I've Been There Before (Grace and Caden) novel Chapter 51

She pushed him back, making him become more dominant.

“Snap!”

There was a crackling sound. And the world was quiet all of a sudden.

Caden incredulously looked at the woman underneath him. With her hands trembling violently, she was staring at him in fear.

Caden stared at the woman amid the mattress. She hadn’t slapped him hard and he wasn’t in pain. However, Caden Shaw, the Young Master Shaw who enjoyed a privileged life and a helmsman of the Shaw Family, was slapped by someone for the first time in his life. He pursed his thin lips into a line, drooped his eyes, and stared at the woman beneath him. Then he suddenly stood up and got off the bed. After that, he turned his back on Grace James on the bed.

"Change your wet pants so as not to wet my bed."

A pair of clean sweatpants for men was dumped by the side of Grace.

Grace was stunned. And the man left the bedroom without turning back and suppressed his anger under Grace's gaze, "Get changed quickly, Humbert White will come to check on your illness later."

“Check on my illness?

"I'm not sick."

"How come you suddenly fainted if you were not sick?"

He scoffed her.

"I'm just not sick."

"Do as I say. Why are you talking nonsense and staining my bed?"

Caden disappeared at the entrance of the bedroom. “Bang!” He closed the door conveniently.

Grace took a look at the sweatpants for men by her hand.

She was hesitant for a while. Then she braced herself and slowly took off the wet pants.

At the right moment, there was a knock at the door, "Grace? It's me."

Humbert stood outside the door and knocked politely, "If you don't say anything, I will come in, okay?"

Grace immediately turned pale, "Don't… Come in… ”

But it was too late...

Humbert stood in the doorway and took a glance at Grace. As he eyed her up and down, a hint of oddness appeared in his eyes.

Grace was wearing Caden’s pants.

"Did you guys just have sex?"

"Huh?"

Humbert was joking. However, judging from Grace’s retarded response, he shook his head and already got the answer.

He walked over towards Grace, who looked even paler.

"Take it easy. I'm just doing a routine checkup."

"I'm not sick."

"You won’t suffer any loss for allowing me to check on you."

"No need, I'm really not sick."

Humbert suddenly raised his head and looked at Grace with a seeming smile, "Hey, Grace, what are you hiding?"

Grace thought that her heart stopped beating half a beat as she replied, "I'm just... not sick. I just hate doctors."

Humbert lifted his chin towards the bedroom door, "Do you want me to call him in and tell him face to face that you are now a handicap?"

Grace snapped her eyes wide open!

It was her most embarrassing deed and the last thing she'd ever wanted others to talk about!

She hated it the most when this matter was mentioned in front of the one who had started it all!

"How do you know… Oh… Sure enough." As she just finished asking how Humbert had known about it, she paused and suddenly said an inexplicable "Sure enough."

Humbert squinted, measured Grace, and felt that he had vaguely understood some things.

But, if things were as he guessed, then… Humbert looked at Grace compassionately… Grace could be really pathetic.

"Have you ever thought that some things are not what you think in secret?" At least, in Humbert’s opinion, no matter how much Caden hated Grace, he wouldn't be cruel enough to have her kidneys removed.

"It's all in the past. It's what I deserve." The woman, once one of the most flamboyant and confident women in Shanghai, was now saying those words as if she had reached the end of her life. She was lifeless, looking like an old woman who was over a hundred years old.

Humbert was shocked!

Humbert had once seen her kneel down humbly in front of Caden in person. However, when it was himself who was facing her, he was even more shocked!

Every line of her words revealed a kind of humbleness and meanness.

"Can an 'it's all over' make up for your kidney?" Grace’s confident look back then surfaced before Humbert’s eyes. The Grace back then had been admired by many famous youngsters. However, this woman in front of him… Originally, Humbert thought that three years’ time had only changed her appearance. But he didn't expect that even what was born in her bones would even be worn out.

"Do you really think that you deserve to be treated like this, Grace James?"

Grace never lifted her eyes and looked at Humbert anymore. Instead, she repeated as if she were a machine, "I deserve all of this." Her face was so stiff that she didn't look like a fresh person!

Humbert’s eyes were filled with disappointment. It turned out that the old Grace James had gone and would never show up again.

"I'm going to give you an examination now. Please cooperate." Humbert decided to do his business and didn't allow Grace to dodge him, "You'd better not move. I'm afraid that I will hurt you. Or, do you want me to go and call Caden in?"

His last sentence completely convinced Grace.

"What's the matter with you? How come you even went to work with a fever of 37.8 degrees? Don't you know your health? You're already not a normal person. And you dare to be a hero. Do you want to die? Grace James!" Anyway, the timid woman in front of him was the one that he had grown up with as a child and called him 'Brother Humbert'. Even if they couldn’t go back in time, she was still Grace James.

It wasn't that Humbert intended to hit on Grace. He said so simply out of pity for her and the past affection.

He stood up, grabbed his things, and walked out.

