Chapter 2 - The Son Who Should Have Stayed a Stranger

I spent the first ten minutes of Tristan Bellamy’s first visit pretending my pulse wasn’t trying to escape my body.

Eleanor chatted happily, oblivious to the silent war happening inside my chest. She asked him if he’d eaten, if he was sleeping, if he was taking care of himself, and he answered with the resigned patience of a man who had had the same questions for years.

Then Eleanor turned her attention to me.

“Bianca is wonderful,” she announced with the confidence of someone declaring a new favorite dessert. “She makes sure I do my exercises, and she doesn’t treat me like I’m fragile.”

“That’s because you’re not fragile,” I said, adjusting the IV line. “You’re just temporarily irritated with your hip.”

Eleanor laughed, and Tristan’s eyes flicked to me with something that made my stomach tighten.

He didn’t say anything about the SUV.

He didn’t tease me.

He didn’t even hint at it, which somehow made everything worse.

I wanted to ask why he had been in that car alone in the middle of the night. I wanted to ask why a billionaire son had been sitting quietly in the backseat looking like he owned the whole city. But the questions stayed trapped behind my teeth.

After I finished checking Eleanor’s vitals, I stepped into the hall and nearly collided with Tristan.

“Careful,” he said, steadying my elbow.

The contact was brief, but my skin reacted anyway, a ridiculous spark of awareness shooting through me.

I pulled back. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’ve had a long week.”

His gaze moved over me, not in a rude way, but with the kind of attention that made me feel seen down to the bone. “You look like you’ve had a long year.”

I gave him a sharp look. “Are you always this observant?”

“Only when it matters.”

There it was again, that steady composure, the annoying calm of a man who probably negotiated billion-dollar contracts before breakfast. I folded my arms, trying not to think about how unfairly good he looked in that suit.

“Your mother is healing well,” I said, getting back to business. “She’s strong.”

“She told me you’re her favorite person in the building.”

“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”

“It’s not,” Eleanor called from inside the room. “I know because I’ve met nearly everyone here, and none of them let me complain for as long as Bianca does.”

Tristan’s mouth twitched.

I fought a smile.

That became a pattern.

Over the next week, he kept appearing on the unit. Not constantly. Not in a way anyone could accuse him of hovering. But often enough that I started noticing the sound of his shoes in the hallway before I saw him. Often enough that I began to expect the small lift in his expression when Eleanor was resting comfortably. Often enough that I became aware of how easily he listened—really listened—when I explained medication schedules or post-op precautions.

He wasn’t cold like I had expected a billionaire to be.

He was careful.

And that was somehow more dangerous.

One afternoon, while Eleanor was sleeping, I found Tristan standing at the window, looking out over the city with his hands in his pockets.

“You’re not supposed to loiter in patient rooms,” I said.

He turned. “Is that a complaint?”

“It’s a professional observation.”

“Then professionally, I should tell you I’m making sure my mother is comfortable.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You could just call.”

“I could.”

“Yet here you are.”

His gaze rested on me for a second too long. “Yet here I am.”

The silence between us stretched, warm and odd and charged with something I didn’t want to name.

Then he said, “I was awake in the car that night.”

I blinked. “What?”

“When you got in.” His tone remained calm, but there was the faintest edge of amusement. “You looked like you were one step away from collapsing on the sidewalk. I thought maybe you were someone who worked for my driver.”

My face heated instantly. “So you let me sleep there?”

“You looked harmless.”

I gasped. “Harmless?”

His mouth tilted. “And exhausted.”

“That’s not better.”

“It was meant as a kindness.”

I should have been annoyed. Instead, I found myself laughing despite my mortification.

That laugh seemed to change something. His expression softened almost imperceptibly, as if he’d been waiting to hear it.

Then a nurse I barely knew passed by and slowed when she saw us standing too close together.

The look she gave me was immediate and sharp.

By the end of the shift, I had heard three different versions of the same rumor: the new private patient’s son was spending too much time on the floor, and one of the nurses was “obviously” trying to catch his attention.

I tried to ignore it.

I really did.

But rumors in a hospital spread faster than flu season.

The next morning, my supervisor called me into her office. Her expression was tight enough to snap.

“Bianca,” she said, folding her hands on her desk, “I’m going to ask you something once. Are you involved with Tristan Bellamy?”

I stared at her. “No.”

“Then I suggest you keep it that way.”

My stomach dropped. “Excuse me?”

“His family contributes a great deal to this hospital. If people start thinking you’re using that connection for personal gain, it becomes a problem.”

“My job performance has nothing to do with his family.”

“I know that,” she said, though her tone suggested she wasn’t entirely convinced. “But perception matters.”

I left her office furious enough to shake.

By the time I got back to Eleanor’s room, I was trying very hard not to think about the way Tristan’s name now felt like a warning in my own head.

But when I walked in, Eleanor looked up and said, too casually, “You and my son seem to get on well.”

I froze.

Eleanor smiled to herself. “A mother knows these things.”

I swallowed. “He’s polite.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Before I could answer, Tristan entered behind me carrying a paper cup of coffee, and the room seemed to shrink around the three of us.

He glanced at me, then at his mother, who was watching us with open, delighted curiosity.

“I think,” Eleanor said, folding her hands, “there’s more happening here than either of you are admitting.”

And because fate apparently had a cruel sense of timing, Tristan handed me the coffee without looking away from me and said, “Careful, Bianca. People might start talking.”

My fingers brushed his by accident.

Something electric passed through me.

And in that instant, I realized the rumors were only the beginning.