Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 206: A Surprise

She exclaimed with so much panic in her voice as if she had seen a frightening ghost.

Andrew took in her expression, smiling lightly at how frightened she looked over something so small, then he glanced down at his arm.

Shit, he really was bleeding.

However, despite him realizing that, his expression didn’t change. It was as if he wasn’t in pain at all.

"Doesn’t it hurt?" He raised his eyes to her as she asked this question with her voice quivering slightly. He didn’t think his wound bleeding was serious enough to elicit that kind of concern in her eyes.

She looked pained, despite being uncomfortable with blood she continued to look at it as if trying to figure out what to do to stop it.

He went stiff in shock for a moment.

She was worried for him! He confirmed, even without her saying it.

He had asked earlier playfully if she was worried about him, but he didn’t truly think she would actually feel that way, it had just been him teasing her a bit and the fact that she truly felt that way shocked him.

He stared at her face for a long time, a strange feeling welling up in his chest, that feeling was warm, it was tender and somewhat sweet. It blossomed in the center of his chest, spreading outwards like a crack propagating through ice. No one in his life had ever reacted this way in the matter of his well being.

Though this feeling felt nice, he hated the look of hurt in her eyes.

Wanting to erase the worried look in her eyes, he said something to wipe the concern from her face.

"It doesn’t hurt, it’s just bleeding but I barely feel the pain. I’m quite used to having something like this happen so it’s nothing to fret about, okay?"

Instead of seeing the panicked look disappear from her face like he expected, she looked even more horrified.

"You’ve been shot like this before?!" Her exclamation was heavy with alarm.

To him, this was normal, but her reaction made him realize that he had just said the wrong thing.

Of course she wouldn’t think like he did, if he found it normal didn’t mean she would too.

His wound probably tore open due to the rigorous activity from last night, it was no big deal.

"Just a few times..." He uttered reading her expression and noticing it wasn’t looking any better, in fact even worse, "it doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks."

"But, how did you even..." She began asking then cut herself short. Her eyes carried an agonizing amount of sympathy, so deep as she stared at him as if the mere imagination of him having been through such ordeal hurt her. Her brown eyes seemed to glisten with hints of tears and when this happened, she quickly looked away as if to hide such a look.

Just as her face was turning away, his hand shot up to grab her chin pulling her face back in his direction.

He didn’t know what to do with sympathy. Because of the type of person he showed to the world, no part of him had ever attracted others sympathy before.

Even in his past, as a kid whose mother left behind, no one ever felt pity for him. To them, he was lucky, being in a wealthy family like the Sterlings, not having a mother didn’t matter.

He had learned from a young age that your pain doesn’t matter to anyone else, even to someone who was supposed to truly care. Other than his grandfather, and perhaps his sometimes clingy brother Donald, he knew no one would truly be affected if he felt pain or felt joy.

He had built himself to be used to that, the world wouldn’t bend and turn over even if he were suffering in bone crunching agony. The first time he was hit by a bullet that reality had sunk in and he had learned to be there for himself not needing anyone else.

Being faced with a woman who looked at him with such soft and tender eyes, who seemed to feel for him, he didn’t know what to do.

He could only gently caress her face. Somehow his heart swelled with a rare feeling of being cherished. He knew his feelings for her and in this moment they suddenly grew epically stronger, with the way he had treated her before, he didn’t expect her to feel exactly the same, but this... just this warmed up his heart immensely. It didn’t matter if her empathy was because he was just another person, it didn’t matter if he wasn’t special in her heart, just this already felt really nice.

This warmth he was feeling...was this what he had been denying himself of this whole time?

Yes it was mixed feelings, he liked that she worried for him, but he didn’t like that it seemed to hurt her, however both feelings still felt the same.

"I just need the doctor and it’ll be fine." He muttered reassuringly in a soothing voice and as if to prove it he moved to grab his phone but she stopped him by grabbing his arm.

"Will this happen again, will you get shot again? I won’t pry by asking how you got shot, I just want to know because you said it happens a lot."

His eyes watched her face as she spoke as if he were quietly studying her and it reminded him of something he had once scorned.

Two years ago he was at a very important business meeting in Moscow where some of the most prominent businessmen all over the world assembled for an annual conference, he remembered the man called Ivan Petrovich, the man who owned one of Russia’s largest oil companies, however in the middle of that very conference the man stopped mid speech after receiving a call when usually others would ignore calls in such an important setting, he had picked it up faster than anything and after speaking on the phone for just a few minutes leaving several high ranking men in confusion of his behavior, he suddenly abandoned everything leaving very important businessmen without a second thought.

