The CEO's Rose

Mark’s POV

Mark had been friends with Ryan for a long time. They had helped each other through many tough times in their lives. Ryan had been Mark’s support through the many fights that his parents had had and were still having.

In return, Mark had been there when the whole thing with Ryan, Gwendolyn, and Brian had gone down. He had helped his friend when the other man had been dealing with the grief and the rage that came with suffering through the double betrayal.

That had been a very difficult time.

There had been times when Mark had worried that Ryan would not make it through. But his friend had pulled himself together and just recently, thanks to the addition of Vivian Rose in his life, he had begun to thrive.

Now, thanks to the cruelty of the world. The very woman who had been responsible for rescuing Ryan from his lonely playboy lifestyle was the reason that he was currently hurting, and it was not even something that Vivian Rose had done on purpose. She had been attacked and as a result of that, she was in the hospital, unconscious.

The doctors had said that that was to be expected. That her body had suffered a great deal of trauma and was taking a bit of time to itself in order to heal. But knowing that she was going to be okay was not the same as her actually being okay and that was really eating away at Ryan.

Back when the situation with Gwendolyn had been at its peak, Mark had thought that things were bad. In those times Ryan had been a mess, dealing with heart break from betrayed trust and also with the grief of losing his younger brother, had really hurt him.

But seeing his best friend stress over Vivian Rose was something else.

***

When Vivian had first been admitted to the hospital, Ryan had not gotten any sleep that night. Mark had not faulted him for that, he had simply chalked it up to everything that had gone on in such a short period of time making it impossible for his friend to get some shut-eye.

But then the second night in a row had come and gone, with Ryan not getting a wink of sleep, and so had the third night. It was worrying, ( and given that thee situation was already stressful enough on its own, that was not helping matters at all).

Ryan barely let Mark and Amy help him keep watch, and even when they did manage to get him out of the room, he wandered the hallways of the hospital like a lost phantom instead of getting some rest.

Mark knew for a fact that Ryan owned a nearby hotel and always had a suite reserved. But his friend was refusing to go there. Instead, when he got tired of sitting, he got in a cot that had been set up in Vivian’s room and just lay there, barely blinking as he stared at her like he worried that if he looked away for even one second, she would disappear. Having come across such a sight several times already, Mark heart was hurting more and more each time that he witnessed his friend’s silent vigil.

The lack of rest and sleep was bad enough. But in addition to that, getting Ryan to eat was also proving incredibly difficult. His friend had always been a lean man but now in just a matter of days he was at a point where Mark was worried that bones that had not protruded in the past would start being more pronounced. A grown man just was not meant to survive on half-eaten chocolate bars and stale cups of coffee, yet that was what Ryan seemed intent on doing.

If it were not for the fact that he worried about transferring some sort of illness to Vivian, Mark was pretty certain that Ryan would have let his hygiene slip as well. But he was grateful that he did not have to worry about that. Every day without fail, Ryan showered in the hospital. It was nowhere near the luxury that his friend often insisted on, but Ryan always got clean without complaint.

His shower time was one of the few times that he willingly left either Amy or Mark alone with a still unconscious Vivian, and as it happened, on that particular day, Mark was keeping Vivian company while his friend got clean.

***

As always, whenever it was his turn to stay with Vivian, Mark had no idea what to say. Seeing her like that, so quiet, and still when he was used to her being a warm and welcoming presence did not sit well with him at all. Seeing her in such as state made Mark feel awful, and his heart constricted at the knowledge that whatever he was feeling, for his best friend it was probably amplified a million times.

Tired of watching Vivian’s heart monitor, Mark turned his attention back to her, a shuddering breath escaping him before he began to speak.

"Please come back," He begged, immediately feeling bad for asking something of her when she was already struggling so much. But when he parted his lips again, he proved to himself just how shameless he was.

" He needs you, Vivian Rose. If you don’t wake up soon I am worried about what will become of him, so please, please wake up soon," Oblivious to his begging, Vivian slumbered on, a tube down her throat, and angry finger shaped bruises on her neck.

***

With his pleading with Vivian having not worked, Mark was trying a different route.

"Ryan, it has been four days and you have not seen the sun. Come on, go for a walk with me," His eyes fixed on Vivian Rose, Ryan nodded, "Sure thing just give me a little while and I’ll be joining you soon," The response sounded promising but given that it was along the lines of answers he’d heard several times before, Mark was not pleased.

"This is not healthy man. Come on, let’s go,"

"I just need to make sure that she is ok, then I will go," Ryan said simply but the way that his big hands cradled Vivian’s limp one told him that his friend would not be budging any time soon. Sharing a look with Amy, who had come directly from work, and was seated on the other side of Vivian’s bed. Mark forced himself to take a deep breath instead of snapping at his friend since that would not help matters. It would only make things worse and the last thing that Vivian needed during her recovery was to have the atmosphere around her being toxic.

Looking at his friend who still seemed to be barely aware of their presence Mark once again looked at Amy and inclined his head towards the door silently, calling her out. When he stepped out of the room she joined him a few seconds later.

Before he could even say anything, Amy moved forward and pulled him into a hug. Mark found himself sinking into the comforting touch with a weary sigh. When they pulled back, he took her hand and the two of them walked away from the door, passing several disguised guards as they did so.

They ended up outside, sitting on a bench, and watching as patients conversed with relatives and friends who had come to visit them.

"He can’t keep doing this at some point he’s going to collapse and I have no idea if he’ll be able to get back up,"

Amy puffed up her cheeks. "You are right, but unless we can get him to see that, then we are just wasting our breath. I know that he’s a grown man who can make his own decisions, but right now he’s making the wrong ones. Just how are we supposed to get him to start taking better care of himself?"

"Perhaps I can help with that," The two of them jumped in their seats and when they looked in the direction that the voice had come from, Mark nearly cried when he saw who it was.

Finally, reinforcements had arrived. Ryan’s grandfather had finally made it.