Billionaire Daredevil In Love

NADINE.

A frail-looking girl was stretched on the bed, her eyes closed. She looked emaciated. Tubes ran in and out of her, and she looked like her life was only hanging on a thread. I blinked as if to see clearly, but no matter how much I shut my eyes and opened them, it was the same person – my sister, Anna. I couldn’t proceed into the room.

“Anna,” I said under my breath. “No.”

I walked closer to her, my feet shuffling on the floor. I touched her face and her eyes fluttered open.

“Anna?” I said gently, tears already pooling in my eyes.

She looked at me as if unable to recognize me, but then she said, “Nadine?”

“Yes. Yes, Anna, it’s me,” she said. “Oh, my goodness.”

I pulled her into an embrace, a gentle one because of all the tubes, and she held me tight as I sobbed into her neck.

“What happened, Anna?” I asked. “Why do you look so thin, so feeble?”

“Ohh, it’s the cancer, and the medications I’ve been taking,” she said, smiling weakly. Something about how sad her smile was, how much it looked like a poorly done imitation of her former smiles made me burst into tears anew.

“Come on, Nadine,” she said, rubbing my hand. “It’s nothing. I’m going to be fine. Besides, some good Samaritans gave us some money and treatment has begun in earnest. I’m going to be fine.”

“Some good Samaritan, hunh?” I said in mock disbelief.

“Yeah. And he paid for everything,” she said excitedly. “I mean, everything!”

“Where’s Naomi?” I asked, wanting to change the topic.

“Ohh, she’s gone off to work,” she said. “I’m usually by myself by this time of the day, so most of the time I just sleep. I mean, it’s not like I have that much of a choice anyway; I feel drowsy all day.”

I rubbed her head and pulled her into myself, crying once more.

As we locked in the embrace, a nurse in scrubs walked in. She stopped at the door and cocked her head, giving us both a puzzled look.

“And who are you, ma’am?” She asked me.

“She’s my sister,” Anna said before I could get a word.

“Ohh, good day, ma’am,” she said, to which I gently nodded. I understood her confusion. I was a young woman in shabby clothes sitting down to a cancer paint. For all she knew, I could be some kind of pervert.

“How’s my sister?” I asked her.

“Ohh, she’s going to be fine,” she said reassuringly. “We’re still going on with the treatments. But the future isn’t as bleak as when she did not have her medications. Now that she does, it should be smooth sailing.”

“She looks so thin,” I said, more to myself.

“Well, she has cancer,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She is bound to lose some weight.”

“Mmm,” I said.

The nurse examined the tubes and the machine that was beeping beside her. She asked Anna some questions and recorded them in a notepad she was carrying, nodding as Anna answered them.

“I need to go back to sleep,” Anna said, and she adjusted herself on the bed and closed her eyes to sleep. I thought about all the times she used to stay awake, watching movies, using the internet, and it made me sad how the sickness had changed her. I was wiping my tears when Naomi came into the ward.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Oh my God, Nadine,” she said. “Nadine? Is this really you?”

“It is me,” I said, smiling. “In the flesh.”

We hugged.

“How did you escape?” She asked, her voice lowered.

“Ohh, that’s a long ass story, Naomi,” I told her. “I’ll tell you later, not just now.”

“Mmm,” she said, nodding.

“How come she looks so thin?” I asked.

“It has not been easy,” she said. “Really difficult, especially for the poor girl. But she’s strong, and I believe now that if she got that money, she’d be making strides.”

“Ohh, that’s so good to hear.”

I stayed for a while and talked to my friend, Naomi, whom I had missed so much.

CLAYTON.

Nadine was the first woman I married, and it felt weird that I had gotten married on a whim, without consulting anyone, not even a family member. I decided to tell my mom about it. My mom had, for so long, pressured me into getting a wife.

“You’re a fine, young man who has everything in the world he needs,” she would say. “It is only right that you get married.”

Now I called her to deliver the news.

“Guess what, mom,” I said.

“What, Clayton,” she said disinterestedly. “You sold some of the shares in the company off?”

“Not that, mom,” I said. “I’ve gotten married.*

“To Natasha?” She said, My mother had for so long pressured me to marry Natasha. I had no idea what particular trait endeared her towards Natasha, but it made my existence hell.

“No, not Natasha,” I explained. “To a girl named Nadine.”

“I see,” she said, as if I was merely wasting her time. “And who’s her father? I mean, her family. Who are they?”

“Well, I don’t know, mom?” I answered. “I don’t think she belongs to a family you would know. Her name is Anna Moore, or something.”

“Anna what?” She said. “You married a nobody, is that it? I’m disappointed, Clayton. You should know better than this. It is better to remain unmarried than to mess with your future by marrying someone of the lower class.”

“I’m not messing my future up, mom,” I said. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Ohh, please,” she said. “I want to see this woman. I’ll be over at your mansion very soon.”

“What, can’t wait to meet her?” I asked teasingly.

“You bet I can’t,” she said.

We hung up and I smiled to myself. Nadine meeting my mom was the perfect plan I had for her.