Waylen nodded his agreement.
After breakfast, Leilani prepares to follow Waylen back to the room so she can treat the wounds on his back. As she leaves the restaurant, Leilani glances at her sister, but Gabrielle turns her back to Leilani, hiding her expression from sight. Andrew raises his eyebrows and gives her a playful look.
As they enter the room they see that Robert has already prepared medicine, water, and clean gauze. To Leilani’s surprise Waylen cooperates with everything, he takes his medicine without complaint and washes it down with a long gulp of water. Leilani takes the empty glass from his hand and reaches out to help him take off his shirt. Waylen grabs her hands and gently raises them to his lips, kissing each of her fingers before releasing them.
Leilani ignores his flirtation and returns to work. She pulls his shirt off and removes the bloodstained bandages from his back. Though the wounds on his back have been treated, they’ve become pale and puckered and some of the sutures have started to tear.
“If he’s not more careful, the wounds may begin to fester,” she thinks.
She soaks a cotton swab with the disinfectant salve and gently applies it to his wounds, worried she might be causing him pain. Waylen turns his head to watch her as she treats his back; he’s intrigued by the way her face looks when she’s concentrating on something. He’s fascinated by her.
Although he’s used to enjoying the finest of medical care, this is the first time his nurse has ever made him feel so warm and relaxed in body and mind. After applying for medicine, Leilani helps him put on his clothes. She smoothes the shoulders of his shirt with an almost caressing gesture.
“It’s done,” she says simply.
He pulls her into his arms. She can smell the salve lingering on his skin.
His embrace seems to contain an odd mix of emotion and desire. Leilani thinks he seems to be temporarily out of control. He holds her tightly in his arms, enjoying her warm presence. Then he quickly lets her go and looks away.
“Every time I have to let her go it seems to get harder,” he thinks.
Afraid that he might lose control again, Waylen quickly calls for Robert. Soon Robert knocks at the door and enters with two bodyguards. The bodyguards carry luggage with them; they’ve packed all of Leilani’s things and brought them up from the staff dormitory.
“Mrs. Bamford, we’ve taken the liberty of collecting your things for you,” Robert said, “Besides, we’ve arranged for Miss Peter to spend the night in the suite next door.”
Leilani is surprised to find that Waylen has considerately arranged everything for her.
“Is Gabrielle already in the next room?” Leilani asks.
“No, she said she would come up after dressing Mr. Clifford’s wound one last time,” Robert explains.
Andrew Clifford’s presidential suite is on the opposite side of the hotel. As a servant pulls open the thick curtains, the light shines through the sheers, lighting up the darkened room. Gabrielle carefully removes the gauze bandage on Andrew’s chest, sterilizes the wound with ethyl alcohol and applies a salve to help heal the wound. She wraps Andrew’s wound with clean, white gauze.
“I’ve treated the wound, Mr. Clifford,” Gabrielle whispers shyly, “Please remember that it shouldn’t be immersed in water.”
Her face turned red as she looks at his strong chest muscles, and she turned her head away. Andrew is the most casual man she has ever met. He insisted that the hospital discharge him right after a major operation. Even though he has stitches on his chest, he takes long baths as usual.
“He is also the strange man I’ve ever met,” Gabrielle thinks.
Andrew puts on a bathrobe and ties it loosely around his waist, then he looks emotionlessly at the young woman in front of him.
“You’re really bossy,” he says, “But now it’s your turn.”
Gabrielle recovers from her reverie and bites her lip. Slowly, she shrugs out of her bathrobe, exposing her white, delicately rounded shoulders. The sun shines on her soft, pale skin. Her v.i.r.g.i.nal body looks like a perfect work of art waiting for the right man to gaze upon it.
Though Gabrielle only reveals her shoulders, her toes curl with tension and embarrassment against the rich carpet. She lowers her head and blushes bright pink as Andrew gazes at her.
“Turn around,” Andrew commands.
Gabrielle obediently turns around and sits on a small stool by the sofa.
“This is why he’s strange,” Gabrielle thinks, “He likes me back, but he never touches me intimately—he only tattoos me.”
He has already tattooed part of her back with a pair of wings. Each feather on the wings has been tattooed with a single needle, giving the feathers a sense of depth and complexity. Gabrielle knows that he has tattooed part of her back, but she doesn’t know what he has tattooed on it. He only tattoos a small portion of skin at a time. Since they see each other rarely, it has taken him months to complete this part of the tattoo.
