"Massima's hands are important!" Nico's voice thundered through the boutique, silencing everyone. "She's a doctor!"
I stared in disbelief.
That was the longest sentence he'd spoken in two years.
And not a single word was about me.
He pushed through the crowd of onlookers and climbed into the ambulance without looking back, without a single glance at the woman who had given him everything.
I slumped against a nearby display rack, gasping for air. Every breath tugged at the wound on my back, sharpening the agony into something almost unbearable. Blood continued to seep through my fingers where I pressed them against the gash.
I couldn't tell which hurt more—my body or my heart.
Hadn't I given up my own place in the Family's medical network for him? Hadn't I walked away from the operating table, from the work that had given my life meaning, because he needed a wife who would be present, devoted, available?
How was she more important?
What did that make me?
My lips twitched into something that might have been a smile—or a grimace of pure, crystallized grief.
So that's all I was. A friend.
Then the pain dragged me under, and the world dissolved into merciful darkness.