He paced until he saw Roni walk out of the room. Turning to her, afraid of what she might be coming to tell him, he held his breath. She shook her head. “I’m just going to go update everyone out in the waiting room that nothing’s changed.”

Abel nodded, a bit relieved, but at the same time let down that it wasn’t good news. Not wanting Nellie to be alone for even a few minutes, he walked back in her room and stood at the side of her bed. His entire chest ached to see her like this. He closed his eyes, trying desperately to keep it together. As soon as he opened his eyes, a blinking light near where he’d been sitting earlier, got his attention. The screen on Nellie’s phone lit up, and with it once again, so did his insides.

Walking toward it, he could see that Roni must’ve left the phone on silent, because it wasn’t even buzzing. But there was no doubt a call was coming in, and as he got closer, his suspicion about who it might be was confirmed. The three letters flashed on the screen just below the green incoming call indicator: Sam.

Without the slightest hesitation, he picked up the phone and answered. For the sake of not blowing up in Nellie’s hospital room, he did his best to remain calm. “What do you want, Sam?”

He walked out of the room and was glad to see Roni on her way back to Nellie’s room. She saw him on the phone, but didn’t seem to realize that it was Nellie’s phone he was on. She didn’t comment. She just smiled faintly before walking past him and into Nellie’s room.

The silence on the other end went on a bit long until he finally heard Sam’s voice. “Is this Ayala?”

“It is. What do you want?” Abel’s hands were already fisting, but he wouldn’t give this guy the satisfaction of hearing him lose it, so he did his best to remain calm.

“I want to apologize to Nellie,” Sam said, clearing his throat. “I won’t lie. My intentions going into this were every bit as despicable as I’m sure you both are thinking. It was all about getting to you with no regard for her feelings. But halfway through it, as I got to know her, I had a change of heart. Nellie . . . She’s different. I connected with her in a way I never expected.”

Abel gripped the phone, breathing deeply. Unbelievably, what Sam was saying now, as unexpected as it was, was worse than what he had expected.

“She’s one of the sweetest and sincerest women I’ve ever met, and she’s—”

“Mine,” Abel informed him very firmly, his calm beginning to unravel as he walked further away from Nellie’s room in case Sam said anything that might make him lose it. “She’s mine, Sam. So you listen very closely because you only get this warning once. I have not and will not waste even an ounce of energy entertaining the bullshit stories you and your brothers are trying to—”

“But that’s just it. I didn’t—”

“I don’t give a shit about your change of heart, ass**le!”

Abel pushed the door into the waiting room before he got kicked out of the ICU, because he was done staying calm. If this conversation were taking place in person, Sam would already be on the ground. His friends all looked up at him as he stormed through the waiting room and out the exit.

“And I don’t give a f**k what kind of connection you think you had with her. She’s with me now. You hear that? You blew whatever chance you might’ve had with her, and now it’s me you’re gonna have to go through if you want to so have so much as a conversation with her. It’s not happening.”

“I know I blew it,” Sam said, exhaling loudly as if Abel could even for a second feel any sympathy for the guy. “I just want to apologize to her because—”

“Did you hear what I just said,” Abel demanded loudly. Then through his teeth he reiterated,” It’s. Not. Happening.”

“Okay.” To Abel’s surprise that was Sam’s only defeated response. But even more surprising was what followed. “Then let me apologize to you. It was a shitty thing to do, and at first, I genuinely agreed with my brother and his publicist that this all came with the territory and was part of the game. I was all for it. In hindsight and after the way things went down, I won’t ever be a part of anything like that again. I truly am sorry.”

Abel took a breath and brought his hand to his forehead. He didn’t want to hate Sam, and he knew all about overzealous publicists with only one thing in mind. But knowing Sam and his brothers may very well be responsible for Nellie being in the ICU right now, it was all he felt for him—he loathed them all. But he didn’t want to be a total dick about it since the guy was apologizing and did sound sincere. Now that he’d made only thing that mattered clear to this guy, he just wanted to get off the phone and get back to Nellie.

“As long as neither of us ever hears from you again, we’re straight.”

Sam agreed without further argument, and Abel cut the call there. He rushed back to Nellie’s room only to find everything exactly as it was. The waiting was torture. Roni had already walked out once to update everyone again that they still knew nothing.

Finally, an older balding doctor walked in and gave them the grim prognosis. “The good news is she wasn’t alone when she went into respiratory arrest. The attendant at the hotel she was checking in at called the paramedics immediately. There’s a tiny window of five to six minutes in which the brain can be without oxygen before damage begins. The medics arrived in less than four and started administrating rescue procedures.”