THE BILLIONAIRE’S TEMPORARY WIFE

Chapter 10: Letter by Letter

Zara's pov

Richard Vance was teaching me a language made entirely of eyelids, and I was the only person in that house who'd bothered to learn it.

I'd spent the week after the gala building a system out of a legal pad and sheer stubbornness. One blink for A through E, a pause, two blinks for F through J, another pause, three for K through O, and so on down the alphabet.

"Okay," I said, settling into the chair beside his bed with the legal pad on my knee. "Same as yesterday. One blink, pause, count again if we need to. Tell me if I'm going too fast."

Richard's eyes found mine. He blinked once. A pause. Then held my gaze a beat longer, which I'd learned meant yes, I understand, keep going better than any word could have.

"Good." I clicked my pen. "What do you want to tell me tonight?"

He started slow. One blink… pause… three blinks. Row one, group three.

"K, L, M, N, O," I counted under my breath, watching his eyes for the twitch that meant stop. He held on M.

"M," I wrote it down.

Next letter. Two blinks, pause, one blink. Row two, group one.

"F, G, H, I, J," I counted, and his eyes stopped on the second letter. "G?"

He held my gaze a beat, which meant yes.

"M-G," I said out loud, frowning. "Okay, keep going, I'm not going to guess ahead of you."

It took almost twenty minutes to spell out five letters, MARTA, and by the time I got there my hand ached from gripping the pen too hard.

"Marta?" I asked. "You want Marta?"

One blink. Pause. His eyes held mine.

"Okay. I'll get her." I stood, and something in his expression shifted, urgent, like there was more to it than just the name. "Is something wrong? Do you need something specific from her?"

He couldn't answer that with the code fast enough, not with the frustration building visibly behind his eyes, so I sat back down and started the alphabet again, patient, because patience was the only thing I actually had to offer him in that room.

Marta found us there an hour later when she came to turn down his sheets for the night, and stopped in the doorway with an expression I couldn't quite place.

"Still at it?" she asked, setting a fresh water pitcher on the nightstand.

"He's getting faster. Or I'm getting better at counting. Honestly not sure which." I capped my pen, rolling my shoulder where it had cramped. "He asked for you tonight, by the way. Spelled your name out clean as anything."

Marta's hands stilled on the water pitcher. "He did what?"

"Spelled your name. M-A-R-T-A. Took him twenty minutes, but he did it."

She looked at Richard for a long moment, something complicated crossing her face, "I told the doctors he understood more than they thought. Nobody believed me. I've worked in this house eleven years, I know that man's eyes."

"Well, you were right." I looked between them. "Do you two have some kind of history I should know about? Something specific he'd want to tell you?"

"We talk sometimes. Used to, before." She smoothed the blanket over his legs. "He asks about his roses. Worries the new gardener's overwatering them."

That startled a laugh out of me, sudden and real. "Of course he does."

"Mr. Vance has always cared more about those roses than half the board members he deals with." Marta's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "I'll tell the gardener to ease up. Won't be the first time."

"Does he ever ask about Ethan?" I said, quieter, testing the question before I fully committed to it.

Marta glanced at Richard, then back at me, choosing her words with visible care. "Every day, before the stroke. After… I don't know how to ask him something like that, not with words he can't answer in."

"Maybe we should. Now that we have a way."

"Maybe." She didn't sound convinced, though whether that was doubt about the method or about what the answer might cost, I couldn't tell.

She left not long after, and I sat back down, and something about watching her fuss over him made the whole strange project feel a little less like decoding a puzzle and a little more like listening to a person who'd been quiet too long.

"Should we keep going?" I asked him. "You look tired."

One blink. Pause. He held my gaze.

"Stubborn." I picked the pen back up. "Fine. One more round, and then you're sleeping whether you like it or not."

I'd gotten good enough by then that I didn't need to say the alphabet groups out loud anymore, just tap the rhythm silently against my own knee while I watched his eyes, counting in my head. It was slower going tonight, his blinks weaker, longer pauses between each letter like he was pulling the strength for each one from somewhere further away than usual.

"Take your time," I said. "I'm not going anywhere."

He started again. One blink, long pause, three blinks. K through O. He held on the fourth letter.

"N," I said, writing it down.

A longer pause this time, his eyes closing fully for a second before forcing back open, and something about the effort of it made my stomach tighten with a worry I didn't fully understand yet.

"Richard, if this is too much tonight, we can stop. Whatever it is will still be there tomorrow."

His eyes snapped back to mine. Whatever this was, it couldn't wait for tomorrow. I understood that much even before he started the next letter.

One blink. Pause. One blink again, immediately after, faster than his rhythm all night.

"A, B, C, D, E," I counted, and he held on the first letter. "A?"

He held my gaze. Yes.

N-A. My mind raced ahead of the letters, useless and premature, because I had no idea yet what word this was building toward.

Next letter came faster still, like something in him had decided the slow careful method wasn't fast enough for whatever he needed to say. Two blinks, barely a pause, three blinks.

"F, G, H, I, J," I said, watching closely. He held on the third. "H?"

N-A-H. My pen hovered over the pad, my chest going tight, because I already had a terrible guess forming and I didn't want to be right about it.

"Richard." My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. "Is this about Noah?"

He blinked once. Held it. Yes, and something in his expression told me I was closer to something dangerous than I'd realized when I sat down in this chair an hour ago.

"What about Noah? Is he in trouble? Did you hear something?" The words came out too fast, tumbling over each other, and I made myself slow down, made myself breathe, because panicking wasn't going to help either of us decode whatever he was trying to tell me. "Okay. Start again. I'm listening. Go slow if you need to, or fast, whatever you can manage. I'm not leaving this chair."

He gathered himself.

One blink. Long pause. Two blinks.

"V," I said, the letter catching somewhere in my throat before I'd even finished writing it.

He held my gaze a beat too long, like he needed to make sure I understood the weight of it before he kept going.

Next letter came slower, his strength visibly draining with every second that passed, one blink then a long agonizing pause, his eyes drifting half-closed before he forced them open again.

"I," I whispered, and my hand had started shaking against the pad.

He fought through the next letter like it cost him something physical, three blinks, ragged, unsteady.

"C," I said.

The last letter never fully finished. His eyes stuttered through the start of the count, one blink, the beginning of a second, and then his lids simply stopped responding altogether, sliding shut on their own weight, his breathing evening out.

He blinked out four letters before his strength gave out… V-I-C-T… and I sat frozen in the dark, certain I already knew the name he couldn't finish.