The CEO Uncle Who Loved Me First

Chapter 5: The Hospital Only the Blackwoods Use

Aurora woke to white light.

For a moment, she did not know where she was.

The ceiling above her was smooth, clean, and unfamiliar. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and something floral, too subtle to be cheap. Somewhere nearby, a machine beeped with soft, even patience.

Her head hurt.

Not the sharp pain of the impact anymore, but a deep, pulsing ache that seemed to sit behind her eyes. When she tried to move, the room tilted.

“Careful.”

A young nurse appeared beside the bed and caught Aurora’s wrist before she could sit up. “Don’t move too quickly. You still have an IV.”

Aurora lowered her gaze.

A clear line ran into the back of her hand. Her left sleeve had been rolled up. There was a bandage on her forehead, tight enough to remind her that the wound was real.

The memories returned in pieces.

The ruined wedding dress.

Everett’s hand on her wrist.

The coffee table.

Blood.

The road.

The black car.

A cold voice ordering her not to move.

Aurora closed her eyes for a second.

“You were in a car accident,” the nurse said gently. “Do you remember?”

Aurora opened her eyes again. “A little.”

“You rear-ended another vehicle. Luckily, the scans don’t show anything serious. Mild concussion, bruising, and the cut on your forehead. The doctor wants you to stay under observation until tomorrow.”

Aurora’s brows drew together.

“I rear-ended someone?”

“Yes.”

A dull sense of horror pushed through the fog in her head.

Right.

She had hit someone.

That black Rolls-Royce.

Aurora tried again to sit up, slower this time. The nurse adjusted the pillow behind her and helped her lean back.

“Was the other driver hurt?” Aurora asked.

“No. As far as I know, no one else was injured.”

Relief loosened her chest, only to be replaced by another kind of panic when she looked around the room properly.

The bed was wide, the sheets impossibly soft, the sofa near the window upholstered in pale gray fabric. Fresh flowers sat on a side table. The bathroom door was open just enough for her to see marble.

This was not an ordinary hospital room.

Aurora looked at the nurse.

“Where am I?”

“St. Gabriel Medical Center.”

Aurora went still.

Of course.

Of all hospitals, it had to be St. Gabriel Medical Center.

Even people outside the city’s elite circles knew the name. St. Gabriel Medical Center belonged to the Blackwood family. It was technically open to the public, but most ordinary patients never came here unless they had a very generous insurance plan, a powerful recommendation, or more money than they knew what to do with.

It served Blackwood family members, senior executives from Blackwood Group, and the kind of people who never waited in public emergency rooms.

Aurora’s first thought was not gratitude.

It was the bill.

She looked down at the IV line. “How much is this going to cost?”

The nurse seemed to read her expression and smiled. “Don’t worry. Your expenses have already been covered.”

Aurora blinked. “Covered by whom?”

“The gentleman who brought you in.”

“The man I hit?”

The nurse nodded. “He was very considerate. He told us you should stay at least one night for observation.”

Aurora stared at her.

She had crashed into his car, and he had sent her to one of the most expensive private hospitals in the city.

Either he was exceptionally kind, or exceptionally rich.

Possibly both.

“Do you know his name?” Aurora asked.

The nurse shook her head. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t given his full information.”

Aurora hesitated. “Then do you know his last name?”

“No.” The nurse checked the drip with practiced hands. “But when you were brought in, the hospital director came down personally.”

Aurora’s fingers tightened around the blanket.

The director of St. Gabriel Medical Center had personally received her.

That was not kindness.

That was power.

Aurora looked toward the window. Evening had fallen outside, turning the glass dark enough that she could see her own pale reflection in it.

Blood had been cleaned from her face. Her hair had been brushed back. The bandage made her look fragile, almost unlike herself.

She hated it.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Press the call button if you feel dizzy or nauseated,” the nurse reminded her. “The doctor will check on you again later.”

Aurora nodded.

After the nurse left, the room became too quiet.

Aurora leaned back against the pillow and lifted her right hand carefully to touch the edge of the bandage.

Everett had caused the first injury.

