The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 449

Chapter 449
Gemma's POV

If the look on his face is anything to go by, he thinks I’ve completely lost my mind. The Thousand and One Nights? In his world, that’s a book for children, for bedtime stories, not for a soldier facing neurosurgery.

“Yeah!” I insist, my voice overly bright. “Don’t you think the stories are really inspiring?” They’re about cunning, survival, delaying doom with wit—maybe exactly what he needs right now, though I don’t say that part.

Mikhail looks like he wants to laugh but suppresses it. Instead, he just settles back against the pillows, a faint, resigned smile on his lips, and gestures for me to begin.

So I read. My Russian pronunciation is precise, my pacing clear. I get through a couple of tales—Scheherazade buying another night, a clever thief outwitting a king. After the second one, he interrupts.

“Why don’t you try reading in Arabic?”

The request surprises me. I’d mentioned I knew it once, ages ago, when we first met. I’d used it to insult him for his sexism from the back of his jeep. He’d remembered not the insult, but the sound of the language.

My Arabic is… rusty. I studied it hard in college, then dove into another regional language after marrying Cassian, trying to be the perfect corporate wife for his expanding empire. Cassian’s own Russian, ironically, was barely passable. All that effort, all those verb conjugations, and for what? To never use them.

I clear my throat, suddenly self-conscious. “If my pronunciation isn’t perfect, just bear with it.”

I switch languages. The first few sentences are halting, the unfamiliar muscles in my mouth struggling to shape the sounds. But then, something unlocks. The rhythm returns. The stories flow—the Merchant and the Djinn, the Fisherman and the Jinni—my voice finding a new cadence in the ancient, flowing syllables. It’s far from the imperfect mess I’d warned him about.

Mikhail listens, his earlier tension visibly easing. He even looks impressed. “You could be a broadcaster in Arabia,” he murmurs.

I read several more, my throat growing dry, my eyes tired. But when I finally stop and look at him, he’s wide awake, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity that’s unnerving.

“Aren’t you going to sleep?” I ask. His alertness makes me feel like the one scheduled for the knife at dawn.

“I can’t sleep.”

I’m at a loss. What more can I do? Read all thousand and one nights?

Just then, a soft knock at the door breaks the stalemate. We both turn.

Linda stands in the doorway. She looks fragile, uneasy, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. “Mikhail… Can I come in?”

My surprise must show on my face. Linda? Here? In Florisdale? At this hospital? The logistics and the sheer improbability of it are staggering.

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