The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 455

Chapter 455
Cassian's POV 

The flight is a blur of impatient time zones and weak coffee. I land in Florisdale in the harsh afternoon light, the humidity a physical weight after the plane’s sterile chill. There’s no pause, no stop. The driver I arranged knows the destination: the hospital. My mind is a single, focused track.

At the reception desk, my questions are terse. I get the operating theater number and head for the elevators, my footsteps echoing in the sterile, quiet hallways.

I find the corridor outside the OR. And there she is. Gemma. Sitting on one of those awful vinyl chairs, her posture both tense and weary. She’s staring at her phone, the glow illuminating the tired lines under her eyes. She’s looking for a place to stay, I realize, scrolling through listings. She doesn’t want my house. The sting of that rejection is familiar, almost comforting in its predictability.

Then her phone rings. Molly. I hear the murmur of her voice, calm, professional. “Mikhail is already in surgery.” A pause. “Send the details to my phone.” She’s working. Even here, in this limbo, she’s anchored to her world, the one she built without me.

She opens a file, her brow furrowed in concentration. The sight of her, so absorbed, so utterly here and yet a thousand miles away from me, cracks something open. The distance I’ve traveled, the ocean I’ve crossed, condenses into a single, driving need.

“Gemma!”

The name leaves my lips before I can temper it. She doesn’t look up. A soft, almost incredulous laugh escapes her. She thinks she’s hearing things. My heart clenches. Has my presence become such a phantom to her?

I take the final steps. My shadow falls over her phone screen. She sees the black leather of my shoes. Slowly, hesitantly, her gaze travels upward, over the line of my trousers, my coat, until it meets mine. Her eyes widen, genuine shock wiping away the tired concentration. For a fleeting second, there’s no guard, no resentment. Just pure, unvarnished surprise.

“You…” she starts, but the sentence dies.

I don’t let her finish. The urge is too powerful, too primal. I go down on one knee, not in proposal, but in supplication. My arms wrap around her, pulling her into me. She’s stiff, unyielding, a statue in my embrace. I hold her anyway, burying my face in the softness of her hair, inhaling the scent that is uniquely, painfully her. I feel the rapid flutter of her heartbeat against my chest. For a long moment, neither of us moves. The world narrows to this chair, this hallway, this fragile, captured moment.

When I finally release her, leaning back to see her face, she’s staring at me as if I’ve materialized from another dimension.

“Shouldn’t you be back home?” Her voice is a whisper, strained.

The truth is simple, stripped of all strategy. “I couldn’t stop worrying about you.”

*

Gemma’s POV

I press my lips together, a futile attempt to contain the turmoil inside. His reason is too simple. Too bare. It offers no ledge to argue from.

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