Chapter 6 His Disgusting Face

• Lara got up, her hands clutching the covers. She turned red with embarrassment when she discovered herself naked underneath.
• Damian didn’t avert his eyes, though. Instead, he leaned languidly against the window and stared at her with a somewhat meaningful smile.
• Anxious to get home, Lara steeled herself and got out of bed casually as the covers fell from her hands. As her fair-skinned body was reflected in the man’s black eyes, his pupils shrank in an instant, and his hand froze while holding the cigarette.
• Lara had unapologetically entered the bathroom. After taking a shower, she came out wrapped in a bath towel, only to find that Damian was no longer in the room. Laid on the bed was a solid black lace dress studded with diamonds, which concealed the marks left on her body perfectly.
• After changing into the dress, Lara gathered her stuff and went home right away. On her way home, she got a phone call from Elaine Moore. Only then did she learn that Eric had gone to her home to speak to Jean after being unable to find her. Thinking that she was doing something indecent out there, Jean had a heart attack in a fit of rage and was rushed to the hospital.
• Lara hurriedly made a U-turn and headed for the hospital as she didn’t dare to have second thoughts.
• In the hospital’s corridor, Lara was trembling with her hands clasped. There were several times when she nearly fell to the ground. As she was too weak to enter the operating room in such a state, she sat helplessly on the lounge chair, waiting for the news. As Eric’s disgusting face came into her mind, her fingernails dug deep into her palms, creating a clear, dull pain that made her remember everything the man had done to her. Aside from Jean, she had no other relatives. Her eyes reddened as she clutched the hem of her shirt with her head hanging low.
• The wait was torturously long. When the light outside the operating room dimmed, Lara rushed over, asking, “How’s my mom, Elaine?”
• Elaine pulled down her face mask with a grave expression. “She’s already been transferred to the ICU. She’s in a stable condition for now, only that her heart has shown signs of rejection.”
• Rejection? Lara felt a heart-wrenching pain, as if her heart had been lifted up and whipped. Jean had been healthy for the past five years since her heart transplant surgery.
• Elaine then continued, “Such a situation may indicate a chronic graft rejection, but it’s also possible that Mrs. Sullivan herself is rejecting the heart. If this goes on, I’m afraid she’ll have to have another heart transplant. You should know how slim the chances of success are for this kind of surgery. There are only two such cases in our country at present, and both patients died about a month after their transplant.” Most importantly, a second heart transplant would require hefty surgical fees, as well as a freshly beating heart.
• Upon hearing Elaine’s words, Lara froze on the spot. Her mind went blank in an instant. She wanted to cry, make a racket, and go insane—only she knew that doing so would be totally useless.
• She went to the payment counter to pay for Jean’s treatment and hospitalization. However, her colleague at the payment counter handed her bank card back to her and asked with a frown, “Did you take the wrong card, Dr. Sullivan? There’s no money in it.”
• No money? Lara took out two other bank cards, only to end up with the same outcome. As she tightened her grip on the bank card, its edge sank into the wound in her palm, causing a prickling pain. “I’ll come back and pay the money tomorrow.” She bit her lip, then turned around and left the payment counter.
• It’s certainly because of Eric that there’s no money in my cards, she thought. Just as she was about to call Eric to question him, her phone rang again. Surprisingly, it was a call from the hospital. Lara answered it, worried.
• “Dr. Sullivan, somebody has paid for your mother’s hospitalization fees.”
• Lara was startled. Someone has paid the money on my behalf? She couldn’t help but ask, “Who paid the money, and how much did they pay?”
• “It was a man surnamed Langston. He paid 1 million with his credit card.”
• One million?! Why would he pay such a huge amount? For a moment, Lara was at a loss for how to react. After thanking her colleague, she hesitated for a moment. Then, she took out the gilded business card that she had kept in her handbag. After some hesitation, she finally dialed the unfamiliar phone number. “Hi, Mr. Langston. It’s me, Lara,” she said nervously as soon as the call was put through, fearing that he didn’t recognize her phone number. Then, she said, “Thank you for paying for my mom’s hospitalization. You didn’t have to pay so much, actually—”
• “If you wanna thank me, come to Ward 808,” Damian replied before hanging up.
• Lara was stunned. Staring at the dimmed screen of her phone, she finally recalled that Ward 808 was Damian’s son’s ward. After a moment of hesitation, she clutched her phone and went to Ward 808.