AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She blinked up at him and placed her hands on his chest, looking both innocent and calculating at once if it were possible. He could smell the sweet scent of her expensive perfume.
“So, you’ve forgiven me? You’ll take me home after?”
“No, Angelina.” The words came without conscious thought on his part, but the moment they were spoken, he knew they were right.
“Good God. There’s no way you can have strong feelings for a practical stranger so soon—if you feel anything for that gold-digger, it’s good old-fashioned lust. Why complicate your life when you can have me for the asking?”
Angelina did a small pirouette, showing off her body and her long shapely legs.
The move, which ordinarily would have been compelling, couldn’t seem to hold his attention. He found his mind wandering, imagining what Lillian was doing and why she’d deserted him when he needed her most.
Angelina made a small sound and pouted. “My offer won’t last forever. Tell me to my face you don’t want me anymore. Don’t you remember how good we were together?”
Another time, he might have found her pout cute, but after spending the last day and a half with Lillian at her sister’s bedside, her pout struck him as childish.
“What were you thinking, just now? You have a weird expression on your face.”
Angelina waited for his response, but Tristan didn’t think she’d like it if he told the truth. Thankfully, his cell phone chose that moment to buzz with an incoming call.Brian.
“Sorry, but this is an important call I have to take. Excuse me.”
Angelina made a sound of frustration, but he ignored her, making his way outside the ballroom, where he and Brian could be sure to talk undisturbed.
“I have more information.” His friend didn’t bother with pleasantries. “I’ll include everything in my formal report, but I didn’t think you’d want to wait.”
“You thought right.” Tristan found a chair near a small alcove under a window in a corner looking out over the parking lot and hunched over his phone. “Whatcha got?”
“Get a load of this. Pullman Hospital’s average patient recovery rate for terminal illness is thirty percent. But the year Lillian Milano worked there, the recovery rate jumped to fifty percent.”
Tristan stilled. “Impressive. But do you really think it’s because of Lillian?”
“Well, that’s the interesting part. The increase could be attributed to many factors outside of Lillian; however, we tracked down a few of her former patients from the year she worked there. Each miraculously recovered from a terminal illness. Each of them recount the same unique experience.”
“Which is?”
“I’m working up to that, buddy.”
Tristan held the phone tighter to his ear. Brian was clearly drawing the facts out for maximum impact.
“They all told stories about how Lillian held their hands until their symptoms disappeared. One young man told me he got a warm feeling up and down his body. Another described the sensation as being overheated. An older woman and her granddaughter couldn’t praise Lillian enough. Called her an angel sent from God to destroy the pancreatic cancer that ravaged the grandmother’s body—the doctors had told the family the grandmother had six months to live. That was more than three years ago.”
My God. Excitement curled in Tristan’s gut so he couldn’t sit still any longer. Heat raced up and down his spine. He picked up his phone, strode toward the window, looked out at the night. Hadn’t he thought Lillian had some miraculous way to heal the sick? He hadn’t believed it at the time, it seemed too fantastical, but he’d witnessed her ability himself. If it were true… He let out the breath he’d been holding.
Lillian might be able to cure his mother. And if he had inherited the disease…
“Still there?” Brian rumbled.
Tristan cradled the phone by his ear and tapped his fingers against the glass. A strange feeling filled his chest. Hope. It had been so long since he’d felt the emotion, he had trouble recognizing it.
“Yeah, sorry, it’s quite a lot to take in.”
“I told ya.”
“Have you learned who might be threatening Lillian?”
“Not yet. But we’ve got some leads that look promising.”
“Well, keep on it.”
