A Poor Woman Was Forced to Marry a Sleeping Billionaire — Then the Man Everyone Thought Was Unconscious Revealed He Had Heard Every Word.

PART 8

At the hospital, doctors treated Wren for smoke inhalation. Weston moved his bed beside hers.

“You could have died,” Wren said.

“So could you.”

“When I couldn’t move,” he said, “I learned what helplessness does to the mind. Your voice was the only thing that made the room larger.”

“You don’t owe me love because I talked to you.”

“And you don’t owe me love because I found your mother.”

Neither released the other’s hand.

In the morning, Genevieve arrived carrying coffee and fury. “I have spent my life believing that money could make my family safe. Instead it purchased secrecy for the people harming my son. I cannot undo that. I can tell the court that the ceremony should never have occurred, and I will.”

“Thank you,” Wren said.

Weston turned toward her. “There is something else we should decide before the press decides it for us.”

Headlines called Wren the penniless bride who married a sleeping billionaire.

“I want the legal status of the ceremony reviewed immediately,” Weston said. “If it is invalid, I will not appeal.”

The words hurt more than Wren expected.

“I am not rejecting you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Wren, if I ever call you my wife again, I want it to be because you stood awake beside me while I stood awake beside you. No bed. No threats. No signatures purchased from desperate people.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then I will still protect your right to say it.”

That was the moment Wren began to love him. She loved him when he offered to surrender the only claim that could keep her near him.