away."
What a coincidence!
My arms crossed tight across my chest. "You just happened to be there?"
"I don't know what you think I planned, but I don't usually spend my evenings waiting for random women to faint at my feet."
"You could've followed me."
"From where?"
"From the restaurant."
He tilted his head. "I don't know what restaurant you're talking about. I was coming from my office. Ask your father."
My father nodded. "Draven's telling the truth."
Everyone schemes. I learned that the hard way. But something about the way he looked at me made me want to believe him, and that scared me more than anything.
"Your father wants you to marry me," he said.
"I know."
He pulled up a chair and sat down. "I didn't ask for this contract. He approached me."
"So you're saying no?"
He paused. "I'm saying I didn't arrange for you to collapse so I could play hero. But now that we're here, I'd like to get to know you."
I laughed, bitter and broken. "I just left my husband. My blood's poison to my own body. I've got no money, no home, no future. Why would you want to get to know me?"
He leaned closer, and his voice went quiet. "Because you walked out of that restaurant like a woman who had nothing left to lose. And you made it two blocks before your body gave out. That's not weakness, Ariadne. That's a woman who doesn't know how to stop fighting."
My throat closed up.
He used my real name. No one calls me that except my father.
I couldn't look at him anymore. Because if I did, I might do something stupid. Like believe him.
My father cleared his throat. "I'm not asking you to marry him tomorrow. Come home. Take over the company. Prove to me you're not the same girl who ran away. The contract can wait."
I looked at the contract on my lap. Then at my father, who looked older than I remembered. Then there was Draven, who was still watching me like I was something worth watching.
I was nobody. A broken, anemic mess who collapsed in subways and let herself be used as a blood bank for three years.
But the way he looked at me made me feel like somebody.
"I'll come home," I said slowly. "I'll take over the company. But I won't sign anything that gives another man ownership of me. Not ever again."
My father nodded. "Fair."
Draven stood and held out his hand. Strong. Warm. Not cold like Frank's.
"Then let me help you. You'll need allies, and I'd like to be one."
I looked at his hand. Then at his face.
"I'm done with men."
He didn't pull back. "I'm not asking you to be with me. I'm asking you to let me help you get back on your feet. That's all."
I stared at him.
Everything in me screamed no. Don't trust him. Don't let another man get close enough to hurt you.
But my hand moved anyway.
I took his. His grip was firm but gentle. When he let go, the warmth stayed on my skin longer than it should have.
"One step at a time," he said.
I nodded, but I didn't trust him. Trust is a bsiness i inested onbut went bankrupt.
But for the first time in three years, I was going home.
