Chapter 18 Amelia Eavesdrops
William was around forty, and his personality, dress, and way of doing things were all as rigid as those conservative old-timers at the academy. Many people thought he shouldn't be a stylist.
Hearing his bold statement, I was a bit surprised: "Aren't you afraid the Gambino family will come after you for saying that?"
"I am." William's face showed no expression, and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
"You can go now. I already have a new stylist," I said.
"How stubborn." Sophia said to William with displeasure: "If you're trying to steal my business, you've got the wrong idea!"
William shook his head. "Mr. Valeri paid me three years' salary in advance. I took the money, so I have to do the work. Mrs. Valeri, even though you and Mr. Valeri are about to divorce, the clothes were all custom-made for you. There's no point in refusing them."
"Did Lucas send you?" I asked suspiciously.
William denied it. He wouldn't leave, so I had to let him and Sophia come in.
Sophia had prepared dresses in various styles for me. She said she wanted to explore every possibility in me.
Compared to her, William's clothing style was just one type—dignified and conservative.
"You have such terrible taste!" Sophia picked up a high-necked top William had brought and criticized without holding back: "Do you like dressing people up as outdated as yourself? Bella has an excellent figure, especially her back. Whether it's the lines of her shoulders and neck, the shape of her shoulder blades, or the thickness of her muscles, everything is just perfect!"
William nodded in agreement: "Yes, like a work of art given by God."
Sophia asked: "Then why do you want to cover up all these advantages? If it's so beautiful, it should be shown off openly!"
William glanced at me and answered: "Mr. Valeri doesn't allow it."
Sophia asked in a daze: "Doesn't allow it? Why?"
William answered casually: "Probably his possessiveness at work."
After that day, William's words somehow got out, and as the story spread, it turned into Lucas being deeply infatuated with me, far more than he liked Amelia.
When Julie and I were getting our nails done together, she brought it up in a joking tone.
"Who's spreading these rumors?" I had a bit of a headache. Julie wasn't the first person to talk to me about these rumors. The first person to notice them was Brian. As long as I hadn't divorced Lucas, he couldn't feel at ease.
"Rumors have their basis too. After all, possessiveness is also a form of love," Julie said with a smile.
I shook my head. "Possessiveness is clearly a sign of insecurity."
Julie blinked curiously: "You think Mr. Valeri isn't confident enough?"
I couldn't help but click my tongue: "There's no one more confident or more arrogant than Lucas. What I mean is, Lucas doesn't have feelings for me as deep as the rumors say."
Julie disagreed. "I think the one who's actually insecure is you."
She raised her left hand, admiring her freshly done nails while saying: "That Amelia is inferior to you in every way. If Mr. Valeri likes her, I'd question his eyesight."
"It's not what you think. Amelia saved Lucas's life," I said with some melancholy. "They met when they were young, and Lucas can't forget her. But between Lucas and me, there's nothing."
Julie studied my expression and changed the subject: "About that fight between Mr. Valeri and Marcus before, someone bet on the right outcome and made almost a billion dollars. After Mr. Donovan heard about it, he really wanted to know which lucky person had such accurate judgment."
I smiled without saying anything.
Julie caught on quickly and asked in disbelief: "It wasn't you, was it?"
"It was me," I admitted with a smile. "What has Jonas been busy with lately?"
"Mr. Donovan, he..." Julie had just started when suddenly there was the sound of something breaking in the corner, along with a suppressed gasp.
I felt that voice sounded familiar. I quickly walked toward the corner and pulled open the heavy curtain that blocked it off, only to discover that behind the curtain was a connection to another beauty room.
There was a door in the wall, and it wasn't locked. On a shelf by the door sat several bottles of aromatherapy oils, one of which had fallen to the ground. Glass shards were everywhere, and a strange fragrance filled the air.
Another door in the room led to the hallway. It was wide open, and whoever had been eavesdropping had obviously already run off.
Julie's face darkened as she questioned the staff: "Your shop's privacy is so terrible, clients have no privacy at all. Who would dare come here in the future?"
The staff member explained in a panic: the connecting door between rooms was for moving beauty equipment easily, the unlocked door was probably an oversight, and they had no idea someone would eavesdrop.
I called over the shop's general manager and demanded to see the surveillance footage.
Through the surveillance records, I saw that before Julie and I arrived, Amelia had done a facial treatment and full-body spa in the beauty room next to ours. About twenty minutes after she left, Julie and I entered our beauty room.
While we had face masks on, soaked our feet, and got our nails done, four or five female staff members served us. The content of my conversation with Julie wasn't really secret, but that didn't mean I could easily let the eavesdropper off.
Soon, I saw Amelia enter the adjacent beauty room again. She seemed to have left something behind and was searching the room. She picked up a bracelet from under the massage bed she had lain on, then walked over to the door connecting the two beauty rooms.
The surveillance was very clear. Based on Amelia's expressions, I could roughly guess what content she was hearing.
When I mentioned the reason Lucas fell in love with Amelia, she showed an extremely surprised expression and almost cried out, covering her mouth with her hand just in time.
"Does she need to be that surprised?" Julie muttered in confusion. "It's like she's hearing about this for the first time."
"How could that be?" I denied it verbally, but a strange intuition flashed through my mind.
Before I could think it through, the surveillance video reached its end—Amelia lost her composure out of jealousy after hearing I had made a billion dollars, accidentally knocked over the aromatherapy bottle, and fled in a hurry.
I took that segment of surveillance video and also ordered the shop's general manager and staff to keep quiet. If Amelia came asking, they should tell her I hadn't discovered anything.
Back home, I pulled out the materials I had previously collected on members of the Gambino family and found Amelia's file.
Brian walked into my study. "Bella, what are you doing?"
I waved the file in my hand. "I'm looking at Amelia's background. She didn't return to the Gambino family until she was seventeen. Before that, she had been living in Silverpine Town."
"That small city near the border? I remember you went there once?" Brian said.
I nodded. "I went there when I was traveling around practicing medicine with my teacher. It should have been during summer vacation when I was fifteen, to exchange experiences with the medical aid team there."
Brian smiled slightly and touched my hair. "Why bring this up all of a sudden? Did you remember something?"
"No, I just think it's kind of amazing." I put down the file and smiled at Brian. "Maybe I had already met Amelia back then."