Chapter 434 Don't Touch Me!
Nothing was there.
He let out a sigh of relief. Oliver subconsciously feared Natalie might have jumped. It felt foolish now, why would Natalie jump from the second floor?
But Oliver still felt uneasy and took another look down, planning to have the servants replace the ground below with soft soil later.
Another thought flashed through his mind, and Oliver quickly headed toward the bathroom. The bathroom spanned over twenty square meters, with a semi-transparent frosted glass door. The sound of running water echoed faintly from inside.
Oliver pushed the door open and instantly heard various items falling to the ground.
The bathroom was filled with steam, obscuring his view of the person inside. Oliver's heart clenched as he turned on the exhaust fan.
"Natalie, what are you doing?!"
She fell to the ground. Her injured foot struck the bathtub wall, causing her to grimace in pain.
Even so, she still clutched a bath towel in front of her, surrounded by the scattered bottles and jars she had knocked over in her rush when she heard someone open the door.
She had also knocked herself over.
Oliver rushed over to lift her, and as he did, whilst in his arms gasped from the pain. Her arm was grazed, the skin broken and bleeding, yet she stubbornly used the bathrobe to cover herself, which infuriated him to no end.
"Natalie, what part of you have I not seen? Why are you so desperate to hide yourself from me?" Oliver's face darkened with anger. "Didn't I tell you that you shouldn't bathe? Did you not hear, or did you not understand?"
Natalie looked up, her eyes brimming with tears caused by the pain.
But her words came out icy and sharp. "Oliver, this body has been touched by other men, kissed, and almost... almost taken. Why are you still holding me?"
Natalie tried to push him away. "Let me go! I need to bathe!"
"I am holding you!" Oliver snapped.
Natalie looked at him, "Oliver, I am very dirty."
"I don't care," he proclaimed, and to prove his point, Oliver bent down to embrace Natalie tightly in his arms.
But he felt it again. The moment he touched Natalie, her body stiffened, showing resistance and even repulsion to his touch.
‘Was she resisting his touch because she had gone through some terrible ordeal?’
Oliver's arms tightened around her; his face buried in Natalie's neck. He saw several shocking scratches on her back, the wounds bleeding and turning white as they soaked in water.
Natalie's skin was usually white as snow and delicate as porcelain, making each of these wounds all more jarring and heart-wrenching. With each wound, Oliver felt an imprint on his own heart, a pain that nearly stopped his breath.
"You don't mind?" Natalie said. "I mind."
"I don't," Oliver repeated stubbornly.
A wry smile tugged at Natalie's lips, though she didn't let it bloom. "Let me go. I need to bathe."
"I'll bathe you." He was already concerned when Natalie insisted on bathing despite the doctor's advice, and now that she'd fallen, Oliver couldn't bear the thought of letting her out of his sight.
"I don't trust you," Natalie refused.
Oliver was taken aback for a moment. "What do you mean?"
"I don't trust that you can give me a proper bath," Natalie said softly, her voice tinged with a hint of mockery.
Oliver had more than once, under the pretense of simply taking a bath, deceived and forced Natalie into the bathroom.
"Are your legs in a lot of pain? Should we change the cast before we bathe?" He was also concerned about the wounds on her arm and back, which needed medication.
Natalie was about to reject the offer, but at the last moment, she chose her words carefully and said, "Let's take a bath."
Not changing it was impractical; she didn't need to torture herself out of spite.
Oliver, having no other choice, refilled the bathtub with warm water, but he was careful not to irritate Natalie's wounds and thus refrained from adding any bath foam.
He then carefully lifted her into the tub, took a towel, and gently wiped her body.
Natalie looked at him. The man focused earnestly as if performing a precise task, cleaning a priceless artifact. His fingers traced over her bosom, devoid of desire.
He was truly just bathing her with attention and care.
Natalie's eyes were suddenly stung with an unexplainable soreness as she stared at the ceiling and said, "Oliver."
"Hmm?" Oliver looked up immediately upon hearing her voice.
"The spot you're cleaning now has been kissed by those three men," Natalie said with a smile, although her eyes were devoid of any mirth.
Oliver's heart skipped a beat, and his fingers paused on the uninjured part of Natalie's ankle.
"Disgusted?" Natalie was pleased with his reaction, "Leave now, I'll do it myself."
Instead of responding with words, Oliver kneeled on one knee, bowed his head, and gently kissed her ankle.
His lips startled Natalie, causing her to jerk her leg back swiftly. The movement caused the wound on her back to hit the side of the bathtub, and a sharp pain made her hiss in agony.
"Don't touch me!" She was like a frightened cat, wary and terrified of the person before her.
"Are you injured? Let me see." The bathtub was large, and so Oliver stepped into it to check Natalie's wounds.
"Don't touch me!" Natalie's low voice was filled with rejection. "Get out!"
Oliver did not dare to force Natalie, so he reluctantly stepped out of the bathtub.
"Natalie…" Oliver couldn't muster any other words. His heart was aching. He had never seen Natalie appear so startled and skittish.
Natalie had always been confident and invincible.
"Oliver, when did you return to the country?" Natalie took a deep breath and asked him.
Oliver blinked and didn't respond. This man wasn't overly proud, nor was he skilled at deception.
Natalie remembered that when she had called Oliver, he hadn't outright lied to her. He just didn't answer her questions directly. The conclusion she had drawn was that he had not returned to the country, was her assumption.
Oliver was always meticulous in his affairs.
"When I called you, you were with Susan, weren't you?" Natalie watched the warmth on Oliver's face solidify into a frozen mask, feeling a perverse sense of relief, "I knew something was off. I guessed you should have been back, so I called you, only to find out you were with Susan. You lied to me, Oliver."
"Natalie, the thing with Susan is actually..."
"I don't want to hear it!" Natalie cut him off. No matter what he and Susan were doing, whether it was as Susan had claimed that he went to her willingly, or if it was a ruse by Susan, it didn't change what had transpired.
It didn't change the fact that he had lied to her.
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