The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 277

Chapter 277

Gemma’s POV

The pressing silence of the hospital room feels like a cage.

The doctor’s orders were clear: one night for observation. I just want to go home, to my own space, to process the earthquake that has toppled everything at once.

But Cassian is playing the part of the dutiful husband, and he’s stubborn as hell.

“I’ll be discharged tomorrow,” I argue. “So why bother with all this tonight? How much can I possibly consume in one night?”

He doesn’t even look up from arranging the array of bottles Adam just delivered. “Eat as much as you can! No pressure.”

I’m speechless. I pick up one of the containers, my eyes scanning the label. “Are these for menopausal women?”

He meets my gaze, utterly serious. “I asked the doctor, and he said you can take them. Your symptoms match.”

My symptoms. The fainting, the pain. He thinks I’m going through menopause?!

The irony is so bitter it chokes me. A hot, furious sense of embarrassment floods my veins. Without a word, I sweep my

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arm across the bedside table, sending the entire collection of supplements clattering to the floor and rolling under the bed,

He shifts his weight, looking like be’s way out of his depth.

“Pick whatever you like, I’ll get it for you.”

I can almost hear his thought process: Illness aside, it’s said that girls feel better after receiving gifts. But who the hell chooses this as a gift?

A cold, sharp laugh escapes me. “I want a divorce. Please get that for me, thanks!”

His jaw tightens. “Except that!”

“Then I want Reyna and her mother’s lives.”

I retort, my voice dripping with sarcastic venom.

He pinches the bridge of his nose with exasperated helplessness.

“Gemma, can you be practical?”

He actually looks offended, as if I have asked him to lasso the moon, not rid me of the human barnacles clinging to our shipwrecked marriage.

“You can’t fulfill any of my requests, Mr. Blackwell,” I mock,

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turning away from him and burrowing under the thin hospital blanket. “If you can’t do it, then don’t try to mimic giving gifts like others do.”

I feel him hovering for a moment before his hands, clumsy with his still–healing injury, fumble with the edges of the blanket, tucking them tightly around me.

The gesture is so at odds with everything that just happened that it makes my throat ache. I squeeze my eyes shut.

The silence is soon shattered by his phone. It’s Adam. I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but his voice carries in the small room. The card…the red sponsorship card. Reyna has returned it.

“Put it on my desk. I’ll pick it up tomorrow,” Cassian instructs before hanging up.

He turns back to me, assuming I’m asleep. “Got the card back.”

He says softly, and I let out a grunt, not opening my eyes.

“I never gave Reyna the card,” he continues, a defensive note creeping into his voice. “She must have taken it by mistake while I was helping her before.”

A sarcastic scoff escapes me before I can stop it. I don’t bother to open my eyes. “Well, isn’t that just convenient? Out of all the cards you have, she decides to pick this one!”

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I hear him sigh. “The card incident was my oversight. I’m sorry that I let it happen on my watch. As for the sponsorship you mentioned, it will officially resume from tomorrow. If you’re worried, we can go to the bank together to sort it out.”

I don’t answer. The apology feels too little, too late, and the secret I now carry makes everything he says feel irrelevant. The silence stretches, and eventually, drift into a fitful sleep.

****

The next morning, I wake up to find a strange weight on my hand.

I shift slightly and feel the warm, solid presence of a body beside my bed. My eyes fly open. Cassian is there, slumped in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair, his head resting on his arms on my mattress, his hand covering mine.

He stayed! Despite everything, he actually stayed.

I pull my hand away as if burned, and the movement wakes him. He blinks awake, his eyes hazy with sleep. “Up already? Hungry? I’ll grab you something.

The food court downstairs offers a dozen easier options, but the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, a ghost of an old craving. “Chocolate and walnut muffins!”

From that specific bakery, the one all the way across town. I

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used to ask him for them, a small hopeful test he always failed. I learned to stop asking. It was too far, too much trouble.

Just as I open my mouth to retract the request, to tell him anything will do, he stands up, fully alert. “From Sunnydale bakery, right? That Meat Loaf place Southside?”

I stare at him, genuinely shocked. He actually remembers? I thought he wouldn’t recall these mundane things I mentioned, the fragments of my life I’d offered him.

“I’ll go buy it for you. Just relax and wait for me to come back,” he says, and he’s out the door before I can form a reply.

He’s gone for hours. By the time he returns, I’m dressed and ready for discharge, my bag packed. He looks dusty and tired, his hair slightly disheveled from the morning traffic.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” I remark, my voice carefully neutral, as if his presence or absence were of no consequence to

1. me.

He simply hands me a warm, grease–spotted paper bag. “It’s hot, enjoy it.”

I take it. The muffin is still warm, the chocolate chips melted. I take a small, polite bite. But my stomach rebels instantly.

The sweetness is unbearable. I had only mentioned it assuming he wouldn’t actually go. But he did, he waited in a line for forty

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minutes and fought through traffic for two hours for a muffin I can no longer stomach.

The symbolism is almost too perfect.

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