The crash had made it worse.

And some stranger connected to the Blackwood family had paid her hospital bill.

She did not know whether to call that luck or humiliation.

Her phone was on the bedside table. Someone must have placed it there for her. The screen was dark.

For a while, Aurora did not reach for it.

She already knew there would be no missed calls she wanted to see.

At least not from anyone who mattered.

The black Rolls-Royce Phantom moved smoothly through the evening traffic.

Grant Hayes kept both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road.

This time, he did not dare glance at the rearview mirror too often.

Lucian Blackwood sat in the back seat, one leg crossed over the other, his coat draped neatly beside him. He had changed nothing about his posture since leaving St. Gabriel Medical Center. If anyone had seen him now, they would never guess that less than an hour ago he had carried a blood-covered woman out of a wrecked sedan with his own hands.

Grant knew better.

He had worked for Lucian long enough to understand that stillness did not mean indifference.

Sometimes it meant danger.

But curiosity was a terrible thing.

After the third time his eyes flicked upward, Lucian spoke without opening his eyes.

“Is there something on my face?”

Grant’s spine stiffened.

“No, sir.”

“Then watch the road.”

“Yes, sir.”

Silence returned.

Grant lasted half a minute.

Then, because he valued his job but apparently not enough to suppress every question in his head, he said, “The hospital confirmed Miss Bennett’s condition is stable.”

Lucian’s eyes opened.

Grant immediately regretted speaking.

Lucian looked out the window. His voice was calm. “I know.”

“The director said she should stay overnight.”

“Good.”

Another silence.

Grant swallowed. “Should we notify anyone?”

Lucian’s gaze shifted back to him.

Grant quickly added, “Her family. Or Mr. Stone.”

The temperature inside the car seemed to drop.

“No,” Lucian said.

Grant did not ask again.

He had no idea who Aurora Bennett was to Lucian, but he now understood one thing clearly.

She was not to be treated like an ordinary stranger.

The car continued toward the Blackwood estate, its black exterior swallowing the reflections of streetlights as evening deepened.

Today was Mrs. Blackwood’s birthday dinner. Lucian had returned to the country that afternoon after spending most of the year abroad. His schedule had been planned down to the minute: airport, car, estate, dinner.

The accident had not been planned.

The woman with blood on her face had not been planned.

Lucian glanced down at his phone.

A brief administrative update from St. Gabriel Medical Center waited on the screen.

Patient stable. No life-threatening injuries.

His gaze lingered on the message before shifting to the memory of Aurora behind the wheel. The blood on her forehead had already begun to dry before the collision, darker at the edges than the fresh streak caused by the crash.

She had been hurt before she hit his car.

Lucian’s expression did not change, but something in his eyes went cold.

By the time the Rolls-Royce entered the long private drive leading to the Blackwood estate, the house was already lit for the evening.

It was not a house so much as a statement.

Stone façade. Tall windows. Old trees framing the drive. Security discreet enough to look invisible and extensive enough that no one entered without permission.

Inside, the birthday dinner had already begun its slow orbit around the same subject that had occupied the Blackwood family for years.

Lucian.

“He landed this afternoon?” one of the relatives asked.

Mrs. Blackwood sat at the head of the sitting room sofa, dressed in a dark emerald gown, her silver hair pinned elegantly. She smiled, but her eyes kept drifting toward the entrance.

“This afternoon,” she said. “He should be here soon.”

Mr. Blackwood gave a dry snort from the armchair beside her. “Soon. That boy’s definition of soon depends on which continent he’s on.”

A few relatives laughed.

No one laughed too loudly.

Lucian Blackwood was the youngest son of the family, but no one made the mistake of treating him like the youngest anything. He controlled Blackwood Group in practice if not always in title, and his name could silence a boardroom faster than a legal threat.

He was private, precise, and impossible to read.

He also remained unmarried.

That fact, in Mrs. Blackwood’s opinion, was the root of several family problems.

A cousin leaned closer and lowered her voice as if the walls in the Blackwood estate did not hear everything.

“Is it true he still refuses to meet anyone?”

