His Beautiful Ruin

CHAPTER 5

ZAYED — MIDNIGHT

The house was quiet by midnight.

I preferred it this way. The day belonged to other people — their demands, their problems, their inability to resolve anything without bringing it to me first. The night was mine. The only hours I moved through without someone needing something.

I poured a glass of water in the kitchen and stood at the window and looked at the bay.

Darius appeared in the doorway. Of course he did.

"You should sleep," he said.

"Thank you, Darius."

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"I know." I didn't turn around. "Go home."

"Not until you—"

"Go home," I said again. Quietly. The way I said things when I meant them completely.

A pause. "She's still awake."

I said nothing.

"What did you intend to do with her," he asked.

"She's not your concern."

"Keeping her here is risky, boss."

I turned around. Looked at him.

He looked back with the particular expression of a man who knew exactly where a line was and had decided to stand directly on it.

"Goodnight, Darius," I said.

He left.

I looked at the ceiling for a moment.

Then I picked up my glass and walked upstairs.

___

I knocked twice. I don’t usually do this, I guess this is my first time. I am only trying to be a gentleman.

I knocked again.

"I'm sleeping," she said. Clearly not sleeping.

"You answered."

A pause. "What do you want."

"Open the door, Dr. Reyes."

"I'm comfortable where I am."

“I'm sure you are," I said. "Just open the door."

Silence. Then footsteps. The door opened four inches — chain still on, which I noted, which was smart — and she looked at me through the gap with the expression of someone who had spent fourteen hours getting angrier and was not done yet.

"It's midnight," she said.

"I'm aware."

"What are you doing here? Normal people sleep at midnight."

"I'm not normal people."

"That," she said, "is the first honest thing you've said to me." She didn't open the door further. "What do you want?"

---

CAMILA

He looked annoyingly composed for midnight.

Jacket still on. Not a single thing about him suggesting the hour was inconvenient or that standing in my doorway at midnight was anything other than a completely reasonable decision.

I had been lying on my bed fully dressed staring at the ceiling for five hours. I was the opposite of composed.

"I came to check on you," he said.

"As you can see, I'm fine."

"You haven't left your room."

"I wasn't aware that was a requirement." I kept the chain on. Deliberately. "Is there a schedule for that too? Room departure times? Should I expect a timetable under my door?"

Something moved in his jaw. "Camila—"

"Dr. Reyes."

A pause. "Dr. Reyes." He said it like a concession. "I came to see if you needed anything."

"My freedom."

"Besides that."

"My job back."

"We discussed—"

"My patients." My voice came out sharper than I intended. "I have a woman on the cardiac ward who has nobody. No family, no visitors. I check on her every single day and right now she thinks I just disappeared." I looked at him through the four inch gap. "So when you ask if I need anything — yes. I need you to understand what you've actually taken from me. Not just my schedule. My people."

He was quiet.

"I'll have someone arrange a call," he said finally. "Tomorrow. To the ward."

I stared at him. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

I didn't know what to do with that so I did what I always did when he surprised me — I moved past it.

"Is that all?" I said.

"Are you eating?"

"That's none of your business."

"You didn't come down for dinner."

"I wasn't hungry."

"Lily said you didn't eat lunch either."

"Lily," I said, "reports to you about my meals?"

"She reports to me about everything as the head of maid." He said it without apology. "Are you eating, Dr. Reyes."

"I had breakfast."

"That was eleven hours ago."

"Congratulations on your mathematics." I started to close the door. "Goodnight, Mr. Khalil."

"There's food in the kitchen."

"I know where the kitchen is."

"I'll have—"

"I don't need you to have anything done." I stopped closing the door. Looked at him directly. "I need you to understand something. I am not angry because the room is small or the food is bad or the sheets aren't right. I am angry because I am a person. A full person with a life and a career and people who need me and you have taken all of that and replaced it with a beautiful room and a housekeeper and a bay view and you seem to genuinely not understand why that isn't enough."

He looked at me.

"I understand," he said quietly.

"Then why—"

"Because the alternative," he said, "was leaving you unprotected. And I couldn't do that."

The corridor was very quiet.

"Why?" I said. It came out smaller than I meant it to.

He didn't answer. Just looked at me through the four inch gap with those dark unreadable eyes and said nothing and somehow the nothing was louder than anything he could have said.

"Goodnight, Mr. Khalil," I said again.

"Eat something," he said.

I closed the door.

—

I stood on my side of the door for a full minute.

Then I took the chain off, opened the door, walked past his retreating figure down the hallway without looking at him and went downstairs to the kitchen.

I was not doing it because he told me to.

I was doing it because I was hungry. Those were two completely separate things.

I made eggs — the only thing in this kitchen I trusted myself to make at midnight without burning the building down — and I was halfway through eating them standing at the counter when I heard him come in.

He didn't say anything. Just went to the other side of the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, leaned against the counter.

I ate my eggs.

He drank his water.

"My father was a doctor," I said. I don't know why I said it. The midnight maybe. Or the eggs. Or the fact that I had been alone with it for fourteen hours and it had gotten heavy.

He looked at me. Didn't speak. Listening.

"Community clinic on Via Foria. Treated anyone who came through — didn't matter if they could pay." I pushed the egg around the plate. "He used to say the body doesn't care about your bank balance. Neither should the doctor."

Silence.

"He sounds like a good man," Zayed said.

"He was." I put my fork down. "He died when I was nineteen."

"I'm sorry."

I looked up. He was looking at me with an expression I hadn't seen on him before. Not pity — something quieter than pity. Something that looked, briefly, like recognition.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing." He straightened. Set down his glass. "Get some sleep, Dr. Reyes."

He walked out.

I stood in the kitchen alone and looked at my half finished eggs and thought about the way he had said *I'm sorry* — not automatically, not reflexively, but like he had considered it first and meant it after.

I finished my eggs.

I went to bed.

I did not think about his face when I mentioned my father.

I thought about it the entire way up the stairs.