He didn’t talk much to Caden and just said, "Don't torment her anymore. She... isn’t in a good condition." Wondering whether Caden was aware of Grace's physical condition or not, Humbert changed his mind as the words were on the tip of his tongue.

"I'll have the medicine sent over in a little while." Humbert took his things and left.

Caden swept a glance at the bedroom and lifted his feet to walk in.

"Sleep with me tonight." Caden originally didn't have any other meaning. It was just that this woman had just drowned and successively fainted and Humbert would have the medicine sent over later. So he would keep her for the night by the way.

But, his words sounded too ambiguous. And Grace instantly turned pale, No!"

She reacted too strongly. And Caden, a shrewd, who was quick-witted as a demon, squinted at her for a moment and instantly knew that she had interpreted his words wrongly.

Caden thought, “But… Why is she so reluctant to sleep with me?”

“So who does she want to sleep with?”

“Is it Leon Lo?”

Caden, who had calmed down just now, was furious instantly!

Grace’s words made the situation look more complicated.

In fact, Grace did have reason to interpret Caden’s words in the wrong way. Just before Humbert came, Caden said to Grace, "You will get two million dollars by sleeping with me for one night". So Grace subconsciously misunderstood him.

Caden was standing by the bedside. All of a sudden.

"Two million dollars," Caden moved his thin lips and stated an amount indifferently.

Grace said, "No."

"Three million dollars."

"I won’t agree."

"Four million dollars."

She hesitated.

Caden narrowed his eyes, "Think before you give me an answer."

"No." Grace looked up at him and shook her head firmly.

"Grace, you love money, don't you?" Caden wondered whether she did so for Leon’s sake.

"I do love money. I'm in love with money very much. I'm addicted to money. And I'll bet my life on the two million dollars. President Shaw, if you are willing to give me two million dollars, I will roll over and stick my head in the water without saying anything."

"Are you acting to look pure and noble?" Caden raised his eyebrows halfway and looked condescendingly at Grace beneath him.

Grace smiled lightly as her eyes were full of self-deprecation, “Noble? I am not qualified to be noble!”

"President Shaw, you are wrong. I'm just a reformed prisoner. I have no past. Nor do I have a future. I have neither family nor friends… Noble? Why should I?"

"Then stay here tonight."

Grace slowly raised her head and seriously looked into Caden's eyes. Then she slowly opened her lips, "I don't want to."

Caden clenched his palm, which had been holding onto the mattress, into a fist. Then the back of his hand was gnarled with veins!

In Caden’s understanding, Grace had rejected him for the second time for Leon Lo!

"Grace, you can't afford to bear the consequences of angering me," He implicitly warned her with an icy cold look in his eyes… If Grace could sleep with any random man, why couldn’t she sleep with him?

"President Shaw, I guess you have forgotten that I am a lowly and shameless female prostitute. And if anyone were to pay for two million dollars for one night with me, I would gladly strip naked and flatter him. But you, President Shaw, can't be the one. I am an ethical woman. I'm a professional and ethical female prostitute. I can't have any other relationship that isn’t connected to the work with my superior, which is a professional taboo."

"You!"

Grace summoned up a great deal of courage to say so. And once again, she succeeded in angering the man with high IQ and low EQ, making him slam the door and walk out.

Hearing the sound of the door slamming, Grace, who had been anxious, finally relaxed. It seemed that the strength in her body had been suddenly drained away. She softly slid to the floor, leaned against the closet, hugged her knees, and curled together.

She felt that her mouth was overwhelmingly bitter.

In Grace’s opinion, anyone could sleep with her, but not Caden Shaw!

Otherwise, her past three years would have been nothing!

Otherwise, her feelings for him lasting more than twenty years would have been in vain as well.

“Caden Shaw! Caden Shaw! Do you have to humiliate me like this in an utter and complete manner?”

“Yes, I was in that place. I'm not clean anymore. I'm a convict. But I want to keep a little bit of ‘cleanness’. Only my past feelings for you are clean now!”

Grace closed her eyes and covered the anger and pain inside!

"Anyone can do me. I'm a female prostitute anyway. Anyone can do me. Even so, anyway, I've got nothing left to lose. Anyone can do me... Anyone can… But he can't… "

She closed her eyes tightly as if she were doing a self-hypnosis. As she unconsciously murmured, tears overflowed turbulently… It was the second time that she shed tears today. The first time, she cried in the nightmare for Leona. And the second time, she did it for Caden Shaw.

"Anyone can. But not he..." In the luxurious bedroom, Grace curled into a small ball and constantly repeated this sentence. This luxurious bedroom looked somewhat desolated, despite the fact that it was brightly lit.

Outside of the living room, Caden held a cigarette between his lips. It wasn’t until he had finished three cigarettes in a row that he irritably put the cigarette that had just been lit for a third halfway and held it down in the ashtray. Then he raised his hand, picked up a glass of red wine on the coffee table, and tilted his head back as he drank it down in one gulp, hoping that it could quench his inner irritation.

Caden didn't realize that he simply couldn't do anything with the woman in the bedroom!