Mrs. Blackwood’s smile thinned. “Lucian refuses many things.”

“But at his age—”

Mr. Blackwood cut in with a look. “At his age, he runs half the family’s assets better than the rest of you combined. Let him refuse what he likes.”

The cousin immediately went quiet.

Across the room, Everett Stone’s mother sat with a composed smile.

She was a Blackwood by blood, though not close enough to stand at the center of power. Still, she had never loosened her ties to the family. Her son Everett had grown up knowing exactly what the Blackwood name meant.

It meant doors opened.

It meant people lowered their voices.

It meant even the Stone family, wealthy and respected as it was, did not compare.

The conversation shifted.

“Everett’s wedding is next month, isn’t it?” Mrs. Blackwood asked.

Everett’s mother smiled politely, though not with much warmth. “Yes. To the Bennett family’s biological daughter.”

There was a slight pause after biological daughter.

Someone noticed.

Mr. Blackwood raised an eyebrow. “You don’t sound pleased.”

“It isn’t that,” Everett’s mother said smoothly. “The arrangement was set long ago. It’s just… the girl grew up outside the Bennett family. In a children’s home, I believe. It’s difficult to know what habits someone brings with them after that.”

Mrs. Blackwood’s expression cooled by a fraction.

Before she could respond, a staff member entered.

“Mr. Everett Stone has arrived.”

Everett came in moments later, dressed in a dark suit, his expression controlled, his manners flawless. Nothing about him suggested that earlier that day, his fiancée had bled in her own family’s living room while he stood protecting another woman.

He greeted the elders respectfully and presented Mrs. Blackwood with a gift box.

“A small birthday gift,” he said. “I hope you like it.”

Mrs. Blackwood opened the box to reveal a finely carved jade bracelet, green and luminous beneath the light.

“How thoughtful,” she said.

Everett gave a modest smile. “I’m glad you like it.”

The compliment eased the tension in his shoulders slightly.

Only slightly.

He was late, and he knew it. Cecilia had taken longer than expected to comfort. She had cried until her fever rose, then insisted she did not deserve to go to the hospital because she had upset Aurora. Everett had spent nearly an hour coaxing her before coming here.

Aurora’s bloodied face flickered through his mind.

He pushed it away.

She had always been stubborn.

She would calm down.

At seven, the front doors opened again.

This time, conversation in the room died naturally.

Lucian Blackwood walked in.

He wore a black suit without a single unnecessary detail. His glasses softened nothing. The light above caught briefly on the gold rims as he stepped into the room, his expression calm enough to be unreadable and cold enough to make several people sit straighter without realizing it.

“Mother,” he said.

Mrs. Blackwood’s face brightened despite herself. “You finally came.”

Lucian gave her a small box. “I saw this at an auction. It suited you.”

She opened it.

Inside lay a rare imperial-green jade bracelet, deeper and more vivid than the one Everett had given her, its surface glowing like water under spring light.

For a moment, even Mrs. Blackwood was silent.

Then she put it on immediately.

Mr. Blackwood coughed once, but the corner of his mouth lifted.

Everett looked at the bracelet.

Then at the gift he had brought.

His smile did not move, but something stiffened behind it.

Mrs. Blackwood, either out of kindness or amusement, lifted both wrists slightly.

“This year is excellent,” she said. “Two beautiful bracelets.”

Lucian glanced at Everett’s gift, then at his mother. “If you like them, wear them on different days.”

A few people smiled.

Everett did not.

The family moved toward dinner.

Seats were taken according to a hierarchy no one needed to explain. Lucian sat near his mother, but once he settled, his gaze did not go to the elders first.

It went to Everett.

Everett felt it immediately.

A strange pressure crawled up his spine.

He straightened before he could stop himself.

Lucian’s face remained expressionless.

Everett knew that look. Everyone who moved anywhere near the Blackwood family knew that look. Lucian Blackwood did not need to raise his voice to make a person feel measured, sorted, and found lacking.

Everett set down his glass.

Then he lowered his head slightly.

“Uncle Lucian.”