I went outside with my things to see a white Mercedes Benz parked near the door.
"Well, that is certainly an upgrade from my car." I murmured and lingered, admiring the car for a bit more, before sitting inside and driving away. I put in the location of the hospital in my GPS as I had yet to memorize the way from Lucifer's house to the hospital.
At the hospital
Fortunately I did not get lost on the way. I reached the hospital on time and made my way towards my office. On opening the door, I was greeted with the sight of my colleague and good friend, Alice, sitting on one of the chairs and blushing profusely. On shifting my position a bit, I noticed that she was looking at something on her phone. She was so engrossed in looking at her phone that she did not even notice my presence. I slowly went to where she was sitting.
"My, my, I wonder, what you are looking at to make you blush so hard? That too, so early in the morning." I whispered near her ear in an attempt to scare her.
"Oh god! You scared the living daylights out of me, Alexa!" Alice screamed in surprise.
"Not my fault.....I'd assume that you would have expected to see me in my own office."
"Yes, but not so suddenly." she said while taking deep breaths to calm her heart down. The scare attempt worked phenomenally.
"Anyway, what are you doing here?"
"Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that for a second….. So yesterday when you had taken a leave, we had all been called into the meeting hall for an important announcement. It was concerning the change of ownership of the hospital…. I was quite upset at first but then it was revealed that the ownership has been transferred to none other than the Gray Corporation!!" Her voice sounded sad when she told me about the change but that sadness did not stay put for even a single second before it was replaced with overwhelming happiness and excitement.
"You should let your sadness linger for a bit more to sound at least a little bit genuine."
"Hey! What do you mean by that? I am genuine. It's just that the good news seems to outweigh the bad news by just a teeny – tiny bit. And you should know better than anyone else that I don't let my sorrow come in the way of joy."
"Yeah right" I said as I rolled my eyes at her blatant lies.
"Wait, you're missing the point here and you don't look even the least bit excited. 'The Lucifer Gray' is going to be the new chairman from now on! Do you realize how huge this is?"
The news of Lucifer taking over the hospital was supposed to be kept confidential till the procedure for taking over had been officially completed and thus no one except me, Lucifer, our previous chairman and a few other individuals knew of this.
"You know that I don't really care about these things, right? Who cares about who our new chairman is? "
"I care. And how can you not care?!... I am really starting to doubt whether you are actually a human and not just a robot in human skin."
"Think whatever you want…. but the thing that I am more interested in knowing about right now, is not the announcement but what you were watching before I came in."
"It was nothing." she said as she fidgeted with her phone nervously.
"Oh really? I don't think so." I responded, getting even more curious, and snatched her phone from her hands.
"Give it back!"
I made use of my height which was at least a few inches more in comparison to hers and held the phone above my head.
"*tsk* Looks like you still haven't set a password on your phone, so careless!" I clicked my tongue and remarked as I unlocked the phone with the click of a button.
The next second all my curiosity and excitement faded in the blink of an eye as a picture came into my view.
"What the hell is this?" I asked confused.
Alice took the phone from my hands when I subconsciously lowered it in a daze.
"What do you mean 'what the hell is this'?" she asked incredulously.
"That's the image that you were blushing at?!"
"Yeah, what's the problem with that?"
"That's the photo of someone's back. That too covered, if it was a shirtless image I would've still maybe understood, but this! I don't even know what to say..... Even the guy's face is not visible!!" I said in utter disbelief.
The image that I saw was nothing like I had imagined, it was a simple photo of a man in a black shirt. It was his back profile as he was walking away…. Nothing else.
"What are you talking about? Can't you see those broad shoulders, those long legs… oh and those muscular arms of his that even the suit that he is wearing can't hide." she spoke in an enchanted tone.
I was completely stunned by the way she was behaving.
"Umm…. Let's go somewhere, shall we?"
"Where are we going?" she asked puzzled at my sudden suggestion.
"We are going to pay Dr. John a visit, you know, the psychiatrist." I said with a smile.
"Shut up!! And aren't you going to ask who the person in the image is?"
I asked with a bored expression, "Who is it?"
"It's Lucifer!!" she spoke with excitement.
I froze at her words and took the phone from her hands to look at the picture again. I realized that these were the exact same clothes that he had worn when that 'unfortunate' incident had happened.
"I had gone to get myself a coffee and when I was returning I saw him entering our hospital and secretly took a picture. I feel so stupid now! I should've guessed that he had something to do in the hospital, after all what else would a big businessman like him come here for? Definitely not for a checkup, that's for sure."
I still didn't know how to react to the situation. In the back of my mind, I started to wonder if she had seen me with Lucifer, but if she did then why didn't she tell me? Before I could get lost in my own thoughts, she pulled me out of my daze with her next words.
"But you would not believe what happened next! A girl suddenly crashed into him and he caught her in his arms just like in the movies, but soon after she scurried away. Like why would she do that? If it was me, I would've stayed like that till the end of eternity. Though now that I think about it, she was probably flustered due to the suddenness of the situation, after all who wouldn't be?"
I listened to her words carefully and on not finding any mention of myself, I tested my luck and asked her, "You didn't tell me who the girl was though, was she someone from the hospital staff?"
"That's the problem, no one saw her face so we don't know whether or not she is someone who we know…... All the attention was on Lucifer from the moment he entered, so no one noticed when the girl walked over and knocked into Lucifer. Even in the numerous pictures that the people took, her face is either barely visible or not visible at all because she was being blocked by Lucifer's body."
I felt relief wash over me as her words registered in my brain. I recalled the image that Lucifer's father had shown us on our visit and remembered that even in that photograph, more than half of my face was blocked by Lucifer's body while part of it was covered by my hair that had been left open.
"This reminds me, why didn't you tell me about any of this before? You normally come running to me the moment something even minor happens, much less something like this." I asked confused.
"That's because you were so busy during that time. Not only did you have many operations scheduled but you had also taken a leave from work which was pretty rare, so I thought that it wouldn't be a good idea to disturb you. Especially when I know that you have no interest in Lucifer or any guy for that matter."
"Oh, I never knew that my lovely Alice is so thoughtful." I spoke with a teasing smile on my face.
She rolled her eyes at my response before saying, "Anyway, now that I have told you everything that I wanted to, I'll head back to my office. I guess I'll meet you at lunch."
"See you at lunch then."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
At Gray Corporations
*Knock knock*
"Come in" The deep,cold and indifferent but authoritative voice of a male came from the other side of the door.
"CEO Gray, you called for me?" The polite voice of a man resounded in the silent office as the door opened.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for the power stones Monaliza_Laguisma, ct_yn and isimpfor2dmen.
A warm welcome to all the new readers, I hope that you'll enjoy reading my book.