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s panicking, wasn’t he? Just the way she wanted it. “For a short vacation. I didn’t even think I’d see Justin here,” she said earnestly. “It’s been really interesting here. I feel like five days is too short.”
“Five is barely enough for this part of the city alone,” Lydia told her. “Are you with friends or family?”
“Alone, actually. It’s more of ‘me’ time,” Mikaela replied. She saw a flicker of anger on Justin’s face. She was pushing his temper.
“And you didn’t even ring Justin for a short tour?” She looked at her son reproachfully.
“I know he’s busy,” Mikaela replied. “It was just a matter of huge coincidence I had to meet him here.”
“Oh how lovely then. It’s my daughter’s engagement party today, I’d love it if you came.”
“But this is a family event,” Mikaela protested.
“Let’s just say I’m letting a new friend in for goodwill,” Lydia said with a smile. “Justin, would you be so kind to escort Mikaela to our event?”
Justin stiffly held out his arm and gave a faint, bitter look that doubled as his smile. She took it with a grin. In a matter of moments, she was introduced to the small crowd, charming almost all of them except Justin, who knew what she was up to.
Mikaela immediately found herself liking his sisters, two young women who were equally attractive and kind like their mother. She wondered why Justin had a cruel streak in him when his family was genuinely nice from her first impression of them. She wished she had brought along her camera, but figured she would look too invasive. The engagement party set-up and even the food looked like it came straight from a magazine. There was only one photographer allowed and two videographers to film the whole event, which lasted until eleven in the morning.
She was even introduced to his grand-aunt, the oldest person in the room, whose vision was still as sharp as her brain. Mikaela took this time to try to get to know Justin better, as the dame Victoria was quite talkative.
“So are you a model in America?” Victoria asked.
Mikaela laughed and shook her head. “Unfortunately, no.”
“Good, because my grand nephew’s been dating models, none that we’ve liked so far, but they’re apparently liked online so much. Why, my Instagram’s only got a few hundred followers but they’ve got more than a hundred thousand for posting bum photos.”
Mikaela laughed outright, delighting the octogenarian. At least this one showed actual enthusiasm for her stories.
“Justin doesn’t have Instagram or Facebook.”
“With good reason. He’s probably tired of all that attention.”
“For a CEO, he sure gets followed around a lot by media,” Mikaela said, dropping her voice.
“Oh, it all started in uni, when he dated the illegitimate daughter of one of those European royals,” Victoria said. “The media liked that girl, but they found out he was interesting and poised to become an heir to one of the largest companies in the world,” she relayed, taking a single grape from a fruit and cheese platter.
“What happened?”
“It lasted until the end of summer, then—” Victoria stopped.
Then what? Mikaela looked at the old woman with expectation. Then Victoria’s eyes bulged out and her hands flew to her throat.
“Aunt Vicky!” Louisa cried out.
The room fell silent, and everyone was wondering what was going on with Louisa’s distressed voice. Then they realized what was wrong. She was choking!
“She’s choking!” someone gasped.
Justin bolted from across the room, wanting to do something but unsure of what to do. Mikaela looked in horror and her body rushed into adrenaline mode as she went behind Victoria and administered a Heimlich maneuver she had read about but had never actually done. She pulled Victoria’s abdomen inward, and then upward, amid the gasps of the guests. Seconds later, a grape fell on the table and rolled all the way to the floor. Mikaela was shaking from what had happened, as the Lydia and Justin helped Victoria sit down.
Mikaela sat down across Victoria who was still trying to catch her breath, her fingers cold and her breathing shallow. Good god, had she just saved someone’s life? The hotel doctor came in, along with a nurse, moments later to check on her.
“She saved my life,” Victoria murmured, looking at Mikaela in awe as she allowed herself to be escorted for further checkup at the clinic. Lydia followed suit.
“You saved Aunt Vicky,” Beatrice gasped, walking up to her.
Unexpectedly, Mikaela found herself wrapped in an embrace. One from Louise and one from Beatrice. Justin was staring at Mikaela, and it was something he never expected to happen. He couldn’t have predicted this, he couldn’t have known that Mikaela would end up being useful outside of the contract. But she had saved his beloved Grand Aunt’s life.
