Chapter 66 You’re Too Big

Chapter 66 You’re Too Big

Sophia was so frustrated she could have screamed, but thinking about his injury, that anger melted into helpless resignation.

"Mr. Mitchell, could you... cooperate just a little? Maybe lift your arm, or shift to one side? I just need to slide the sleeve down on this side."

Arthur heard her and let out a sigh.

"Lift my arm? That seems to pull at the wound a bit. Turn to the side? Hss... my waist hurts there too."

He looked up at her, his expression perfectly "innocent." "Ms. Taylor, maybe... just do whatever works? However's easiest for you. I'll stay still, you just handle it."

Sophia was speechless.

Oh, sure. Like I'm going to fall for that.

But what choice did she have? She couldn't just throw down the first aid kit and walk out.

She took a deep breath and tried to talk herself into it: this is work, this is basic human care, this is paying a debt. Right. Just paying a debt.

"Then... don't move. I'll handle it." She accepted her fate and walked to the side of the bed, kneeling down again.

Sophia held her breath and carefully slid the left side of his robe down from the shoulder.

She'd made up her mind — just the half sleeve, absolutely no untying the sash.

That way she could treat the wound on his shoulder blade while keeping things as un-awkward as possible.

Arthur cooperated perfectly, staying completely still and letting her work.

With some effort, she finally got the left side of the robe down below his shoulder blade, exposing the bite mark.

It really was deep. Several days had passed and it still hadn't fully healed.

Something stirred uncomfortably in Sophia's chest. She quickly moved to apply the medicine.

But in the very next second, the right side of Arthur's collar slipped "accidentally" down as well.

The silk fabric slid down with a will of its own, exposing the lower half of Arthur's torso.

Sophia caught a glimpse without meaning to, and then her hands froze. She drew a sharp breath.

Just above his waist line was another wound — longer and deeper than the first.

About three inches long. It had been stitched, but the sutures were still in, and the skin around it was red and swollen. This was no minor injury.

"What — what happened?!" Sophia's voice pitched higher. "There's another one here? This isn't a bite wound!"

Arthur kept his back to her. After a few seconds of silence, he said in a deliberately casual tone, "Oh, that. Vivian had a box cutter hidden in her bra. The police missed it during the search. She stabbed me while she was biting me, used the chaos as cover."

Something crashed through Sophia's mind, leaving it completely blank.

No wonder. No wonder he'd needed to stay home and rest for so many days. No wonder the low fever.

This wasn't a minor injury. This was a serious stab wound that had come dangerously close to his organs.

Sophia's eyes went red. Tears rushed up with no warning, blurring her vision before she could stop them.

He'd been hiding it the whole time. Everyone had been hiding it from her.

Arthur noticed the silence behind him, sensed something was wrong, and turned his head slightly — and saw the redness around her eyes.

He visibly froze. The carefully maintained calm on his face cracked just a little, a flash of something panicked crossing his eyes.

"Why are you... crying? It's all stitched up. I'm fine. The doctor said it missed anything vital. It just looks worse than it is."

His attempt to reassure her had the opposite effect. The moment he said it, Sophia couldn't hold back anymore, and the tears spilled down in big, rolling drops.

"What do you mean you're fine, it's all stitched up... you — you must have bled so much. It had to hurt. Why didn't you tell me sooner..." She rambled between sobs, wiping her face haphazardly with the back of her hand.

"That spot is so dangerous. Your — your kidney... it's okay, right?"

The words were out before Sophia's brain caught up with her mouth.

Then she heard what she'd just said.

What was she saying? How could she ask her boss whether his kidney was okay?

Arthur was clearly thrown by the question too. His expression went blank for a moment, and he genuinely didn't know how to respond.

A strange silence settled over the room for a few seconds.

Sophia stared down at her lap, wishing she could dig a hole in the floor and disappear into it.

Arthur was quiet for a moment, then replied in a tone that sounded almost like he was speaking through gritted teeth.

"Don't worry, Ms. Taylor. My kidney is perfectly fine. It works now, and it'll keep working just fine in the future. So could you please wish me well instead of writing me off, and just — put on the medicine already."

Sophia short-circuited completely. It took her several seconds to come back to herself.

Works just fine???

How could he say something like that in such a completely straight-faced tone?!

She didn't let herself think about it any further. She grabbed the antiseptic swab with slightly clumsy hands.

"Got — got it! I'm doing it right now!"

But when her eyes fell back on the sutured wound along his side, the embarrassment immediately gave way to a more immediate problem.

The shoulder blade wound was manageable — she could barely reach it by sliding down just the one sleeve.

But this wound on his waist was lower, right along the bottom hem of the robe. Without untying the whole thing, there was no way to clean and dress it properly.

Sophia sat there, swab in hand, frozen.

Did she really have to... take it all the way off?

There was no turning back now.

Sophia steeled herself, squeezed her eyes shut, and recited her mantra: paying a debt.

Then, with the energy of someone walking to their own execution, she reached out and said in a shaky voice, "Mr. Mitchell, this wound on your waist... I'll need to — to open the robe a little more..."

"Go ahead," Arthur said simply, no objection.

Sophia's fingers trembled as they touched the sash at his waist.

She closed her eyes, clenched her jaw, and pulled.

The sash came undone.

The robe slid naturally open along the lines of his body, and Sophia, desperate not to see more than she should, kept her gaze locked hard on the wound at his side, using every last shred of willpower to keep her eyes from wandering.

But no matter how focused she was, her peripheral vision betrayed her anyway.

There were those sharply defined lines of his abdomen, cutting clean and deep, trailing downward.

And then... in that brief, helpless glance, half-hidden beneath black fabric but impossible to ignore, a certain something that, even just barely glimpsed, even without any clear view of the specifics — its scale and shape alone were enough to detonate something like an atomic bomb inside the very limited reference library of Sophia's experience.

Sophia went completely rigid.

That — that was — that was way too big.

Arthur had his back to her, so he couldn't see the look on her face — the expression of a soul that had just left her body in shock — but he could feel the sudden halt in her breathing behind him, and the weight of a gaze that felt almost physically hot.

"Ms. Taylor... are you going to apply the medicine, or not?"

His voice snapped her back. Her hand jerked, and the swab nearly flew out of her fingers.

She yanked her eyes away. "I — I am! Right now! It's just that your wound is so big, I got a little—"

She stopped cold before she finished the sentence.

Too — too big?!

How had she just gone and said exactly what she was thinking out loud?