The white marble table felt unusually cold beneath Dominic’s palms. The small pediatric hospital bracelet bearing the name Rose Reyes lay between his untouched cup of tea and the cream-colored envelope like a physical piece of evidence from a trial he thought he had won years ago

The snow had turned into a steady, freezing drizzle by the time Dominic walked back down the ramp into the ambulance bay. The chaos inside the emergency room had subsided slightly; the critical patients from the harbor tunnel pileup had been stabilized and transferred upstairs to the surgical ICU, leaving the ward in a state of controlled, exhausted quiet.

Dominic pushed open the heavy glass doors, shaking the light layer of mist from his wool coat.

He didn't have to look far.

Elena was sitting alone on a steel bench near the nurses' station, a paper cup of black coffee cradled in both hands. Her white lab coat was draped over her shoulders, and her hair had partially come undone from its tight bun, leaving a few soft dark strands framing her face.

As she heard his heavy footsteps approach, she looked up.

She took in his appearance—the unruffled posture, the absolute calm in his eyes, and the faint, unmistakable smell of ozone and wet concrete clinging to his clothes.

“You were outside,” she said quietly, her voice steady.

“Just clearing the air,” Dominic replied, stopping a few feet away from her bench.

“You smell like the harbor,” she noted, taking a slow sip from her cup. “And trouble.”

“The harbor is quiet now,” Dominic said, sitting down on the bench beside her. The metal bench creaked softly under his weight. “And the trouble has been relocated.”

Elena turned her head, studying his profile in the sterile fluorescent light. “You didn't have to come out here tonight, Dominic. You could have walked away when the girls gave you the envelope. You could have kept your distance, pretended you never got the message.”

“I don't walk away from things that belong to me,” Dominic said, turning his head to meet her gaze directly.

Elena’s breath hitched slightly. “I don't belong to anyone, Mr. Ashford.”

“Correction,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling warmth that made her heart skip a beat. “You’ve been investigating my life for seven years, tracking my corporate stamps, and sending your little sisters into high-end cafes as diplomatic envoys. You haven't been trying to stay away from me, Elena. You’ve been backing me into a corner.”

A soft, genuine smile broke across Elena’s tired face—the first real smile he had seen all evening, and it completely transformed her features, wiping away years of clinical fatigue.

“Maybe I was,” she admitted softly, looking down at her coffee cup. “I spent years wondering what kind of man hides behind anonymous wire transfers and cold threats. I wanted to see if there was a real person underneath all that armor.”

“And now that you’ve seen him?” Dominic asked, his slate-gray eyes softening as he reached out, his warm fingers gently brushing a stray lock of dark hair away from her cheek.

Elena leaned slightly into the touch, her eyes closing for a brief second as she savored the warmth of his hand against her skin.

“He’s stubborn,” she whispered. “He’s dangerous. And he makes terrible coffee dates.”

Dominic let out a low, genuine chuckle—a sound so rare that a passing nurse nearly dropped her clipboard in sheer astonishment.

“Then let me make it up to you,” Dominic said, his thumb lightly tracing her jawline. “Tomorrow night. No hospitals. No little sisters acting as bodyguards. No assassins in parking garages.”