All Chapters of Cursed To Love You: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The flight was seven hours and they moved through it the way people move through long distance travel when they have things on their minds — not together exactly, but not apart either. Zachary worked for four of them. Isla could see the reflection of his laptop screen in the dark window beside him, spreadsheets and legal documents and the particular focused expression of someone who treated every available hour as a resource to be used.She sketched for two of them. The installation concepts for the thirty-first floor that still needed refinement, ideas she'd been holding in her head for weeks and finally had the stillness to put on paper. She worked through three versions of the same spatial concept before landing on something that felt right, something that used negative space the way she'd been thinking about it, the way absence could be as deliberate as presence.For one hour they just sat.His shoulder. Her head against it. The particular intimacy of sleeping beside someone o

Reid told her in the corridor outside the office while Zachary was still standing at the window inside with the file in his hand.He didn't give her details. He just said "He knew before Zachary did. Dorian knew he was sick before the diagnosis," and then he looked at her in the way that said the rest of it was hers to handle and he trusted her to handle it.She went back to the hotel first.She gave Zachary twenty minutes because twenty minutes was enough time to let something land but not enough time to disappear completely into it. Then she let herself into the room and found him exactly where she knew he'd be — at the window, looking at the Thames, his jacket off and his hands in his pockets and his shoulders carrying something visible.She didn't ask. She just crossed the room and stood beside him.The Thames moved below them the way it always moved, indifferent and steady and entirely itself, the grey London light sitting on the surface of the water and making everything look

Zachary's doctor called on day five in London while they were still in the hotel room, the morning light coming in pale and grey through the curtains.He answered immediately. Isla watched his face while he listened, watched the particular stillness that meant something important was being said."Tell me," he said.The doctor talked for several minutes. Zachary said almost nothing, just occasional acknowledgments, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere past the window.When he finally hung up he looked at her."The Geneva medical regulatory board reviewed the Meridian Health research credentials," he said. "Sloane's contact came through. They found significant irregularities in the trial registration. Enough to flag the patent for contestation."Isla sat up straighter. "That's good news.""It's progress." He set the phone down. "Caden's independent medical institution has confirmed they can host the trial under independent funding. Within three weeks. If the transfer is approved.""Thre

Zachary's doctor called with the updated monitoring results two days after Reid's announcement about the counter-claim.He took the call in the hotel bathroom, the only place with a door that closed properly, and Isla heard pieces of it through the wall even though she wasn't trying to listen."Six weeks is possible," the doctor said. "But it requires very careful management. Complete rest. Reduced stress levels. Regular monitoring, twice weekly minimum.""Understood," Zachary said."I mean it, Mr. Cole. Your body needs to conserve energy right now. This isn't the time to push through anything.""I understand."He hung up and walked back into the room and told Isla almost nothing about the call except that the doctor had confirmed six weeks was manageable with the right precautions.Then he went back to work the next morning at seven and didn't come back to the hotel until past nine that night.He did this for three days.On the fourth day, Isla's phone rang while she was reviewing in

Wren and Reid worked through the night.They sat at the small table in the hotel suite, papers spread across the surface, two laptops open, coffee going cold beside both of them because neither one remembered to drink it. It was past midnight. Then past one. Then past two, and the city outside the window had gone quiet in the particular way London goes quiet only in those deep hours before dawn."There has to be a provision," Wren said, scrolling through compliance frameworks for what felt like the hundredth time. "Something that protects records generated through legitimate engagement, regardless of scope disputes.""Keep looking," Reid said.He wasn't being dismissive. He just trusted her to find it, the way he'd trusted her with things for years before everything fell apart between them, the way he was apparently still capable of trusting her even after four years of silence.They sat side by side, close enough that their shoulders occasionally touched when one of them leaned forwa