Too Late, Mr. Sterling—I’m Marrying Your Rival Chapter 10

“Rhys, no.” I grabbed his arm. “You can’t buy a hospital because of me.”

“I’m not.” He covered my hand with his. “I’m buying the hospital that saved my life. In the town where ! learned to swim. Where my grandmother is buried.” His eyes softened. “That it also keeps Damien Sterling from putting a leash on you? That’s a bonus.”

Calloway Industries submitted its offer forty-eight hours later.

It was double Sterling’s. No conditions. Full funding for ten years. A new trauma wing. Free care for every fisherman’s family in the county.

Harbor Point Regional’s board accepted unanimously.

The whole town found out by dinner. Mrs. O’Leary from the bakery hugged me so hard my ribs popped. “That boy,” she sobbed, “he always did love this place.”

That boy. Everyone here still talked about Rhys like the.skinny kid who used to haul lobster traps for

pocket money every summer.

I was beginning to understand why.

Damien found out the next morning.

He walked into the hospital lobby while I was signing discharge papers. He wasn’t shouting. That was worse. He just looked hollow.

“Calloway,” he said quietly. “Of course it’s Calloway.”

“You tried to buy me,” I said. “He bought a town its future. Can you see the difference?”

He stared at me for a long moment.

Then Rhys stepped out of the elevator. No cane today. Charcoal sweater, healing burns on his forearm, every inch of him steady.

He walked to my side and stopped there. Not in front of me. Beside me.

Damien’s eyes moved between us.

“You’ve wanted her since the Davos summit,” Damien said hoarsely. “I saw how you looked at her.”

“Longer than that,” Rhys said calmly. “You just never noticed. You never noticed anything about her that you didn’t want to change.”

Damien flinched like he’d been slapped.

“She’s not a trophy, Sterling. She’s not a prize I’m winning off you.” Rhys’s voice dropped. “She’s the best surgeon I’ve ever seen. She brought me back twice with her bare hands. And she would’ve done it if I were a stranger. That’s who she is. You had three years to see it.”

Silence fell over the lobby.

Damien looked at me. Really looked, for maybe the first time.

“You’re happy,” he said, like it hurt to speak. “You never looked like that with me.”

“I know,” I said. Gently. Because it was true, and I didn’t need it to be cruel anymore.

His shoulders sank. He turned and walked out through the sliding doors.

I let out a breath I’d been holding for three years.

Rhys’s hand slid into mine. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I looked down at our fingers. “Weirdly, yes.”

That week, Rhys’s recovery went from slow to suspiciously fast.

Before, his wounds kept “acting up.” He’d always have a twinge right when I was about to leave his room. He needed his dressing checked twice a day. Sometimes three.

Now, suddenly, he was jogging the hospital stairs.

“You were faking it,” I said, folding my arms in his doorway. “Weren’t you?”

He had the decency to look guilty. Barely. “Define faking.”

“Rhys Calloway.”

He grinned. “I needed more time. You’d have discharged me, and then I’d have had to think of a reason to see you every day.”

My heart did something stupid and wonderful.

On the night he was officially discharged, the full moon rose over Gull Cove.

I went to his room with one last set of fresh bandages.

It was empty.

His head of security stood by the window, smiling.

“Mr. Calloway asked you to meet him,” he said. “He said you’d know where.”