Andrew casts a slow, amorous glance at her back as he sits behind her. He unfolds a sheepskin roll revealing slender silver needles of varying diameters. Gabrielle twists her fingers when she feels Andrew’s hot breath behind her. Her heart won’t stop thumping violently in her chest.
She feels pain as the needle pricks her skin, and she trembles slightly. Blood dots her soft, sensitive skin. Instead of wiping her skin with a silk towel, Andrew uses a tiny needle to collect the drops of blood. He transfers the blood to a small glass vial. Gabrielle knows that he polishes the red amber in his bracelet with her blood. Every time Andrew tattoos her he finishes by rubbing her blood into the stone on his wrist.
Gabrielle knows that amber is considered one of the seven greatest treasures in the world; many people believe that it brings good luck to anyone who wears it. Red amber, which is rarer than yellow, is one of the most precious types.
However, Gabrielle doesn’t know that many spiritual people believe that red amber has special properties: when polished with blood, it seems to glow in special situations. Recently, the red amber shone when Leilani held the gun against Andrew’s chest in the hotel bathroom. Andrew’s heart pounded in his chest and the red amber glowed as if it were responding to its master’s heartbeat.
Andrew tattoos a slender arc on her back, carefully pricking the skin with a thin needle. Then he packs up the silver needles, carefully rolling the sheepskin around them.
“Mr. Clifford,” Gabrielle whispers, “Do I have to go back with my sister? Can’t I stay with you?”
“Why do you want to stay with me?” Andrew asks.
“Your wound still hasn’t recovered and you need someone to observe you after the surgery to make sure you heal properly. I want to stay with you to take care of you.”
“Have you fallen in love with me?” Andrew asks sardonically.
He carefully puts the sheepskin roll into an engraved wooden box. Then he looks at Gabrielle with a straight face.
“No, I haven’t,” Gabrielle says hastily.
She is afraid to look at him and quickly puts on her bathrobe.
“Good. You’d better not fall in love with me,” Andrew says coldly, “If you fall in love with me, you’ll only make yourself miserable.”
Gabrielle holds the collar of her bathrobe tightly to stop her hands from shaking. She is afraid to speak and she stands quietly in place.
“Remember, don’t let other men touch you, or you’ll lose your value to me,” Andrew says.
Though he doesn’t touch her, he refuses to allow her to let other men touch her. Gabrielle feels like the needle that just pricked her back is now pricking her heart. Robert knocks at the door and enters the suite.
“Miss Peters, Mrs. Bamford wants to see you,” Robert said, “Besides, we’ve arranged your room. I’ll give you a moment to get ready, then please come with me.”
“Okay,” Gabrielle says, nodding absently.
After Robert and Gabrielle leave, the bodyguard in charge of Andrew’s security approaches him.
“Mr. Clifford, I’ve successfully bribed everyone and I’ve completed a thorough investigation.”
Andrew hands the wooden box to a bodyguard and waits expectantly for the news. Last night, he ordered his security team to bribe Waylen’s former bodyguards for information. Andrew knows that Waylen is very cautious about his security: he hires and fires his bodyguards at set intervals to prevent them from learning too much about his life. Though he demands all his bodyguards to sign confidentiality agreements, it’s relatively easy to bribe an unemployed bodyguard.
Andrew places his hand over his heart and looks questioningly at the head of security, waiting for the man to continue.
“Mrs. Bamford and Dr. Meyer had a very good personal relationship,” the bodyguard says, “Dr. Meyer disappeared on the same day that Mrs. Bamford tried to flee from the Bamford family. Mr. Bamford believed that Dr. Meyer helped to orchestrate the disappearance and he was infuriated—it seems he was already jealous of the doctor’s relationship with Mrs. Bamford.”
“What was the exact day on which Dr. Meyer disappeared?” Andrew asks.
“It was three days ago—the same day you had your heart transplant,” the bodyguard answers.
Andrew presses his hand against his chest and feels the beat of the thumping heart. A sudden idea takes hold in his mind.
“So my heart is—”
The bodyguard understands his meaning.
“There is no definite evidence that your new heart belonged to Dr. Meyer,” he says.
Andrew smiles unintelligibly, but then his face becomes serious.
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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