Lost Heiress: Mr Right Offers Me a Second Chance のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 81 - チャプター 90

VALENFor a while after Natalie spoke, the world seemed to tilt and then stop abruptly.She had the exact replica of the bracelet? She still had it?Her words echoed in my head, louder than they should have been, shaking my core. I knew who she was and I should be used to it by now and yet, every new discovery that tied her more tightly to me rattled and disturbed me even more than the last.My chest tightened so suddenly that it surprised me. I inhaled sharply, afraid I might say something I couldn't explain away.Say it. Just ask her.The words screamed inside me but I couldn't bring myself to ask. I couldn't bring myself to unravel everything. At least not yet. Not now with the almost empty plates of food between us in my dining room after the presentation for a very important project. It just wasn't appropriate, neither was it the right time.Instead, I forced a breath into my lungs and let out something that vaguely resembled a chuckle. It came out strained and thin, but still a

VALEN I couldn't remember leaving the hospital. Not really. One moment I had been standing outside the room with the white walls, heart pounding so violently I feared it would jump out of my chest, staring at the woman I knew too well. She had aged, but I still recognized her. How couldn't I after how significant she had been in all our lives? After she left, I had buried her image at the back of my mind, along with the thousand unresolved questions I just couldn't comprehend. But here she was, lying unconcious in a hospital room with Natalie bent over her and crying like a daughter would. Now, I was sitting in my car, hands hovering above the steering wheel and unable to move. I sat there for long minutes without starting the engine, stunned into stillness. Everything felt unreal, like a simulation from a bad dream or something like that. The bright hospital lights blurred in front of me. My breath came out shallow and uneven and every thought I tried to form ultimately dissolve

NATALIE I stepped back into the room, telling myself I had only imagined it. There was no way in hell it could have been Valen standing outside the room, watching and listening. The idea felt too strange, too heavy. Yes, he had driven me to the hospital but Valen wasn't that type of person at all. He was the type to respect boundaries, to take a step back so as to make everyone comfortable. He was my boss and I was just an employee, but I knew at least that much. Therefore, that image I couldn't shake off, of the familiar polished shoe, and the smell of his cologne in the air just had to be a figment of my own vivid imagination. I was stressed, and my emotions were spiraling endlessly, of course it made sense that I would start to see patterns where there weren't any. I returned to my seat beside Mrs. Davis and laced my fingers with hers. I leaned forward and brushed a kiss against her temple. Her skin was warm beneath my lips, fragile and familiar all at once. "I have to go now,

VALENI stood in front of my mirror, pacing my breathing. The evening had arrived too quickly, and with a weight that pressed down on every bone and joint in my body.The competition carried enough pressure to break anyone but it wasn't just that. It was everything else layered underneath. Malcolm's surgery, Natalie's predicament, mother...I thought about the last time I had seen her, the last time at home with father recoiling at the mention of Natalie. The issue still hung over all of us, like a fragile glass balanced on a flimsy thread. I didn't want to think about it, especially not on a night like this one. Not on this night when my life and the life of everyone else dear to me hung precariously on the balance.I was fastening the cuff of my shirt when my phone rang. I stared at the screen and for a moment, I froze. Mother. It was almost as if she knew I had been thinking of her. My fingers stilled as I hesitated.I almost wished the call was a mistake and that she would end it

NATALIEI felt a suffocating heaviness. It wasn't pain, at least not yet. It was something deep and weighty pressing down on my bones, my muscles and every organ in my body. It felt like gravity had visited and decided to settle in my body and refused to leave.My eyelids fluttered, slow and stubborn and when I finally forced them open, the world came into view slowly and fragmented. The white ceiling, the lights that blurred and focused and blurred again, too harsh. The soft, rhythmic beeping of a monitor somewhere to my left.I blinked rapidly as someone called my name. "Ms. Natalie Caldwell."The voice sounded distant, stretched thin by cotton and fog. I turned my head slightly and the effort sent a full ache crashing through my side. I inhaled sharply and clenched my jaws."Easy now," the voice spoke again, closer now. "I see you're awake. The surgery was successful."The surgery.Of course, I had just gone in to donate my kidney. Malcolm.My heart lurched at the thought of his na