Chapter 56
Chapter 56
"Why didn't you tell the doctor if you were finding it hard to breathe?" Greg furrowed his eyebrows. Abigail hastily stepped in after hearing Greg's words. "It's fine. It's normal for elderlies to find it a little harder to breathe, and I was just asking as part of the protocol. Relax," she said.
Valerie beamed after hearing Abigail's words. "You scared me. I did feel some shortness of breath in the past few days, but I trust the doctors here as they have all been handpicked to work here."
"Yeah. It's fine." Abigail stood up and looked around before she picked up a vase of violets. "These violets look so good. Why don't you give this to me as a gift, Old Madam Buckley?" she asked with a smile.
"You can take it if you like it, Dr. Kain. Those aren't mine—someone else gave them to me. I just left it at the window because I thought it looked nice."
"Would it be rude to take this away from you, then?" Abigail asked.
"No, of course not. If you like it that much, I'll get someone to buy a few more vases for you, Dr. Kain," Valerie replied.
"Thank you so much, then." Abigail put on a shy and polite expression, but Greg was experienced enough to see through her façade. "What other flowers do you like? Why don't I buy some for you?" he asked. Valerie beamed upon hearing his words. "Yeah, yeah. What other flowers do you like? You can get this brat to buy some for you. You can just give him orders to purchase whatever you like."
"That'd be asking too much from him," Abigail replied with a smile. Valerie was pleased that Abigail hadn't directly rejected her. She's not pretentious, and she's straightforward with whatever she wants. I like that.
"You don't have to worry about that," Valerie replied.
"I'll leave with this gift then, Old Madam Buckley. By the way, you don't have to stay in the room all the time. You seem a lot better now, so I think you can head home soon. Arianna is probably lonely since she's home alone," Abigail suggested.
"Can I do that?" Valerie's eyes lit up immediately.
"Arrangements will have to be made before you get discharged, Mom," Greg uttered.
"What's there to be arranged? You can just tell someone to pay the bill. I want to go home to see my granddaughter. What does Arianna like, Dr. Kain? As her grandmother, I'd like to give her a gift," Valerie said.
"She likes electronic devices," Abigail replied. She didn't further explain anything as she didn't want to scare Valerie by telling her that Arianna was a hacker.
"Electronic devices? Has our company's most recent robot been released to the market? Hurry and tell Troy to send one over. I'll give it to my granddaughter." Valerie was excited.
"I was planning to give that to her," Greg said with a sigh.
"I don't care. I'm your mother, so you have to do what I say. Go pick some other gift!" Valerie uttered stubbornly.
"Why can't you be a little more reasonable, Mom?" he hissed.
"Why should I be reasonable with you? Hurry up and bring Dr. Kain out to buy some flowers." Valerie completely disregarded Greg's feelings, and he could only rub his nose dejectedly before leading Abigail out of the ward.
After they left the ward, Greg quickly took the violets away from her. "Is there something wrong with these flowers?" he asked in a low voice.
"The flowers are fine, but the mixture of the air freshener and these flowers will form a type of toxin that's relatively weak. It may not show any effects in a short period, but it makes people feel lethargic after a while, and it'll eventually lead to heart failure." Abigail's face turned stern after she left the room.
"Do you have a lot of enemies, Greg? It's only been a while since I took your mother's case, yet there have been so many issues already. If you can't make sure that all the spies have been gotten rid of, then it doesn't matter how good of a surgeon I am. She'll still die eventually." Abigail wasn't exaggerating to scare Greg, and she didn't feel the need to sugarcoat things when it came to him.
"I got it. I'll check on this. Thank you for today," he uttered.
"No worries. However, I don't think your mother is just any regular old woman. I didn't reveal much earlier, but I feel like she sensed something," Abigail said.
"Yeah." Greg didn't say anything after that. Abigail headed back to the ward to get changed, and Greg frowned when he saw her doing so. "Are you really going to head out? You need more rest."
"I'm going to the airport to pick someone up." Abigail estimated Alissa to have gotten on the flight, and the flight from Rorea to Harrion took about the same amount of time as the car ride from the hospital to the airport. Abigail figured that it was about time for her to get ready.
Greg got it wrong, for he assumed that she was going to pick Hugh up. "Are you still thinking of picking someone up when you're in this state? Why don't I send someone to do it for you?" he offered. This belongs to NôvelDrama.Org.
"It's fine. This person is really important to me, so I want to pick this person up myself." Abigail was referring to Alissa, but Greg thought she was talking about Hugh. Important? Those words made Greg feel uneasy.
"I think you should go home and spend time with your daughter. It's the first time my mother's meeting Arianna, so I don't know if they can get along. As you said, my mother isn't too well now, so shouldn't there be a doctor by her side? I'll go pick the person up from the airport. You don't think I'll abuse the person, do you?"
