I Can Hear My Paralyzed Billionaire Husband's Thoughts novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Blink Twice

She tells Damian everything while he thinks, finds out he can blink on command, and at two in the morning a stranger swaps his IV bag.

After Rhett left, my hands wouldn't stop shaking.

She tore it up, Damian kept thinking. She actually tore it up. Delaney would have cashed it before he finished the sentence.

I sat down beside the bed and made myself breathe.

I couldn't tell him I could hear him.

But I could talk to him.

"Your cousin scares me," I said quietly. "I've lived with scarier."

I hadn't planned to say more.

It all came out anyway.

I told him my parents adopted Delaney when I was seven, after the doctors told my mother there would be no more children.

I told him Delaney got the big bedroom with the window seat, and I got the basement.

I told him every broken vase and every missing bracelet turned into my fault, and my mother never asked a question first.

"One January she locked me in the garden shed overnight," I said, "because I wore a dress she wanted. My mother said I shouldn't have provoked her."

His thoughts went very still.

Then, slowly: She told me you pushed her down the stairs.

She cried on my shoulder about it. I believed every word.

I looked away from his face, because it didn't change, and I didn't want to wait for it to.

"I never touched her," I said, to the window. "I didn't even know that story existed until today."

Her parents should be in prison, Damian thought, and the words were raw. And I almost married that woman.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist.

Under the bed rail, my hand found his, and I didn't move it away.

I told myself it was for the pillow.

That evening I turned on the ballgame, because he'd been thinking about the Yankees since four.

I called every play wrong on purpose.

"That's a bunt," I said, when the batter hit a double.

That's a double, Clara. It went over the third baseman's head. How can you not see that?

"And now the pitcher is furious at the grass."

You're off the broadcast.

I fed him through the tube at ten and did his exercises at eleven, bending each finger slowly the way the therapist had shown me.

I folded his hand into a little wave, just to see what he'd think.

Do not make me wave at the nurse. I run a company.

I did it again anyway.

She hums when she thinks nobody can hear, he thought, close to midnight. Why did nobody ever tell me that?

My face went hot, and I kept my eyes on his fingers.

On Thursday afternoon I was reading him the market close when his eyelids fluttered.

Twice, and then once more.

Come on. Come on. Can anyone see this? I can move my eyes. I CAN MOVE MY EYES.

I put the paper down so fast it slid off my lap.

I leaned over the bed until my face was a foot from his.

"Damian," I said, carefully. "If you can hear me, blink twice."

His eyelids came down and went up.

They came down and went up again.

She saw it. Oh my God, she saw it.

My vision blurred.

"Once for no," I said. "Twice for yes. Do you understand?"

He blinked twice.

I almost ran for his mother.

I was at the door with my hand on the knob before I stopped.

Rhett had people in this house, and a white keycard that opened every staff door.

If he learned Damian could answer, he would move faster.

"We keep this between us," I said. "Okay?"

Blink. Blink.

Yes, he thought. Please. Just us.

At dinner I asked the day nurse who covered the nights.

"A temp from the agency," she said. "The estate office sends the schedule. It changes every week, so I never know the name."

"Who runs the estate office?"

"Mr. Wicklow's cousin handles all the staffing now," she said, and took her tray away.

I wrote the shift hours on my palm in pen, so I wouldn't forget them.

That night I fell asleep fast for the first time since the wedding.

At two in the morning the door opened.

I was half awake, and I didn't turn my head.

A woman in blue scrubs I had never seen came in with her eyes down.

She didn't say a word.

She hung a fresh IV bag on the pole, pulled the old one off, and left.

She never looked at the monitors, and she never looked at me.

I lay there and watched the door close.

It was only the new night nurse, I told myself.

Then Damian's thoughts hit me so loud that I sat straight up.

That's not my medication.

The label is wrong. I read it. Clara, wake up. Wake UP.

I can't breathe.

CLARA, I'M DYING.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend