Page 75 of The Golden Hour

“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” Mason mutters, lifting his cup to his lips as he starts to walk around her toward the elevators.

“Hey,” Ellen says softly, glancing around to make sure no one is listening before she meets his gaze. “I put out some feelers. Got some bites back. HR is going to be very busy today.”

With a wink, she turns around and starts walking back to the emergency department, leaving Mason standing there.

He closes his eyes and sighs, pleased that this will be moving quickly. He’s not sure what consequences will await Dr. Lewis, but she’ll never come close to his wife again.

That’s one problem down.

A million more for him to fix.

And as he steps back into his wife’s room, seeing her breastfeeding their baby and glowing like an angel when she smiles at something her mother tells her, he knows that it will all be worth it.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HONEY

Aweek and a half after Daisy’s birth, Honey is finally starting to believe that her body is healing.

“She’s doing so well, Honey,” Dr. Farah compliments as Honey breastfeeds Daisy. “And you’re doing beautifully with her.”

The validation feels like a balm over all the raw, angry places inside of Honey.

It helps silence the thoughts in her head long enough for her to sit in this moment and appreciate it. Her body is feeding her daughter. The very same body she has spent the last nine months feeling betrayed by is doing something right.

Those are the thoughts she should be focused on.

Not the other ones.

Not the ones that keep bubbling up and darkening her mood whenever she has a moment to think that she is doing well for someone who almost died a week and a half ago.

Honey smiles down at Daisy latched onto her breast. Her determined little daughter has been taking more pulls lately, and her body has responded with increased milk production.

It’s not perfect. Daisy sometimes gets frustrated before she can latch. Honey’s sometimes scared that she’s not making enough to feed Daisy. But she feels accomplished in these small moments, and filled with so much love it threatens to crush her.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Farah asks, lowering her voice.

“I think I’m producing more milk,” Honey smiles. “And she’s latching so easily now ever since you taught that one trick to⁠⁠—”

“That’s wonderful, Honey,” Dr. Farah says kindly, but her voice drops again. “But I want to know how you are feeling.”

Honey closes her mouth and considers her answer as she glances around the room of the NICU Family Suite.

Her mother sits on the small blue couch across the room, eyes narrowed in focus as she reads something on her cellphone.

Mason stands across the room to give them privacy, as Honey requested, so she can talk doctor-to-patient without feeling like he’s hovering. Maybe if he’d been here with her for the last nine months, she’d feel different.

The expression on his face always catches her off guard. His soft eyes are still locked on her, watching her feed Daisy with pure awe in his expression, as if she’s performing a miracle. He looks at her like that a lot now, pretty much anytime she does something for their little girl.

It is the most beautiful agony.

Because he’s looking at her with the love she had wanted for so long.

And in her incredibly hormonal and still traumatized mind, it just makes her feel bitter.

She does not want to resent Mason forever, but she thinks she is allowed to feel her anger without acting on it. She is allowed to feel it, name it, and process why it is there, quite literally doing what she used to do with her toddlers at the daycare when they had big feelings in too tiny bodies.

But she’s not a toddler, and her emotions are these enormous spiky things that prick her whenever she pokes too hard at them. They threaten to claw their way outside of her chest if she’s not careful.