Jonnas finally looked at her fully. “Then why file it?”
“Because hospitals protect themselves first.” Bitterness edged her voice now. “And because if I didn’t file it internally, someone else would’ve taken it external.” She held his gaze steadily. “This way I could control the investigation.” His angercooled slightly at that, not completely, but enough to think clearly again.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Jessica sighed. “The board interviews both of you. HR reviews timelines, reporting structures, ethics policies—” She hesitated. “And they’ll probably offer Dani a transfer.”
Rage hit instantly. “No.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “That’s the part you’re angry about?”
“She loves her department,” he said.
“She also slept with her administrator,” Jessica reminded. The bluntness stung because technically she wasn’t wrong.
“She’s not being punished for this,” he insisted.
Jessica’s expression softened slightly again. “Jonnas?—"
“No.” His voice sharpened. “She already thinks she’s ruining my life. I’m not letting them make her feel disposable, too.” Something flickered across Jessica’s face then. Understanding, maybe, or maybe even respect.
“God,” she muttered quietly. “You really love her.” Jonnas looked past the glass walls of his office toward the busy hospital floor below. Everything he’d spent years building existed here. His career, his reputation, his future, and somehow none of it felt as important anymore as the woman currently sleeping in a cabin three hours away, carrying his child. The realization should’ve terrified him; instead, it made him calmer.
His phone buzzed softly against the desk with a text from Dani.
Dani: I miss you.
The breath left his lungs instantly. Jessica watched the entire change happen across his face. “Oh,” she whispered softly.
Jonnas stared at the message for a long second before typing back immediately.
Jonnas: I’m counting the hours until I get back to you.
Three dots appeared almost instantly
Dani: Be careful driving. It’s storming again.
His chest physically ached. Because even now, she worried about him first.
Jessica stood slowly from the chair. “You know,” she said quietly, “most people spend years trying to find someone who loves them like that.” Jonnas looked down at the text again—at the tenderness hidden inside something so simple.
Be careful driving.
And suddenly he realized something that made everything else feel smaller. The hospital investigation wasn’t the real conflict anymore. The real battle was convincing Dani to marry him, because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
By the third day of driving back and forth between the hospital and the cabin, Jonnas was running almost entirely on caffeine, anger, and whatever terrifying emotion Dani had turned him into. He didn’t care.
Every night he drove back to her, and every morning he left before sunrise with her sleepy and wrapped around him, like letting go physically hurt her. Honestly, he felt the same.
“You look awful.” Jonnas glanced up from the boardroom table as Elias walked in carrying coffee.
“You’re my best friend,” Jonnas muttered. “Try lying occasionally.”
“You haven’t slept, have you?” Elias asked.
“Haven’t had time for sleep,” Jonnas said.
Elias set the coffee down in front of him before taking the seat beside him. “How’s Dani?”