My Twin And Faincé Betrayed me...So I Married His Rival

Chapter 27

*Liam's POV*

I stood near the window and watched them both.

Dad and Elena.

She was perched on the edge of his bed careful and gentle, like she was afraid of disturbing something fragile and he was holding both her hands in his, his frail fingers wrapped around hers with a tenderness that I hadn't seen him direct at anyone in a very long time.

They were speaking softly. I couldn't catch all of it from where I stood. Just pieces of low voices, the occasional nod from Elena, the way my father's eyes stayed on her face with that warm, unhurried attention he usually reserved for things he considered important.

I had brought her here for a reason. A practical, contractual, entirely transactional reason.

So why did watching this feel like something else entirely?

I crossed my arms and stayed at the window and told myself I was simply observing. Making sure the visit was going well. Doing my job.

The door opened and Andrea walked in.

I knew immediately. Before she said a word, before she had even fully stepped into the room, I knew that smile she wore on her face. I had catalogued every version of Andrea's smiles over the years and this one, the one she was wearing right now, was the one that meant she had just done something I wasn't going to like when I found out what it was.

She saw me looking.

The smile flickered immediately.

"Where have you been?" I asked, keeping my voice low so I didn't disturb Dad and Elena.

She stopped. Tilted her head at me with wide, innocent eyes that had never once in her life been innocent. "Fresh air," she said simply. "I needed some fresh air. The hospital smell was getting to me."

"Fresh air."

"Yes, Liam. Oxygen. From outside. Some people find it helpful."

"You were gone for about twenty minutes."

"I walk slowly."

I looked at her for a long moment. She held my gaze without a single crack in her composure, which told me absolutely nothing because Andrea could hold a gaze through a category five hurricane and come out looking unbothered.

"Mm," I said.

She turned away from me and looked across the room.

For a second, her facial reaction changed when she saw Elena sitting on the edge of Dad's bed, when she saw the way he was holding Elena's hands and looking at her like she was the most important person in the room. It was fast and she killed it quickly, but I caught it.

She smiled.

And walked over to the other side of the bed.

"Dad!" She settled onto the mattress beside him and reached over and placed her hand on his arm, nudging gently into the space between him and Elena like she was sliding into a conversation that had been waiting for her. "I've missed you so much. You look wonderful, you know. You really do."

Dad turned. Looked at her.

And smiled politely.

He said nothing.

Which... if Andrea noticed, and she definitely noticed, she did not let show on her face. She launched into a cheerful one-sided story about the drive over, the traffic, something about a coffee she had spilled, keeping her voice warm and easy and filling the room with enough noise that the quiet between her and Dad wasn't audible to anyone who wasn't paying attention.

I was paying attention.

Elena caught my eye from across the bed.

I gave her a look that said I see it too.

She gave me a look that said "should we be concerned?"

I gave her a look that said "probably."

She looked down at Dad's hands still holding one of hers and then back up at me and the corner of her mouth moved in a way that meant she was trying not to smile at the two of us having an entire conversation in silence across a hospital bed.

Honestly, same.

The door opened again.

A woman in scrubs stepped in ... crisp, professional, the particular quiet authority of someone who had been doing this job for a long time. Dad's personal nurse. I recognised her from the previous visits. She had always been warm and efficient and unremarkable in the way that competent people sometimes are.

She stopped.

Right in the doorway. One hand was still on the handle.

Her eyes moved across the room ... across Andrea, across Dad and then landed on me. And then moved to Elena.

And stayed there.

Something happened in her face that I couldn't name. Not alarm exactly. Nor recognition. Something in between....complicated and layered, the look of a person who has just seen something that means more to them than it should, or knows something they aren't supposed to know, or is trying very hard to keep both of those things from showing.

She was staring at Elena.

Then at me.

Then at Elena again.

The whole thing lasted maybe four seconds. Then she looked at the floor, and when she looked back up her face was smooth and professional and entirely in order.

"Visiting time is over," she said evenly. "He needs to rest now. I'll have to ask you all to head out."

The room began to move ... Andrea standing, smoothing her dress, Dad squeezing Elena's hand once before letting go.

I watched the nurse.

She was looking at her clipboard. Very deliberately looking at her clipboard.

"Is there a problem?" I asked.

She looked up.

"Huh?" she said.