Belle was seated at the back of one of the cars Ben came with. She rested her head on his shoulders and enjoyed as he caressed her hair slowly. They were going to a hotel, it was almost night, and Brie decided to stay at the hospital.
“Thank you, Ben.” Belle thought she should say to him.
“Next time something like this happens, I want you to call me immediately, okay?” He told her instead of a ‘you are welcome’ like she expected.
“What if you can’t help,” she sat up and turned to him.
“There will surely be a way to avert the situation. No problem is unsolvable, it just depends on how you approach it, and I don’t want you to approach any problem from now on, let me be the one to take care of that for you.”
“…” Belle said nothing. She rested on him again but not on his shoulder this time, she laid her head on his thighs and he began stroking her hair again.
She suddenly chortled to herself but he heard her.
“What is funny?” He wanted to know but Belle said nothing in reply. She wasn’t going to tell him that she found it funny that sometimes he stroked her hair so gently and sometimes, he pulled on it while he sexed her. She just smiled.
*****
Next morning.
Ben stood with both his hands in his trouser pockets as he watched Belle apply gloss to her lips to cover up her noticeably gloomy face. She turned to him when she noticed he was waiting.
“I’m ready,” she managed a smile but he wasn’t satisfied with it.
“You’ve got this…” Ben trailed his words as he pointed and touched his chin. Belle also touched under her lips to check if she had accidentally smeared some lip gloss elsewhere other than her lips.
“Here?” She asked him but he shook his head before going to her.
“Let me,” he told her and used his thumb to wipe off the invisible gloss stain: there wasn’t any there, he just wanted to come kiss her. He held her head with his four fingers behind her neck and his thumb on her cheeks, bringing her face to his, he kissed her. It was the first time they were sharing a kiss since she left City S.
When their lips separated, and while Ben got lost in her Caribbean-blue eyes, Belle suddenly burst into laughter. It made him smile, he achieved what he wanted.
“Now, you’ve got my lip gloss on your lips,” Belle giggled.
“I don’t mind,” he smiled the more she laughed.
“Oh, you don’t? Here’s some more then,” Belle stood on her toes and pecked on his lips repeatedly to put more gloss on them. Ben found himself laughing when she did it and when she wanted to stop what she started, he didn’t let her.
His arm around her waist to hold her back, he kissed her lips lightly, then her neck, before her shoulder. Belle giggled again.
“Come on, don’t. You know what that does to me,” she told him.
“I don’t,” he lied.”Help me out,” he grinned.
“You do. Liar.”
“I don’t, really.” He kissed her neck again, sucking on her soft skin.
“Ben…” Belle called with her voice under her breath.
“I miss you,” he whispered with his lips still on her skin, kissing her more.
“My grandma’s in the hospital,” she reminded him.
“I know. I just want to kiss your neck, nothing more.”
“You can’t just kiss my neck and nothing more will happen, we both know that.” Her statement made him smile vaguely.
“You are right, we should be on our way to the hospital.” He said and let her free, walking to the door before her and holding it so she could pass through.
*****
At the hospital.
Ben stood outside the ward with his hands in his pocket as he watched Belle talk to her sleeping grandmother.
Although glad that her sister was not making it her fault that their grandmother was at the hospital-still felt guilty deep down as she stood by the bed. She wanted to kiss her grandmother’s hand but chose to obey the nurse’s instructions not to touch the sleeping woman.
She looked towards the door and saw Ben walking away with his phone to his left ear. She didn’t give much attention to it till she was done with seeing her grandmother and didn’t see him around anymore but she saw Randy.
“Randy?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Where’s Ben, I can’t see him anywhere.”
“…” Randy kept mute for a few seconds before responding.”He had to return to the city unfortunately ma’am, something very important needed his attention so he left.”
“Oh, something important huh?” she just said, scratching the back of her neck.
‘Don’t think about it, it must have been really important for him to leave without letting you know.’ She told herself inwardly.’It’s not like he loves you or anything, of course there’s something more important that you are,’ another part of her inner thought contrasted.
“… but he asked me to wait here, in case you needed anything. Please, let me know if there’s anything at all you want me to do.” Randy brought her back.
“Yeah, okay.” She nodded without fully listening to what he just said, she was still overthinking.
*****
Time passed and Belle’s grandmother’s health condition got better. Both she and Brie could finally return to the city. Ben hadn’t called ever since he left, but Randy was still around. He was the one driving them both back to City S.
All the while Belle was in her hometown, she didn’t use her phone much but now she could. The moment she unlocked her phone, different news notifications came popping in. She was sure she saw one with Ben’s recent picture from the event popping in too; it seemed to be the only picture the media could lay hands on at the moment.
She tapped on the notification that had his picture and skimmed her eyes through the heading.
‘The Larksons try to hide the hospitalization of Mrs Larkson, why?’
‘Confirmed sources have let us know that the mother of Billionaire Ben Larkson has been hospitalized but the family wouldn’t come out about what the reason is for her being in the hospital.’ Belle read this and didn’t want to believe it, she prayed it was just a rumour.
‘Hospital denies the admission of Mrs Larkson,’ Belle read a news story headline that popped up.
When they got to Brie’s apartment, Belle waited till she stepped out before telling her that she wasn’t going in with her. Randy got back into the car after holding the door open for Brie.
“Where should I take you?” He asked but received Belle’s question in return.
“Where’s Ben? Take me to him.” She demanded but Randy turned back to her shaking his head.
“I have no idea where he is, ma’am.”
“You do, I know you do, you always do, take me to him.”
“I’m sorry, but I do not, at least not today. I’ve been with you for the past three weeks, and haven’t been in city S, so I have no idea of where he is, ma’am.”
“Alright, if you were to guess, where would he be right now?” Belle asked him again and he sighed.
“I can’t just guess his whereabouts, who knows, he might be out of city S.”
“Take me to his office,” Belle wasn’t listening to him.
“He is not there…”
“So you know where he is?” She cut him short.”You do, don’t you?”
“I can’t take you to him, ma’am, not without his knowledge.” He didn’t want to do anything to displease his boss.
“Okay, I’ll call him.”