Chapter 3

Lenora’s POV

Panic hits, and I push past them, knocking Tatum off balance.

I’ve barely stepped into the elevator when Callum yanks me back out.

“Apologize to her.”

His grip tightens as he points to her perfectly uninjured arm.

I choke back a cry, cold sweat breaking out across my forehead.

He pauses, follows my gaze, and finally looks at my hand.

Someone stepped on it in the scramble for my dress. Now his yank has pulled my already injured wrist out of place, and my hand hangs at an unnatural angle.

His breath catches. “I didn’t mean to...”

“Callum, what’s the one thing a surgeon can’t afford to lose?”

He says nothing, his lips going pale.

Once, a patient’s relative came at me with a knife. Callum stepped in front of me and took the blade for me.

“As long as you’re okay,” he told me. “We’ve gotta protect those hands.”

After we got together, he did all the housework. If there was anything he could do for me, he wouldn’t let me lift a finger.

He was always telling me how precious a surgeon’s hands were, how careful I had to be with them.

“I’m gonna spend the rest of my life treating you this well, Nora. You’ll never wanna leave me.”

I believed him, right up until Tatum came back to the States three months ago.

Since then, nothing in my life has been the same.

“Forget it,” Tatum says, waving a hand. “I’m not that fragile, so I’m gonna let that slide.”

I turn and get into the elevator. They follow me in.

“Your dress is fixed,” Callum says. “Let’s finish the ceremony before we go get them.”

“It’s not like your parents are there, anyway.”

My parents died in a car accident the year I met him.

“Callum, you only treat me like this because my parents are dead.”

He drops his gaze without answering, cancels the parking level, and presses the button for the ballroom floor.

I press the parking button again.

“You and Tatum let a bunch of hired extras grope me, and you still think I’m gonna marry you?”

His head snaps up.

“You know they’re extras? Who told you?”

He meets my eyes, then closes his own with a sigh.

“My family refused to come. I just didn’t want you to be disappointed.”

Tatum claps him on the shoulder. “He practically cut off his family for you, you know.”

For a long moment, I don’t know what to say.

No one thought we’d make it this far. Even I had doubts, and I can’t pretend Callum didn’t fight for us.

I turned him down twice before I finally accepted his ring.

It was the first time I’d heard his voice break.

“You’re stuck with me now, Nora.”

He didn’t let go of my hand for the rest of that day.

“Callum, send someone to bring my family and friends back safely.”

Then maybe I can think about forgiving you.

“No way. Cal and I have a bet going.”

Tatum leans against his shoulder, glaring at me.

“If they row back on their own, I win. If they call for help, he wins.”

“You can’t tell him to send help before they ask. That’s cheating, and it ruins the whole thing.”

“Learn to play along. Same with the dress: Cal’s the one paying, so what did you even lose?”

She keeps grumbling.

“Calling it groping, seriously? I thought you could take a joke, unlike the girl before you.”

“If you knew Cal and I spent the other night cuddling naked to see who could go the longest without making a move...”

“Enough, Tatum.”

She huffs but shuts up.

“Tatum knows her limits,” Callum says, looking away from me. “Have a little faith in your family.”

Whatever hope I still have that he’ll help them is gone.