His reason for abruptly walking away: his wife was worried, she hadn’t seen him in two days and she called crying not knowing where he was, and he chose to abandon the conference he had been organizing for two whole days just to put his wife’s heart at ease.

The man’s actions had somewhat earned him scorn from the business world as it was popular knowledge to never mix business with personal matters, him doing that showed weakness and unprofessionalism. Andrew clearly remembered that he had also thought the same about Ivan, until this very moment.

In this moment, he realized why the man chose his wife over a multi-trillion dollar conference that housed the worlds largest moguls.

At that time, he never thought a day would come where he would understand the man’s sentiment, yet here he was.

Right from an early age, his life had been mixed with danger and perhaps there was a self destructive part to him because in the past he walked into the danger willingly, but in this moment, looking into the eyes of this woman, he wanted to keep himself safe, unharmed if his harm would make her sad.

"This won’t happen again, I give you my word."

Not just his word, he knew he could give his whole world to her.

....

A while later, Shawn arrived, upon walking into the manor he met Andrew in the pristine living room. He sat in a relaxed posture on a brown leather arm chair, dressed in a fitted white tank top that accentuated his toned arms and shoulders, his left shoulder was wrapped by a blood stained gauze and Shawn immediately realized that his wound had opened.

The latter sighed shaking his head and proceeded into the room.

"How the hell did you get your wound open this time? Did you slam your hands on a table in a meeting again or was it different this time?" Shawn spouted a set of questions but only after he finished talking did he realized the person he was questioning looked distracted with a smile on his face and his eyes looking lost in whatever he was thinking about.

Shawn looked around but he didn’t find Anne who he was thinking he would see judging by how she sounded over the phone.

"She called me and told me you might be running a fever because of your wound, it seems you’ve made some progress."

Shawn said conversationally.

"She called you herself?" Andrew finally seemed interested now. He had called Shawn himself, but he didn’t expect her to call him too.

Shawn nodded as he began to take things out of his medical kit.

"Seem she was pretty worried about you."

He noticed Andrew’s smile widened, it held a kind of light he had never seen shine on Andrew’s face before.

It was true that love gave a man a sort of special glow. Being in love brought light and for Andrew it was a much needed kind of light.

"Hmm, she looked quite worried. I’ll have to take better care of myself."

"More like you have to stop getting shot every six months." Shawn remarked as he studied Andrew’s expression that suddenly turned mysterious upon mentioning the gun shot.

Silence filled the room for a while, until Andrew eventually broke the silence.

"Has there been any progress on what I asked you the other day?"

"There is, and there could be good news in a few days time."

Andrew nodded in satisfaction, deep inside his heart there was a trace of anticipation.

"Have you told her yet?" Shawn asked while stitching the wound again after cleaning.

"Not yet, I want it to be a surprise."

"Pfft!" Shawn suddenly burst into laughter which earned him a glare from Andrew. "I’m sorry, just can’t wrap my head around it. The great Andrew Sterling, suddenly planning a surprise for someone. Do you remember when you never cared about doing anything for anyone if it had zero profit yield?"

"Times change and people change, get over it Shawn." Andrew replied dryly.

"I wish I could record you right now and send it to the you from a year ago, that Andrew would curse you for becoming weak and falling for a woman." Shawn was incredibly amused and he felt like he might never get used to this version of Andrew, he would always want to compare him with the man he used to be.

Though he hadn’t changed, something vital inside him had. His heart had been broken out of it’s cage and it had learned to care about someone.

"If you want to go back in time, might as well tell him this too. Tell him that it’s not a weakness, tell him it’s actually quite rewarding and the feeling is greater than a hundred percent profit yield from an otherwise broken venture, he’ll understand."

Shawn’s laughter burst forth in pure delight.

Andrew’s reply to Shawn’s laughter was a smile when in the past he would scowl whenever Shawn attempted to make fun of him.

He thought of Anne as he glanced upwards towards the stairs.

To gift her with her greatest desire...would it make her happy?

He used to think becoming CEO of Sterling Enterprises and achieving his goals was his greatest desire and nothing more, but despite his goal being in reach just a few days ago, it now felt empty if she wouldn’t be in his life.