After a traffic accident, the man couldn’t remember a single thing. Feeling guilty, Gabrielle decided to help care for him. She was terrified of creating a scandal and managed to hide the accident from everyone she knew. She was especially afraid that her father would find out and punish her. Unfortunately for her, Katherine managed to find out, and she used the information to blackmail Gabrielle into giving her an internship to her niece, Bonnie Gates.
When Katherine asked her, Gabrielle didn’t know how to refuse. She was too meek and shy to protest. Instead, she consoled herself with the knowledge that she might not have enjoyed the internship—she didn’t get along very well with her classmates and she disliked the other students chosen to work in the same hospital.
Gabrielle sits on the floor of her bedroom and reflects on the accident. Leilani knocks on the door, but Gabrielle is too distracted to hear her. Becoming concerned that something bad has happened to her sister, Leilani asks a maid to unlock the door and let her in. Leilani sees her sister lost in a daze and drops the key on a table.
“What’s wrong?” Leilani asks.
Gabrielle is startled to discover she’s no longer alone. She jumps to her feet in a hurry.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine,” she whispers.
Leilani frowns at her sister. She saw Katherine enter Gabrielle’s room and shut the door behind her. She was afraid that Katherine would try to bully Gabrielle so she waited outside the door, listening to their conversation. She heard them talking about a man and began to worry that her little sister had gotten involved with a bad man.
“No, you’re not fine,” Leilani says gently, “Please, tell me what’s going on.”
“What do you mean?” Gabrielle asks, trying to feign innocence.
She’s a bad actress: she can’t meet Leilani’s eyes and she tugs on her dress guiltily.
“Who is the strange man Katherine was talking about?” Leilani asks, “And what happened with your internship?”
Gabrielle’s face pales immediately. She doesn’t want to tell Leilani the truth. If Leilani knows what happened, everything will spiral out of control. Gabrielle wants to keep the accident a secret, even if it means Katherine will continue to blackmail her. She bites her lower lip and looks down at the floor.
“Please, don’t ask me about it, sister,” she whispers, “Believe me, he’s not a bad man, and I’m not in any kind of danger.”
Leilani purses her lips and gives her sister a quizzical look.
“Is the man Mr. Clifford?” Leilani asks.
Gabrielle presses her lips together, refusing to answer. Leilani sighs heavily.
“What about the internship?” Leilani asks, “You know I can call the hospital and find out what happened for myself, but you’re my little sister, and I want to hear it from you.”
Gabrielle glanced uncertainly at her sister and takes a deep breath.
“Our stepmother asked me to give the opportunity to Bonnie. So I did,” she says.
Leilani stares wordlessly at her sister.
“How is Gabrielle so weak and easily controlled?” she wonders, “I suppose I can’t blame her, though—I used to be the same. When Waylen’s grandmother tormented me or when Leonie Summers trapped me, I was too weak to fight back. I never stood up for myself, and I suffered for over three years. I have to help Gabrielle avoid the same fate.”
“I want you to take the internship back,” Leilani says firmly, “Whether you like it or not, it belongs to you and you must get it back.”
“But sister—” Gabrielle objects.
“As soon as you get it back, I’ll leave,” Leilani says, interrupting Gabrielle’s objection.
She wants to help Gabrielle, but she knows she has to let her sister do this for herself.
“Soon, I’ll have to leave again, and I won’t be able to help her every time Katherine tries to bully her,” Leilani thinks, “Gabrielle has to learn how to stand up for herself, or she’ll always be bullied and scapegoated by the rest of the family.”
“I’ll do it,” Gabrielle says as tears begin to well in her eyes.
“I haven’t seen Leilani in a while, but she’s changed so much,” Gabrielle thinks, “I actually really like this new Leilani.”
Suddenly, the door flies open and a maid enters the room.
“Oh, here you’re here, Mrs. Bamford,” she says, “Mr. Bamford thought you had left, and we’ve been searching the whole villa.”
“I’ll go see him,” Leilani says with a sigh.
Gabrielle lives in the smallest room on the left side of the villa and Waylen Bamford is staying in the biggest room on the right side of the villa. As Leilani exits Gabrielle’s room she can see a group of bodyguards searching for her in the house and outside in the yard. She walks down the long hallway dreading her encounter with Waylen.
When she enters Waylen’s room, she immediately feels the tension. Waylen is sitting on the sofa; his legs are crossed and his arms are folded across his chest. He’s staring at the coffee table as if it’s his worst enemy. Robert Tinder stands nervously at Waylen’s side, but upon seeing Leilani he rushes over to her.
“Mr. Bamford is angry now,” he whispers to her, “You should be careful.”
Robert quickly rushes from the room leaving Leilani alone with Waylen. Leilani knows that Waylen has a terrible temper, and she’s not in the mood to provoke him. She slowly crosses the room and looks down at the coffee table. Photos of numerous men are strewn carelessly across the tabletop.
“Have you been sorting through my private things?” Leilani asks acidly.
She recognizes the photos, of course: she took them herself. In high school, Michelle Cindy and her friends bullied her and forced her to take photos of boys they thought were attractive. It was humiliating, but she was too afraid to stand up to them. For years, she did everything they asked, but as soon as high school ended, she put the photos in a box and stored them away. She never imagined that anyone would find them.
“If I hadn’t found these photos, I never would have known that you like to take photos of men in secret,” Waylen says, his voice dangerously low.
Leilani steps forward and picks up one of the photos. It shows one of the top students in her class, but she barely ever spoke to the boy.
“Michelle Cindy asked to take these photos,” Leilani says.
“Why didn’t you throw them out?” Waylen demands.
“I forgot about them,” Leilani answers with a shrug.
Waylen grabs and she pulls her next top him on the sofa, pressing her firmly against his side. He glances disparagingly at the photo in her hands.
“Do you think that man is handsome?” Waylen asks, “Is he worth photographing? I think he has big nostrils and too much acne his face. Is that the kind of man you like?”
“I just said that Michelle Cindy asked me to take these photos,” Leilani says, trying to keep the anger from sounding in her voice.
“Cindy asked you to take them, so you took them?” Waylen sneers, “Are you really such a coward?”
“I was.”
Leilani pushes him away unhappily. He jabs his finger into the photo with enough force to rip the shiny paper. He’s enraged that she has been so reluctant to take photos of him when she used to take countless photos of other men.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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