Chapter 124 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

“You…”

Bryan raised both hands in surrender as he interrupted her, “I’m sorry for playing such a prank. It won’t happen again,” he said as a meek child being scolded by his mother. He wasn’t in the mood to argue, and if there was one thing he had learned from his parent’s marriage, it was the fact that a simple apology from his father to his mother was always quick to quell a brewing fight.

“Are you trying to shut me up right now?” Sonia asked with narrowed eyes since she wasn’t done with her argument yet.

Bryan growled to himself. What had he been thinking, assuming that Sonia would be as calm as his mother? “Of course, not. I can’t shut you up. How can I? I’m just saying I understand what you are saying, and I’m sorry for making you worried,” Bryan explained as calmly as he could.

Now that he had apologized, Sonia didn’t know what to do with her sadness or her anger anymore. Without saying a word she turned around and walked away, only stopping to pick up her phone and glass of wine before disappearing inside the house.

Bryan had a concerned frown on his face as he watched her leave. He could tell that she was still very upset, and he probably should have let her vent out her anger instead of shutting her up with an apology. He picked up his glass of wine and headed for the house.

Once he was inside, he left his glass of wine at the dining table and moved straight to her bedroom. He stopped by the bedroom door when he heard her sniffle like she was crying.

Why was she still crying when it was obvious that he was fine? A crazy person like her wasn’t supposed to have such a soft aspect to her. What was he supposed to do to comfort her now? He didn’t like that he was feeling so guilty for upsetting her, and he disliked it even more that he was feeling very worried because she was upset.

Bryan tried to convince himself that he would feel the same way even if the lady in question wasn’t Sonia. It was a normal human reaction to be disturbed by the tears of another person.

After convincing himself, he unlocked the bedroom door without knocking and moved his wheelchair inside. He wasn’t sure if Sonia knew of his presence in the bedroom since she didn’t raise her head from the pillow to look at him but kept sobbing.

He stopped beside her on the bed and looked at her as she wept softly. He sighed before raising his hand to pat her back, “You can yell at me now if you want to,” he offered softly as he rubbed her back gently with one hand, and patted her hair with the other hand.

After crying for a while, Sonia raised her head from the pillow to look at him with her tear-stained face, “I’m sorry I overreacted,” she apologized, and Bryan gave her a nod as he reached out with his thumb and tenderly brushed the tears off her cheeks.

“Who drowned?” He asked with concern in his eyes when he noticed that she was calm now.

While sitting there and comforting her it had occurred to Bryan that she had likely been so upset over the prank because she had lost someone that way in the past, and the prank had brought back the painful memory.

Sonia drew in a deep breath, and then cleared her throat, “My biological father. He worked as a lifeguard at a beach,” Sonia explained with a distant look in her eyes.

She had been just ten years old when her father died, and although she loved swimming because it reminded her a lot of her father who had taught her to swim, seeing Bryan in the water earlier had made her feel like she was about to lose someone special to her once again to water.

“I’m sorry I brought back such a painful memory,” Bryan said apologetically.

“For someone who had saved a countless number of lives, there was no one to save him when he drowned. The autopsy revealed that he suffered a cardiac arrest while swimming,” Sonia murmured in a distant voice that told him that she wasn’t listening to him.

Sonia shuddered when the image of her father floating in the pool flashed in her mind’s eye, and she curled herself into a ball on the bed.

Seeing her that way made Bryan worried. It made him want to protect her.

“You should sleep now,” Bryan said, not liking how vulnerable and fragile she looked at that moment. He preferred her crazy self. He would rather face the crazy and mischievous Sonia than this lady on the bed, Bryan thought to himself as he lifted himself from the wheelchair and got on the bed beside her. He cuddled her close to himself so that she was facing him with her head on his chest, and with one hand around her waist patting her back, he used the other hand which was over her head to pat her hair softly until they he heard her snoring softly.

When he tried to pull away from her, she made a whimpering sound in her sleep, and snuggled closer to him, leaving Bryan no choice but to remain there with her.

He looked into her face as she slept while sniffling occasionally, and his heart fluttered in his chest. He hated to admit to himself that what he wanted from her wasn’t just sex as he wished it was. He couldn’t believe that he had fallen for her charms so easily under such a short duration of time.

The fact that he had been able to set aside his longing for her body earlier, just so he could calm her, was a clear indication that he cared about her. And seeing how he was lying on the bed beside her, and simply comforting her when what he truly wanted was to strip her off the robe that was covering her beautiful naked body and make love to her, was proof that he already cared about her more than he should.

What was he going to do about this new development? He couldn’t let her know that he was falling for her.

It was best he played safe and just observed her until he was sure she felt the same way and wasn’t just toying with him. He would just continue picking fights with her and pretending to be displeased with her.

Still in that position, he kept patting her back and hair while his mind drifted to her nude dance performance at the poolside earlier. His lips twitched with an amused smile as he thought about Sonia and all the crazy things she had done since he met her. With a smile on his face, Bryan dozed off.

Anita stirred in her sleep when the sound of her ringtone woke her up. She blindly reached for her phone which was on the bed beside her without taking off her sleeping mask.

“Anita Miller on the…”

“I just heard from your uncle that the meeting with Benedict Delgado is tomorrow, are you prepared?” Her mother cut her off in her usual impatient manner.

Anita sat bolt upright on the bed once she heard her mother’s voice and took off the sleeping mask immediately, “Yes, mother,”

“By yes, I suppose you mean you already know all that there is to know about him already?” Her mother asked just to be sure, and Anita bit her lower lip anxiously.

She didn’t like disappointing her mother, and somehow she knew that her perfectionist of a mother was going to be disappointed by her response, “I wasn’t able to gather much since he stays well hidden…”

“If that is so, how dare you say you are prepared for tomorrow?”

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