After she left, Maya sank back against the pillows. “She hates me.”
Taylor sat on the edge of the chair. “No. She’s just honest.”
“Is that your favorite quality in women now?”
His mouth curved faintly. “I’m starting to think it might be.”
She looked at him then, really looked. He had not slept. He had not shaved. He was still wearing the shirt from last night, sleeves rolled now, collar open, tie missing, expensive watch dull in the hospital light. He looked stripped of all the things that usually made him seem invulnerable. Underneath was a man she was only beginning to recognize.
“Why are you here?” she asked again, but this time the question was smaller, less defensive. More frightened.
Taylor leaned back and answered just as quietly. “Because when they took you behind that curtain, I realized there was no version of my life I wanted that didn’t include you in it.”
Maya closed her eyes.
It would have been easier if he were lying.
Three days later, she left the hospital with a folder of instructions, two updated prescriptions, a blood pressure monitor in a paper bag, and the unnerving sense that something fundamental had shifted while she was lying still.
Taylor drove her home himself. No driver. No assistant. Just the black sedan, the city moving around them in spring light, and his hand on the wheel at ten and two like a man who needed an occupation for nerves he refused to name.
When they reached the penthouse, Maya stopped in the entryway.
It had changed.
Not the architecture. Not the expensive bones of the place. But the counters that had once held decorative bowls and useless sculptural objects were now lined with groceries: fresh vegetables, brown rice, citrus, salmon wrapped in butcher paper, containers of yogurt, oats, beans, herbs, eggs, almond butter, tea. The pantry door stood open to reveal shelves cleared of half the glossy nonsense that had accumulated there in favor of actual food. On the kitchen island sat a stack of cookbooks, a folder labeled CARDIAC NUTRITION, and a legal pad covered with neat columns.
In the corner near the terrace doors, a treadmill had appeared.
Maya turned slowly. “What did you do?”
Taylor took the hospital bag from her hand. “I made room.”
“This is… ridiculous.”
“It’s a start.”
“You bought a treadmill.”
“Yes.”
“For your penthouse.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him. “You don’t even use your own gym.”
“That seemed less relevant today than it did last week.”
She almost laughed despite herself, then stopped because the sound threatened tears. “Taylor, this is too much.”
He set the bag down on the counter. “No, it’s not enough. Enough would be going back eight months and making sure you never had to handle this alone.”
The words were so direct they left her defenseless for a moment.
He continued, quieter now. “I also called a nutritionist and a cardiology-oriented trainer Dr. Lee recommended. They’re not starting until you approve them, and if you hate either of them, they’re gone. I cleared my morning schedule for the next month. I can shift more if I need to.”
Maya blinked. “You cleared a month.”
“I own the company.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“It is when people are afraid of disappointing me.”
She shook her head. “This is temporary. You’re reacting.”
“Probably.” He held her gaze. “I’m still doing it.”
The first week home was humiliating.
Not because Taylor was cruel. He wasn’t. That would have been easier to resist. The humiliation came from slowness. From needing help in ways she hated. From walking ten minutes and feeling winded. From sitting at the kitchen island while a nutritionist named Elena, warm-eyed and unsentimental, asked careful questions about food, routine, fatigue, emotional triggers, sleep. From seeing her own habits mapped without judgment and therefore without an easy enemy.
