“I’m so sorry,” Argenti finally speaks through a sob, holding your hand fight to his chest as he sits at your bedside, stroking your hand with his thumb. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

If he could tell you—tell you how he feels, he would. But in a moment like this, after what you did to yourself to get out of that arranged marriage—he feared telling you anything at all. It wouldn’t be right.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he whispers into your hand. “Don’t leave me.”