His Lovely Ward

Chapter 6

“What do you mean you are the police?” she demanded. “You’re a freaking lawyer.”

“Yes, that too,” Henry winked at her appalled look and looked back on the monitor. “I sort of have two jobs.”

“What the hell do you mean? Hey, I’m talking to you,” he felt her nudge his arm by her finger.

“What?” he asked irritably. When he saw her face, he sighed. “I told you the truth. I am the police—well, sort of.”

“And I asked you, what the hell does that mean? Like the NYPD?”

Despite her messy hair, she looked so darn beautiful with her eyes on fire, her eyebrows arched in question, and Henry fought the urge to wipe her face clean.

“Just…clean up first,” he looked away and focused his attention back on the computer. “Then we’ll talk.”

She seemed to think about it for a few seconds before she walked away and disappeared into the shower room. He didn’t know how much had to tell her, but he had to tell her something. Telling her he was the police was half a lie. He was not a cop. He was a little bit more than that, but he couldn’t tell her that. That would jeopardize his other objectives.

 *****

Angelica took her time cleaning up. She stepped under the warm shower and cringed as her wounds and scratches stung. She had to cool her head and assess everything that happened to her. She had to make sure that everything was going to be alright and that she would be back to normal.

All in one day, she found out her father was dead, and probably murdered, she thought, and then she found out he asked his young friend to be her guardian at her age—God help her she was too old and smart to have one—and she got kidnapped by people she didn’t know, looking for a document she had but she couldn’t even open, and then got rescued by her so-called guardian who claimed he was one of the authorities. Only in the movies…she wondered whether the movies could think of making something similar. If I am to be the actress, I will turn it down, she thought bitterly.

This morning she woke up ready for battle. Battle against her colleagues who looked down on her because of her age, thinking she was too young to be where she was—that kind of battle she wa too prepared for. But the one she just had, being kidnapped and almost getting killed was never in her plan.

Oh my God…I almost got killed…

Yeah, it was probably too late to shake and cry in fear, but she did just that. The adrenaline that drove her angry and courageous earlier had worn off and now she was just tired and freaking scared. But she was too proud to admit that to anyone but herself. She was the most tactless person she had ever known, but telling everyone she was at her weakest point was probably the last thing she’d do.

Somehow she was hurt knowing outside the shower room was a man her father trusted. Patrick Dalton chose to tell someone about his troubles but never his own daughter. Did he think she was still too young to understand? Did he think she was still his genius daughter who was too naïve to think of anything else other than skipping high school and entering medical school at a young age? Did he think she never cared that he never talked to her about his firm?

I am not a child, Dad, she whispered in her mind and hoped he could hear her wherever he was right now. I am not that weak as you might think, she added. All her life, she tried and tried to show him that. She tried to show him she was strong and she could do almost everything. She was smart enough to skip three years of high school, she was perspicacious enough to take as much subjects in premed, and she was freaking too intelligent to graduate four years earlier than what was normal.