Chapter 052
DAMIAN
“Wait. You’re the police?” I asked.
“Yes sir,” said the man on the other end of the phone. “I’m officer Harris…”
The construction site! Had that scumbag, Noah, dared make another attempt to sabotage me after the warning I had given him? If he had, I would deal with him in a worse way than I had initially planned. Then Harry said Amelia’s name and Noah was driven right out of my mind.From NôvelDrama.Org.
“Say that again. Did you just say Amelia?”
“Yes. You’re her husband, Mr Donovan, right?”
“Yes.”
“Right. She was attacked at the bakery. She called the police…”
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I just snatched up my car keys lying on the table and left the house. It was when I was in my car, driving quickly to the bakery that I remembered all the questions I should have asked the police officer. Who had attacked Amelia? Why had she been attacked? And most importantly, was she safe?
This last question preyed on my mind so much that I snatched up my phone from the passenger’s seat and dialed Harri’s number. I muttered a long list of profanities when I kept getting the busy signal.
The parking space in front of the bakery was occupied by three cars; Amelia’s and two police patrol vehicles. The revolving red and blue lights of the patrol cars sent my heart plummeting to my stomach. It reminded me so much of a crime scene. I hit the brakes. My car lurched forward, rear-ending the police car in front of me. I scrambled out of the car and into the bakery.
I had been half expecting to see smashed glass, bullet holes, broken furniture, and goodness knows what else. But apart from two knocked over tables and what looked like a puddle of milk on the floor, everything else was in order. In the centre of the showroom stood Amelia, deep in conversation with two uniformed police officers. Three other police men were gathered around and stooping over something on the ground. I headed straight for Amelia. The relief at seeing her standing on her own two feet, safe and sound was indescribable. An officer detached himself from the second group and strode towards me.
“You must be Mr Donovan,” he said. “I’m Officer Harry, the one who-”
“Yes. Yes,” I said impatiently.
I pushed aside the police officer closest to her, gripped Amelia’s shoulders and looked her over.
“Damian,” she sighed.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she assured me with a little smile.
The police officer closest to her moved a little impatiently. Amelia caught the movement.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I was just giving them my statement.”
She was okay, physically at least, so I nodded, a signal for her to continue, and stepped aside. I went closer to the second group of police officers. Now I saw that they were gathered around an unconscious man with a reddened face and a ridiculous looking mustache who looked oddly familiar. A second later, I placed his face. He was the one who had taken Amelia out on a date.
“… she knocked him out cold,” one of the officers was saying to the others as he tried to rouse the unconscious man.
Amelia must have knocked him out. I was impressed. It was a good thing for him that he was insensible, else I would have given him some injuries to remember me by. Leaving the cops to their efforts, I took a turn around the showroom. By the time I wandered towards Amelia’s again, the cops were pocketing their notebooks.
“Are you done?” I said.
“Yes, we are. You can take her home now, sir.”
“We’re sorry about your experience, ma’am,” the other officer said.
“Slap all the charges you can on the creep,” I said to Officer Harry as I began to lead Amelia out of the door. “Assault, destruction of property, threat to life, you name it. I want him in jail for a long, long time.”
Amelia was silent during the drive home. I didn’t ask her questions. I could tell she was shaken by what had happened though she was handling it very well. She sank gratefully on the leather sofa as soon as we got home.
There was a twinkle in her eyes as she said, “Well? Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”
I gave her a smile. “I wanted to get you home first before I started the inquisition. So, tell me what happened.”
She flexed her wrist. All traces of humour was wiped off her face as she said, “For a while now, I’ve been having the feeling that I’m being watched. I felt I could take look of myself,” she added quickly, seeing I was about to say something. “Just when I was about to lock up the bakery this evening, I saw Lucien approaching, only I didn’t know it was him at the time. I couldn’t see him clearly then. I panicked and almost emptied a can of pepper spray in his face.”
“Good!”
Amelia’s lips twitched in amusement. “I recognized him, took him inside, tended to him and then he started acting really weird. He kept insisting that I go on a date with him, the date-”
“-I interrupted,” I finished.
“Yes. I refused and he in turn refused to leave. I was really scared by then so I grabbed the taser in my handbag and ran at him.” Her tone was somewhat apologetic as she continued. “I have never used a taser before. I just meant to immobilize him long enough for me to run away but I ended up tasing him until he passed out. Then I called the police.”
I arched a brow. “Amelia, is that guilt I hear? You did the right thing by defending yourself.”
“It’s just that… I was kind of scared when I saw him lying there so still. I knew tasing him wasn’t enough to kill him, still…”
“If I were there, I would have done worse to him,” I said darkly. “It’s really lucky he was unconscious by the time I showed up. What are you holding?”
I had just noticed that her right hand was balled into a fist.
“Huh? What?”
She followed the direction of my gaze and slowly opened her hand. She flexed it and winced. I took her hand in mine and inspected it. It was reddened and swollen.
Amelia let out a nervous laugh. “I completely forgot… when I ran at Lucien, I punched him before tasing him.”
“Ah. Where did you punch him?”
“In the gut.”
“Good. I’m just sorry you got hurt doing it. Hang on.” I took a tube of ointment from my room and hurried back to Amelia. “The swelling will go down eventually, but massaging it will help. Put it here.”
I stretched out my hand to her, palm up. Amelia gingerly put her injured hand in it. I squeezed out some of the cold ointment onto her knuckles. She shivered a little. I gently began massaging her bruised hand. I ran my thumb over her fingers repeatedly, applying gentle pressure. After several minutes, I knew it was time to stop but Amelia’s hand felt so good in mine that I didn’t want to let go. I flipped her palm over, and made a series of figure eights on the sensitive skin of her palm. Judging by her suddenly increased and laboured breathing, I knew that she was getting as turned on by this as I was.
When I forced her head upwards to stare into her eyes, I was damned sure. She was staring right at me with those pretty green eyes. What else could I do but plant a swift kiss on those lush lips? The kiss was meant to be a quick one, but I couldn’t help deepening it. Amelia let out one of her sexy little moans which was my undoing. I dragged her unresisting body into my lap. She pulled away a bit, just for a moment and then she was straddling me, and our hands were roving over our bodies. I got the buttons of her blouse undone, buried my face into her heavy breasts that nearly overspilled her lacy bra.
“So beautiful,” I moaned.
She pushed me back against the sofa. The tip of her tongue trailed a path of fire from the back of my ear to my lips. One small hand cupped my hardness. I went very still. Summoning all of my self control, I lifted her off me.
“I’m sorry, Amelia,” I gasped. “I-I can’t. It’s not a good idea for us to have sex anymore. Continued intimacy will make it really hard for us to keep to the terms of our agreement.”
Amelia blinked dazedly, but nodded.
“Yeah. I understand,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. She couldn’t meet my eyes. “Thank you for er- tending to my hand. It feels better already. Goodnight.”
She walked away unsteadily.