"Well, I don't think that would happen." Judging by the way Greg treated children, Abigail was sure that he wouldn't abuse the child. But how am I going to tell him that the person I'm picking up is Alissa? Abigail was tongue-tied for a moment. However, in Greg's eyes, it seemed like she was reluctant to have Greg disrupt her date with Hugh.
"What is it? I'm Global Inc.'s president. Are you embarrassed to have me pick up a thug like him?"
"No. Hugh's not a thug." Abigail's clarification made Greg even more disgusted. "Whatever. I don't care who he is. I want you to pack up and follow my mother home. You don't have to care about anything else." Greg stopped Abigail in a domineering manner.
Right then, Abigail received a call from Hugh. "Have you guys boarded the plane, Hugh?" Abigail had told Hugh to call her before boarding, so she checked in with him. There was a lot of background noise from his side.
"No. We won't be able to go back now. Something came up, so I'll send Alissa back a while later," he explained.
"Is everything okay?" Abigail was worried.
"Don't worry. I'm here, so Alissa will be fine. I'll talk to you later. Bye." He ended the call right after that. Abigail felt extremely uneasy after hearing the dial tone on the other end of the line. When she attempted to call him again, his phone was turned off.
"Are you unhappy because he's not coming?" Greg asked icily after seeing how much Abigail cared about Hugh. "I can't be bothered to explain everything to you." Abigail packed a few of her clothes as she thought about Valerie's condition. If I leave now, and if something happens to Old Madam Buckley, my title as the best surgeon in the world will be impacted. Furthermore, this old lady is my daughter's grandmother, and she seems to really like children. After contemplating for a while more, Abigail sent her assistant a text.
'I have some stuff to work on, so I'll be in Harrion for a while. I'll need you to deal with the hospital for a while, and I want you to reassign my surgeries. If you really can't find a replacement, compensate the patients and ask them to find other surgeons." After hearing Abigail's orders, her assistant hurried off to get things done.
Once Abigail was done packing her stuff up, Greg drove her back to Allie's Garden. Arianna hadn't expected both her parents to come home together, and she was utterly shocked to see her grandmother coming with them.
The old woman was overjoyed to see Arianna. "Hello, Alissa, I'm your grandma!"
Arianna felt rather dejected—she wanted to tell others that she was Arianna, but no one knew about her existence, so she could only look at her mother exasperatedly. "Mommy!"
"Tell the truth." Abigail had been afraid that Greg would snatch her children away from her, so she hadn't planned on telling him about her twin daughters. However, since Valerie and Greg both seemed like reasonable people, and since her daughters needed family members, Abigail decided to give in. She hadn't grown up in a big family, so she didn't want the same thing to happen to her daughters.
When Arianna heard her mother's orders, she beamed. "Let me introduce myself, Grandma and Daddy. My name is Arianna, and I'm four this year. I like computers and books."
Greg froze as he thought he had heard her name wrongly. "What did you say your name was?"
"Arianna," she repeated herself. Greg looked at Abigail with confusion. "Does my darling have two names?"
"Perhaps it'd be better to say that you have two darlings." Abigail pulled her phone out and passed him a picture of her two daughters. "The one you spent time with at first was the older girl, Alissa. She's naughtier, she likes martial arts and fighting, and she has a bad temper. This is the one Hugh brought over in exchange for Alissa. She's the younger one, Arianna." Abigail didn't know if Greg would understand what she had just said.
Greg was utterly dumbfounded. "Are you saying that I have two daughters who look exactly the same?"
"Yes!" Valerie didn't care about what Greg was feeling—she was elated upon hearing that she had two granddaughters. "Arianna, right? Come here. Look at what I got you!" Valerie pulled the robot out for Arianna, and Arianna's eyes lit up immediately. "That's adorable. Can I take Grandma's gift, Mom?"
"Of course." Abigail was glad to see her daughter happy.
"Thank you, Grandma." Arianna took the gift happily. Everyone was overjoyed, but Greg was still stunned. He reflected on how he had first met Alissa, and he could see everything playing in his mind like a whole movie. The two children are different indeed. How did I not notice their different personalities? No way! Abigail kept this to herself all along. What does that mean? What is she trying to do? He frowned as he tugged on her sleeve. "Come to the study with me," he uttered while dragging her in that direction.
Arianna was rather worried. "What are you going to do to Mommy, Daddy?"
Valerie could see the anger in her son's eyes, but she stopped Arianna from following them. "Daddy and Mommy might be making plans to create another young sibling for you. What do you think?"
Abigail nearly choked on her saliva. Isn't this old lady a little too excited about this?