The Love I Begged For Was Never Real novel Chapter 320

...

Late that night.

Nora slumped against the edge of the hospital bed, falling into a deep sleep.

The days of intense mental strain and severe sleep deprivation had finally shattered her physical endurance.

She had only intended to rest her eyes for a moment, but listening to the steady, rhythmic breathing of the man on the bed, she irresistibly slipped into a heavy slumber.

Her dreams were consumed by an unshakable darkness.

In the nightmare, Nora curled in on herself, feeling a bone-chilling cold creeping up from the floor tiles, slowly invading every inch of her body.

Just as the frigid air was about to swallow her completely.

A sudden sensation of weightlessness violently shattered the confines of her dream.

The world spun wildly before she collapsed into a broad, soft embrace that smelled of familiar cedarwood.

The steady, powerful rhythm of a man's heartbeat echoed against her ear. The scorching heat of his body seeped through the thin fabric of his clothes, instantly banishing the biting cold of the night.

Nora jolted awake from her deep sleep, her eyes snapping open without warning.

She was locked firmly in Gideon's arms, her head pressed tightly against his broad, muscular chest.

The two of them were tangled together in a highly intimate position on the spacious VIP hospital bed, their body heat mingling beneath a single blanket.

"Gideon..."

Nora frantically pushed herself up, resting her hands against his shoulders as she tried to pull away from his dominant hold. "The wounds on your back haven't fully healed. You can't exert yourself like this..."

It was the first time he had stripped away his invincible armor, allowing her to catch a glimpse of the man beneath the corporate titan—a Gideon burdened by human agony and crushing responsibilities.

She envisioned the orphan in the corner of St. Jude's, staring at a damp, dark wall, covered in scars and utterly lost, without a home to return to.

The image was painfully clear in her mind. So clear that, as she listened to him tell the story, a violent urge had surged in her chest.

She had almost blurted it out.

She desperately wanted to tell him that, back in that dark corner, she had looked up to him with a heart full of hope.

He was the fragile spark she had cherished as a treasure, the light that had kept her going through countless lonely, freezing nights.

She wanted to prove to him that there was more between them than just a cold marriage contract—more than three years of living as strangers, torturing each other.

Long before this, their destinies had already intertwined in countless, invisible ways.