Kara went for a morning jog with James, but she began to pant after only running a few hundred meters.
"Your body is too weak. Will said you should exercise more." James was jogging beautifully beside her, his pace neither too fast nor too slow, and he ran easily as if he was walking.
Biting her pink lips, Kara didn't want to admit defeat. She tried to explain while she was panting, "I was a bit weak in the past, and the doctor advised me not to exercise too much. That's why I didn't do much exercise before."
"I see. Will will be your attending doctor from now on." He spoke in a commanding tone.
"But I already have an attending doctor. He's..."
James did not want to explain every detail about that to her. He said in a confident tone, "I trust Will more. He will come to the villa to give you a check-up every month."
Kara didn't know what to say.
The morning breeze was a bit cold. When the sky was bright, Kara was already too tired to lift her feet.
She looked at James' broad back. The slim-cut sweatshirt revealed the lines of his muscles. Kara liked painting, and was especially obsessed with things with a sense of line. She stared at the man's abs and couldn't look away.
"Can you still run?"
Hearing the man's low voice, she was startled and blushed.
To cover up that she was peeking at him, she hurriedly quickened her pace. However, she did not know that she had already reached the limits of her body. Hardly had she taken two steps than she staggered and was about to fall.
Suddenly, as she felt the man wrapping his arms around her waist, she smelled a faint fragrance of mint.
She was already sweating profusely, but his body was still dry. He held her in his arms easily. She bit her pink lips like a child and leaned against his chest.
And she stayed there.
Seeing that she was huddling up in his embrace like a lazy cat, James curled up his lips slightly into a smile, and his brown eyes looked like there was sunshine in them.
Haste made waste. He must be patient with her if he wanted to build up her body.
He held her hand and walked slowly with her.
Kara stared at his big hand wrapping around her small hand in surprise. Her face became even hotter and she tried to shake his hand off awkwardly.
"You still have energy left for walking home?"
She couldn't answer him.
Because she ... really didn't have that energy left.
After walking for a few hundred meters with him, Kara felt that she couldn't move any more, as if sandbags weighing a hundred kilograms were tied to her legs.
"What's wrong?" James looked at her doubtfully.
"I can't walk. I'm going to crawl back home."
He had woken her up for a morning jog so suddenly. After jogging for half an hour, Kara almost wanted to cry when she thought of the fact that she still had to walk a few kilometers home.
Seeing that her little face pucker, and the bitterness in her amber colored eyes, James couldn't be angry with her. He curled his lips and he walked behind her.
"Get up."
"Get up where?" Kara blinked in confusion.
"I'll carry you back."
She agreed to it in silence.
On his broad back, she remembered that her dad liked to carry her on his back when his father was still alive.
Her dad had also said that he would walk her down the aisle the day she got married when she grew up.
James suddenly felt her tears on his neck. He thought that she was feeling unwell and asked worriedly.
"Kara, are you not feeling okay?"
"No, I just miss my father."
James paused. The girl on his back was seventeen years old, but she was so small, and she was not heavy at all.
She had lost her mother at twelve, and her father at thirteen. Now she was even betrayed by the Quains. She had every right to be sad.
Looking at the tearful girl, he tried to comfort her lovingly, "I'll take care of you from now on. You don't need to be sad."
After hearing his words, Kara sniffled and wrapped her arms around his neck tightly, as if that would give her a sense of security.
Libby had prepared breakfast. Just as she was about to go upstairs to ask James and Kara to come down for breakfast, she turned around and saw Mr. James carrying the girl into the villa in the morning light.
She didn't know what the girl had said, but there was a gentle smile on Mr. James' face. She was so shocked that her eyes widened as she stared stiffly at the two of them.
"Mr. James, you..."
Did Mr. James take the girl out to enjoy themselves because he was in high spirits last night?
Looking at the girl's pale face and her legs cramping from exhaustion, Libby was sure that Mr. James had done something sadistic to her.