Chapter 4 - The Awakening and the Confrontation
The steady, rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor was the first thing Sloan registered when consciousness slowly clawed its way back through the fog of exhaustion and pain.
Her head felt as though it had been split open by an axe, and her throat was as dry as parchment.
"Sloan?"
The voice was deep, velvet-smooth, and impossibly familiar. It was a voice she hadn't heard in a decade, a voice she had tried to purge from her memory every single night through sheer willpower and endless cups of coffee.
Sloan groaned, her eyelids fluttering open. The harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital room made her squint, but as her vision cleared, the tall, broad silhouette leaning over her bedside came into sharp focus.
Griffin Drake.
For a terrifying second, Sloan thought she was hallucinating—a fever dream brought on by a concussion and overwork.
"Griffin?" she whispered, her voice raspy beneath the oxygen mask. She tried to sit up, but a spike of dizziness hit her like a physical blow, and she fell back against the pillows with a sharp gasp.
"Don't move," Griffin said instantly, his hand moving to gently rest on her uninjured shoulder, keeping her still. His touch was warm, firm, and filled with a fierce, quiet intensity. "The doctor said you suffered a severe concussion from exhaustion and dehydration, Sloan. You completely passed out."
Sloan's eyes darted past him, panic instantly overriding her physical pain. "Hazel? Iris? Where are my girls? Where are my daughters?"
"They're right here, Mom," Hazel’s voice piped up from the corner of the room.
Sloan turned her head with a grimace. Both girls were curled up in a large armchair that Griffin had obviously dragged over for them. They had fallen asleep wrapped around each other like two little kittens, exhausted from the terror of the night.
Sloan let out a shuddering breath, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. "Thank God..." She looked back up at Griffin, and the soft, tender expression on his face vanished, replaced by the cool, sharp look of a man who demanded answers and usually got them.
"Ten years, Sloan," Griffin said softly, leaning closer so his voice wouldn't wake the girls. "You vanished without a trace. You left a single note saying you couldn't live in my world, that our paths had to diverge. And all this time... you were carrying my children."
Sloan's breath hitched. She pulled the oxygen mask down slightly to speak, her chest heaving. "I had to, Griffin. You don't understand. Your father—your family—they would have torn me apart. Back then, I was just a struggling architecture student with nothing to my name. Your world would have eaten me alive, and they would have found a way to take my babies from me before they were even born."
"My father is dead, Sloan," Griffin said, his jaw tightening, his eyes flashing with suppressed fury from the past. "And even if he were alive, nobody takes my children. Nobody takes you from me again. You should have called me."
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"How could I?" Sloan whispered, a tear finally escaping down her pale cheek. "You were building an empire. I was just a mistake you made in college."
"A mistake?" Griffin reached out, his thumb gently wiping the tear from her cheek with a tenderness that defied his billionaire persona. "Sloan, look at those two little girls sleeping over there. They have my eyes, your stubbornness, and our shared heartbeat. Don't ever tell me they were a mistake."
