The Name My Fiancé Didn't Want Me to Hear
Chapter 02 - The Name My Fiancé Didn't Want Me to Hear
Daniel pushed my wheelchair away from the table before I'd even paid the bill.
"Stop."
He kept moving.
"Daniel, stop!"
People turned.
His hands immediately left the chair.
That was the thing about Daniel. He hated scenes.
Especially scenes he couldn't control.
"I'm trying to protect you," he said quietly.
"From a ten-year-old boy?"
"You don't know who he is."
"Neither do you."
Daniel didn't answer.
That silence told me everything.
I twisted around.
The boy was still standing near the table.
"What's your name?" I called.
"Eli!"
Daniel's jaw tightened.
"Eli what?"
The waiter moved between us, but the boy leaned sideways.
"Eli Carter!"
Daniel pushed my chair again.
This time, I locked the wheels.
He stared down at me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
I hadn't heard that tone from him since the hospital.
Back then, I'd been too broken to question it.
I had awakened after the crash unable to feel anything below my hips. Daniel had been at my bedside every morning. He answered questions when I was too exhausted. Signed paperwork when my hands shook. Called doctors when I cried.
Everyone said I was lucky.
My parents were dead. I had no siblings.
Daniel became my family.
My protector.
My voice.
But sitting there in the afternoon sunlight, I realized something that should have frightened me long before.
Daniel had become almost everyone's point of contact.
Doctors.
Lawyers.
My company's board.
Even my physical therapists.
"When did you meet that boy?" I asked.
"I didn't."
"Then why did you react when he gave me his name?"
"I didn't react."
"You did."
Daniel crouched beside me.
His expression softened.
That familiar tenderness returned.
"Claire, you've been through enough. Don't let some street kid fill your head with fantasies because he saw a muscle spasm."
There it was.
The logical explanation.
The reasonable explanation.
The Daniel explanation.
That evening, he poured me wine and talked about our wedding.
I barely listened.
At midnight, Daniel fell asleep beside me.
I quietly pulled back the blanket.
My right foot lay motionless.
I stared at my big toe.
Move.
Nothing.
I closed my eyes.
I remembered Eli.
Your foot moved.
I tried again.
This time, I felt something.
Not movement.
Something smaller.
A faint pressure.
A sensation I had been told I would never feel again.
My eyes opened.
May you like
And on the bed beside me, Daniel was no longer asleep.
He was watching me.
