Chapter 109 I Don’t Want to Impose
Madeline backed away from Sebastian as she eyed him warily and asked, “What did you just say? I thought we agreed that this husband-and-wife thing is only an act!”
“You think too little of me,” Sebastian said dryly as he walked up to her, closing the distance between them. “I’m not asking you to strip entirely—just a fraction so that I can take a look at your scars.”
She froze. “My scars?”
“Yes,” he affirmed. “Didn’t you say that Isabel and Angie whipped you when you were young and you still have the scars from the lashings?” Let me take a look at them. With the right treatment, they might fade or disappear.”
Madeline couldn’t wrap her head around this. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be wearing clothes all the time to cover them up, so don’t trouble yourself.”
“Let me take a look,” Sebastian insisted. He was a perfectionist, and the thought of Madeline’s flawless skin being marred irked him for some reason.
Presently, she clutched her clothes as if they would fall right off her if she didn’t and shook her head. “No, there really isn’t a need for that. I really…”
“Overlook your own interests all you want, but you should at least think of the kids,” he countered firmly. “What if they want you to bring them to the beach someday? Are you going to wear a swimsuit without revealing those scars? Or are you never going to bring Aldo and Buddy to the beach so that you’ll never have to wear a swimsuit? What if the kids come across your scars by accident or some other? You don’t want them to be heartbroken, do you?”
“I…” Madeline hesitated and bit down on her lower lip. “Fine, but let me take a shower first.”
He was pleased by his own powers of persuasion, so Sebastian smiled at her and said, “Go ahead.”
As such, she bounded into the shower and dried her hair afterward. Then, she slipped into her pajamas before coming out of the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Sebastian had showered as well, and he was clad in his dressing robe as he sat on the bed while typing away on his laptop. When he saw that Madeline had come out of the shower, he closed his laptop and set it aside before glancing in her direction.
All of a sudden, Madeline felt her cheeks burning up.
She slowly walked over to the bed and sat down gingerly next to him. Following that, she turned to show him her scars. She slipped off half her pajama top to reveal half her back.
There were dozens of scars on the alabaster skin of her back. Some were horizontal while others were vertical, and they were all of various depths. Needless to say, it was hard not to think of them as anything but ugly.
However, the dozens of scars did not seem to deface her gorgeous skin, but rather added a trace of tortured beauty to it.
Her back was enticing. If one ignored the scars, the rest of her skin was as white as snow; some parts of it were so smooth that the lights played off it, giving it a subtle glow. The silhouette of her back was defined and delicate, and as she sat up straight, Sebastian could vaguely make out the lines of her wingspan. For a moment, it was as if she might sprout beautiful butterfly wings and take off.
There was much about her back that fueled his imagination.
Sebastian’s breath hitched, and he thought the room was growing warmer all of a sudden.
Madeline, on the other hand, chewed on her lip doubtfully when she heard no response from the man behind her. “Well, do you think the scars can be healed?”
He snapped out of his reverie and muttered quietly, “I can’t make any promises about the deeper ones, but we can probably tackle the faint ones. My younger brother, Caleb, went to medical school, and he recently opened up a pharmaceutical company that has launched plenty of good stuff. I’ll ask him about it and see if he’s able to recommend treatment for the deeper scars on your back.”
“That sounds like an awful lot of trouble,” she pointed out. “The deeper ones aren’t more than a few, so I’d be grateful enough if you could find a way to help me get rid of the faint ones. That said, I did try out several creams, but none of them helped, so I just left the scars as they are. My clothes cover them up well enough anyway.”
“Well, ordinary creams would wield ordinary effects,” Sebastian said. “Caleb has tons of good stuff in his product line-up, so I’m sure he has a way to help you get rid of those scars.”
Madeline pursed her lips. “I don’t want to impose…”
“You won’t be imposing at all,” he reassured. “He’s always coming to me for help whenever he finds himself at a dead end.”
She thought about this for a moment and said, “You guys seem close.”
He sputtered. “I’m sure Aldo and Buddy will be just as close as us.”
Madeline sighed wearily. “Yeah. Well, don’t get your hopes up.”
“Hmm.” He mused, “Perhaps they should come to me for help whenever they run into dead ends too.”
She wasn’t sure what to say to that, but just as she was scrambling to come up with a witty response or two, Sebastian’s cool fingertips suddenly ran along the ridge of her scar and lightly traced down the length of her back.
She shivered under his touch, and goosebumps raised along her skin as she stood up and drew her top closed. Her face was flushed as she demanded, “W-What are you doing?”
“Testing out the depth of the scar,” he explained matter-of-factly as he gazed up at her. “Just so I can give Caleb a better description. He’s going to need details if we want him to come up with the best solution there is.”
In actuality, he had no idea what possessed him as well. One minute he was staring at her back, and he felt compelled to trace his finger along one of her scars the next. At that moment, he felt a strange twinge of sympathy.
She’s had it rough, he thought.
Madeline should have grown up under the loving care of her parents, never having to worry about food or shelter. However, Cameron’s schemes had led her to live under brutal conditions that no one should ever have to endure.
Indeed, she should have been a young lady of nobility just like Isabel and Angie, but those two had walked over her like she was a doormat and whipped scars into her back.
The surprising thing was that Madeline had taken this all in stride. She had no interest in reliving her past turmoil, but she didn’t hate the world for it either. She carried herself with pride that ought to have been beaten out of her years ago, and she was bright, intelligent, and perceptive of the world around her.
Until now, Sebastian could find no flaw in her.
He had only ever cared about work in the past, and he had no interest in meeting women. He was under the impression that women were delicate and volatile creatures who might lash out without good reason, and he simply did not have the time to deal with them, not to mention take care of their apparently-fragile feelings.
Ever since meeting Madeline, though, he experienced a change of heart.
As it turned out, it challenged his previous notion of women. Not all women were irritating and unreasonable; women like Madeline, for example, felt like a breath of fresh air. She put him at ease with her witty repartee and her unaffected demeanor. He found himself wanting to draw closer to her, get to know her better, and to take one more glance at her. He wanted to stay and see just what other surprises she could give him.
“I’m going to see Aldo and buddy!” Madeline declared abruptly after she couldn’t argue with the reason Sebastian had given her. She still felt a little peevish nonetheless by his intimate gesture earlier, and she wanted nothing more than to get out of this room.
She turned to run out the door, but she suddenly heard Sebastian say teasingly, “You’re seeing the boys wearing that?”
Madeline skidded to a stop. She looked down and saw that she was still wearing her pajamas.
As she blushed furiously, she clutched the front of her top and froze in place. She was at a total loss.
Sebastian offered with good humor, “I’ll go and check in on them.”
He brushed past the woman and opened the door before turning around to appraise her. When he saw that her pretty face had turned a bright shade of red, he couldn’t help but laugh as he pointed out, “Your back looks great, by the way. It’s symmetrical and elegant, not to mention it has a gorgeous silhouette. I’m sure you’ll be the center of attention the moment you attend a banquet in a backless gown or something, but for that to happen, we’re going to have to do something about those scars.”
Madeline swallowed nervously and did not make a reply. She felt as if she had just been teased, but when she saw how honest and serious Sebastian looked while he was giving her reassuring advice, she began to wonder if she was just sensitive and a little prudish. Am I overreacting?
At her lack of a response, Sebastian let out another laugh and gazed at her face meaningfully. With that, he turned to walk out the door.
