My Billionaire Husband

To release Kate's anxiety, the man smiled and poured a cup of tea for her and started chatting as if they were friends, "How is your father?"

Kate felt her heart being stabbed by a needle. She answered awkwardly, "Just like that."

The man put the cup of tea in front of her. Kate was startled by this ordinary behavior.

He poured a cup for himself and took a sip. "Nice. Have the hot tea. It can help you warm up."

Kate wondered what he was playing at. She was on the verge of saying, "Stop beating around the bush." But instead, she took up the cup and had a drink. She was nervous and drank too fast. The tea was too hot, and she almost wanted to spit it out.

The man waited until she put down her cup and put his cup down too. He said, "Miss White, how about we make a deal."

As he just said these words, the middle-aged man moved forward and put a bank card in front of Kate on the table.

"There are two hundred thousand dollars on this card. It is for your father's surgery. Don't delay this anymore."

Kate's eyes fell on the card about a foot away from her. She heard the sound of her saliva moving in her throat, and the next second she heard the man, with power in his voice, "You know what I want."

She blurted out, "No."

Realized her reaction was negative, she added hastily, "I don't know what you want. I have things to attend to. I need to go."

When she stood up, she made some noise in pushing the chair back. Curly-hair was about to stop her, but his boss said calmly, "Let her go."

Curly-hair turned to his partner and pursed his lips in the direction of their boss. Curly hair's partner looked back at the boss, taking up his cup of tea with ease. It was as if he knew it was in the bag.

As Kate hurried back to the hospital, she ordered herself to wave away the idea, not allowing herself a chance for hesitation. She walked faster and faster, and when she got back to the ward, her back felt moist.

It was noisy in the room. A few hospital staff members were there, and her mother and sister were arguing with them about something. Her mother pleaded with them, insisting that they could get the money soon and pay the hospital.

But the male hospital staff said, "You can check in when you have the money ready. You know a lot of patients are waiting for a bed out there. Besides, we cannot treat him if you cannot even pay the money you owe to the hospital. There is nothing to be discussed. He has to get out of here today. This is not an asylum."

Kate's usually mild-tempered sister got angry too, "How can you speak to her like that?"

Her father struggled on the bed and intended to lift the quilt and get down underneath it. He coughed and said, "Let's leave this goddamn place. I want to die at home."

The sound of her mother pacifying her father, her father's coughing, the hospital staff exchanging words, all mixed together and turned into a net, wrapping and trapping Kate and making her feel suffocated. In confusion, she could only see the bankcard in her brain…two hundred thousand dollars.

With two hundred thousand dollars, her father could have the surgery immediately.

Without the two hundred thousand dollars…

After a short stalemate, her mother accepted the fate they had to face and started to pack up their things. Her sister had called her husband, and they fought over the phone, and now she was sobbing. It looked as if their last hope was broken.

Kate had never had such a hard conflict inside her. She looked at her luggage at the corner of the room. It was something that did not belong to her. Besides, somebody's life might be at risk.

A phone rang. The male hospital staff, coldly monitoring them, answered the phone. After a few "well" and "ah," he changed his face and said awkwardly, "You don't need to go today."

"Uh?" The whole family stared at him in surprise.

He waved his hand and said shortly, "Somebody paid your bills." And he added, "But you have to try to get the money ready for surgery. The resources of this hospital are tight. You have to know that."

He jerked his head to the other staff, and they left together.

***

The windfall made Kate's mother and sister both ecstatic. They hurried to get her father back to bed. Kate ran out to catch up with the hospital staff. "Please, tell me who paid the bills for us?"

The hospital staff turned crossly, "A big guy called Mr. Fox. He talked to our hospital president. Since you knew such a powerful person, what were you doing earlier? It is a waste of my time." And he left angrily.

Her suspicion was confirmed. She leaned on the wall languidly.

What did this mean? Had he forced her to accept the trade?

While she was leaning on the wall weakly, and enduring the fight inside her heart, the phone in her pocket rang all of a sudden. Kate shook so hard that a nurse passed by and gave her a strange look.

She took out the cell phone and saw an unfamiliar number. This time she didn't hesitate but accepted the call immediately. The mild male voice asked, "Miss White, have you thought it over?"

Tears emerged from her eyes, and she heard herself said in a dry voice, "Yes."

Back at the café, Curly-hair and the middle-aged man were still standing. And the boss was standing by the window making a call. He turned his back to the door and put his other hand in his pocket. On the table, there was a notebook computer.

When Kate entered the door, she stopped. Curly-hair walked over and asked her for the thing, but she ignored him even though he was obviously cross. The man turned back only after he finished his call, and he looked at her lightly. She walked up and put the envelope on the table. Curly-hair took it and examined it by the light from the window.

The man didn't give a second look at it. Instead, he asked, "Did you see it?"

Kate shook her head.

He handed her the card and said calmly, "The password is the last six numbers of your social security number. And the other fifty thousand is compensation for the offense we caused you a few days ago."

Kate took the card and held it tightly in her palm. The sharp edge poked her soft skin, but she didn't feel pain.

Curly-hair passed the envelope to his boss and nodded to him. The man went back to his seat, looked at the receiving address and sender on it, and made a hardly audible snort.

Kate heard it and looked up at him.

He tore the envelope neatly and put the disc into his notebook computer. She observed his cold and sharp profile and his curved lips. That might be ironic or complacent. While waiting for the doc.u.ment to be read by the computer, he tapped his fingers on the table, and the ring on one of his fingers gave some icy glare under the sunlight.

Kate looked down to the tile below her feet and waited.

After a few minutes, the man finished browsing the contents of the disc and walked up to Kate, still carrying the cold and calm air, "That is it for us. As soon as you walk out of this door, everything you hear and see in here…" he pointed to her head, "has to be deleted completely."

Kate nodded. The man could not see her face and seemed to think that was an obstacle to their communication. He lifted her chin and forced her to look into his eyes and then felt satisfied. "Don't play a game with me. Don't get yourself and your family into any more trouble."

He stressed the word family and pronounced it especially distinctly.

Kate looked into his deep-set eyes and felt a little dizzy, but she replied affirmatively, "I know."

The man scanned her face again as if to identify if she was telling the truth, and then he released her, "You can go now."

Kate turned, pushed the door open, and walked out without hesitation.

As soon as the door was closed, Curly-hair asked, "Boss, you really want to let her go?"

The man leaned back to the chair and lifted up his cup of tea while looking at the pink perfume lily. He seemed to not be hearing Curly-hair's question and muttered, "They should change this lily to a white one." As he took a sip of the tea, he turned to them, "What do you think?"

Curly-hair was startled. What did he think about it? A pink or a white lily? He replied in the next second with coldness in his tone, "I think only dead people are reliable."

The man raised his eyes and gave him a stare, "Is it funny to kill?"

"Uh…" Curly-hair paused. "Of course not."

The man took another sip and said slowly, "Remember, we are here to solve the problem, not to make another problem. Or else I will have to spend all my time following you and cleaning up the mess for you. How can I do anything else?"

Curly-hair was ashamed by his words, and he said respectfully, "I will keep an eye on her. If she oversteps the boundary, I will…" He made a cutting gesture on his neck.

The man seemed to not hear him. He poured another cup of tea for himself as if he was now enjoying the tea only.

Kate had the card in her pocket, but her heart did not feel relieved for solving the problem of funds. Instead, she felt heavier than before. Her heart was empty as if she had had something inside of it removed. An important organ of her body was gone.

She put her hand on her c.h.e.s.t. It felt hard.

Kate walked to the hospital with heavy steps. She paused for a second when she stepped across the gate of the hospital. She walked to a remote place, a lane between two buildings. Nobody walked by there. The snow was about five inches thick, clear and crystal, white and pure. She squatted down and looked at the snow. It was so white it made her feel ashamed.

She inserted her fingers into the soft snow and couldn't feel the coldness. She wished she could wash away the dirt on her hands. After a long time, she felt the piercing wind blowing through her coat, and her nose became sore. Tears came to her eyes as she put her hands on her face and cried out.

She remembered when she was a child; she played cat and mouse with her friends. In the middle of the game, the TV had some show, and her friends ran back to watch. She kept hiding in her neighbor's garden. At first, she was happy nobody found her but soon she felt something was wrong.

However, she stayed there unmoved because that was the rule. She fell asleep until her parents came to find her. They beat her up.

Another time, her mother had asked her to send something to her aunt. She went to the house, but her aunt was out, and the door was locked. She waited there all day until the next morning.

Her parents thought she was stupid and wondered if her brain had been damaged from the time she almost drowned while saving her brother from the river.

She always followed the rules, never crossed the lines. It had become a habit. But now, she broke the rules.