My Boss's Hidden Heir (Elara and Marcus) novel Chapter 166

Marcus’s POV

The surgical waiting room looked exactly like every other hospital waiting room Marcus had ever seen

Uncomfortable chairs in muted colors, outdated magazines scattered on side tables, a television mounted in the corner playing the news on mute.

Generic landscape paintings on the walls that were probably meant to be calming but just made everything

worse.

Marcus hated it. Hated every single thing about this room and this moment and the fact that his two-day-old son was currently having his chest cracked open so surgeons could repair a heart valve the size of a grain of rice.

He sat with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands, while Elara leaned against him with her head on his shoulder. Neither of them had spoken in almost twenty minutes. There was nothing left to say that hadn’t already been said.

Mimi had gone to get coffee that nobody would drink. Elara’s mother had arrived an hour ago and was currently sitting with Baby A in the NICU, talking to her in a soft voice about how her brother was going to be fine and she’d get to meet him soon.

Marcus wanted to believe that. Wanted to have faith that everything would work out because that’s what happened in stories, the good guys won and babies survived and families stayed intact.

But he’d watched his mother die when he was seventeen and learned the hard way that sometimes bad things happened to good people for no reason at all. Sometimes you did everything right and still lost.

“Stop,” Elara said quietly without lifting her head.

“Stop what?”

“Spiraling. I can feel you spiraling from here.”

Marcus let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Am I that obvious?”

“You get very still when you’re panicking. Most people think it means you’re calm but I know better” Elara shifted so she could look at him. “She’s going to make it. Our son is a fighter like his sister.”

“You don’t know that. Nobody knows that. He’s two and a half pounds, El. He could die on that operating table and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“So we wait. We hope. We trust that Dr. Harrison and her team know what they’re doing.”

“I can’t lose him.” The words came out raw and broken. “I can’t lose either of them. I just found out what it means to be a father and if he dies I don’t know how I’m supposed to come back from that.”

Elara took his hand and pressed it against her chest where he could feel her heartbeat. “Then hold onto me. Hold onto the fact that I’m here and Baby A is stable and we’ve survived everything else that’s been thrown at

17:03 Mon, May 11 M…

Chapter 166

us We’ll survive this too.”

:

2)

50 vouchers

Marcus wanted to believe her. But sitting in this waiting room while his son’s life hung in the balance, all the corporate victories and personal triumphs felt hollow. What did any of it matter if he couldn’t keep his children safe?

The television in the corner caught his attention. A news anchor was talking silently, her expression serious, and below her the chyron read: BREAKING: Penelope Thorne arrested in connection with 15-year-old hit- and-run death.

So it was already public, probably Penelope’s entire life story being picked apart by reporters and social media. Marcus should feel satisfied. Should feel vindicated that the woman who’d destroyed his family was finally facing consequences.

2)

to-day. I’ll stay on as chairman of the board, make the big decisions, but I won’t be living at the office anymore. I want to be home for dinner. I want to do bath time and bedtime stories. I want to be the kind of father my dad was before my mother died, back when family actually came first.”

“Your grandfather built Thorne Dynamics from nothing. He wanted it to stay in the family.”

56

“And it will. Our children will inherit it someday when they’re ready. But right now they need a father more than they need a CEO.” Marcus pulled Elara closer, careful of her incision. “I spent so many years thinking the company was my legacy, that proving myself worthy of my grandfather’s vision was the most important thing I could do. But sitting here, I realize the only legacy that actually matters is the one I build with you. These kids, this family, making sure they know they’re loved and safe and more important than any business deal.”

Elara was crying now, tears running down her face. “What if he doesn’t make it? What if we’re sitting here making plans for a future that never happens?”

“Then we grieve. And we hold onto each other and our daughter and we find a way to keep going. But I have to believe he’s going to make it, El. I have to believe that after everything we’ve been through, we get our happy ending.”

The waiting room door opened and both Marcus and Elara jumped to their feet. Dr. Harrison walked in still wearing surgical scrubs, her mask pulled down around her neck.

Marcus felt his heart stop. This was it. The moment that would define the rest of their lives.

“Mr. and Mrs. Thorne,” Dr. Harrison said, and Marcus couldn’t tell from her tone if she was about to deliver good news or devastating news.

“Is he alive?” Elara asked, her voice breaking on the last word.

Dr. Harrison’s expression softened into something that might have been a smile. “The surgery was successful.”

17:03 Mon, May 11