Kapitel 17: Give Him a Chance
"It's our agreement," Ryan let out an awkward cough. "I took notes on our rules for this pretend-dating contract the other night and printed them out. There are two copies of them."
"You're showing this to me. Why?"
"You need to crosscheck on the terms. If you're done with that, you need to sign both of them somewhere on the bottom part. I've signed the papers. All that's left is your signature."
"Why do I need to sign the papers?"
"Isn't it obvious? This will be the evidence in case one of us violated the contract."
"In other words, you didn't trust me."
"I'm trying to be more careful by protecting my benefits."
Violet clicked her tongue. "That's fine. I don't think I can trust you either." She read the paper a few times and looked up. She stretched her arms and showed her palm to Ryan.
"What?"
"I'm going to need to borrow your pen if you want me to sign this. I don't have any pen with me right now." She raised a brow and looked at him teasingly. "Or would you prefer that I bit my thumb and seal the document with my blood?"
Ryan scoffed as he took his pen from his coat and placed it in Violet's hand.
Violet went through the contract and put on her signature on both papers. "All done."
Ryan checked the documents and handed a copy to Violet. He stretched his arms and shook his hand with Violet. "It was a pleasure doing business with you."
Ryan was about to turn around to leave when he saw his sister, Hannah, and his niece, Lily, standing behind him. Hannah was carrying her daughter in one hand, and a paper bag on another one.
His heart skipped a beat.
Ryan swiftly slid his agreement into his pocket and looked at his sister nonchalantly. "What are you doing here?"
"Visiting," Hannah replied. She narrowed her eyes and looked at her brother suspiciously. "What were you two doing?"
"Nothing," Ryan replied quickly. "I'm checking on my patient."
"Really?"
"Didn't you say you're here to visit?" Ryan tried to change the subject.
"Oh right!" Hannah said as she put her daughter down and walked towards the bed. "Violet, hi! I haven't seen you for years! The last time I saw you, you were five. I remembered very well when Ryan and you used to follow me around."
Violet turned to Ryan for his explanation.
"This is my second sister, Hannah." Ryan introduced. "You've met my eldest sister, Kate during dinner the other day, remember?" He turned to the little girl and spoke, "And this little girl is my niece, Lily."
"Oh!" Hannah looked at her daughter. "Lily, say hi to Aunt Violet."
The little girl's gaze went from her mother to Violet. "Hello." She said with a shy smile.
Violet smiled. "Hello. It's nice to meet you, Lily."
"Where's mom?" Ryan asked his sister, knowing that Hannah shouldn't be coming to the hospital without their mother.
"She met up with Violet's mom downstairs," Hannah said. "They were chatting about something. So, I decided to go up first."
Ryan nodded. "I need to go now." He paused and turned to Violet again. "Your CT scan and MRI results will be out any minute. I'm going to check the result with the doctor in charge. If there's nothing wrong with the results, you will be discharged."
"Alright." Violet nodded. "Thanks again."
"Don't worry about your girlfriend. I'll take care of her." Hannah said. "In the meantime, I can get to know my future sister-in-law."
Ryan frowned. "Hannah! The whole marriage thing is not definite. I thought you were the only one who would at least side with me after Kate decided to betray me."
Hannah rolled her eyes. "I thought you got work to do. Why aren't you going away?"
Ryan placed his hand on his hips. "Are you kicking me out of my hospital?"
"I didn't say anything like that," Hannah said. "And technically, this isn't your hospital."
"I worked here," Ryan said with a grunt. He bent down to Lily and whispered, "Make sure your mama doesn't spout any nonsense about me, alright?"
Lily nodded and the girls watched Ryan disappear behind the door.
"So sorry about that. My brother's an ass," Hannah said. "We always got into a silly argument like that. I'm sure you'll get used to that after some time."
Violet smiled in response.
Hannah rummaged through her paper bag and took out a plastic container. Hot steam came out when she took off the lid. "My mother made you some porridge. You should eat some."
"Thank you," Violet said as she took a spoon from Hannah. She shoved a spoonful of porridge into her mouth and looked up when she noticed that Hannah was staring at her. "It's… delicious."
"I'm glad you like it," Hannah smiled. "I was thinking that we should go out and hang out sometimes. We could go shopping and hang out or anything like that."
"That would be nice," Violet answered awkwardly. She took another spoonful of porridge, feeling slightly awkward with Hannah's presence. After all, this woman was a stranger to her.
"So..." Hannah said with a smile plastered on her face. "What do you think of Ryan?"
"What? What do I think of what?" Violet was startled by the unexpected question from Hannah. Fortunately, her mouth wasn't filled with more porridge or she might be spluttering them all over the place.
"Come on, you can tell me. And I promise I won't tell Ryan anything." Hannah said. Then, she turned to her daughter. "I will bake you some chocolate cake if you promise that you won't tell your uncle anything."
Lily smiled happily and nodded. "I promise." She stretched her arms and the mother-daughter did their pinky promise.
"Well?" Hannah said.
Violet put down her spoon slowly on the table. "I don't know. I'm not sure what to think of him. I mean, I just met him a few days ago. I didn't know him that much to comment."
"I know that my little brother can be an ass sometimes," Hannah commented.
Violet nodded inwardly. She can't agree more.
"He's always like that with girls. He didn't trust most girls after a bad breakup years ago. It turned out that she only dated Ryan because she likes his money more than him." Hannah said. "But Ryan's a good kid. I assure you. You'll know it once you get to know him a bit more."
Violet nodded.
She understood a bit why Ryan accused that she was after his family's wealth.
However, that was not the reason to treat someone you barely know like a jerk. Not every girl in this world is alike. And to her defense, she never knew that Ryan was that rich until her father told her over dinner a few days ago.
Hannah smiled. "You should give him a chance."
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein