Bedmates Soulmates
CHAPTER 472

A single lamp provided warm yellow light.

It was dim, but enough for Austyn to make out the face of the woman in bed.

She looked just the same as seven years ago.

It was almost as if time had no effect on her.

The only difference was that she had lost weight

She was slim to begin with, but now she was lean to the point of being scrawny.

The lines on her face were sharper.

Her cheekbones were more prominent.

Austyn couldn't see the mole under the corner of her left eye, but he knew it was there.

He tiptoed into the room, but it woke her up anyway.

Her eyes fluttered open.

Deborah sat up slowly in bed.

Hu Buried Her Aules

She turned her face towards the door.

'Austyn.'

Her voice had not changed.

The same soft, gentle, mezzo-soprano voice.

Austyn was rooted to the spot.

It was really her.

The same face, same voice, same look in her eyes.

He approached the bed hesitantly, half-afraid that she would vanish like a mirage if his footsteps were just a little too loud. His eyes fell on hers.

He didn't blink

'Is it really you?' His voice was barely louder than a whisper.

'It's me.' Deborah nodded, smiling

Tears shimmered in her eyes..

'You're still alive?' Austyn had to hear it from her own lips.

'Yes.'

Deborah feasted her eyes on his face.

It was so good to see him again, to hear his voice, to feel his reassuring presence.

She'd dreamed about this day for a long, long time.

"Where....where have you been in the past seven years?"

The smile faded from her face.

She lowered her head.

Her eyelashes trembled.

Deborah gripped the blanket. 'Do you want to hear the truth, or something else?"

Truth. Nothing but the truth. Tell me everything' Austyn sat down at the edge of the bed. ""Your father."

Austyn's body went stiff.

His shoulders tensed.

Deborah, her eyes downcast, saw the blue velns bulging on the back of his hand.

"What did he do?' Austyn's voice was ice-cold, but Deborah knew the hostility in it wasn't directed at her.

She choked back a sob. 'He faked my death. It was all his idea.'

Austyn furrowed his brows.

He cast his mind back to seven years ago, then he slowly shook his head.

'I arranged your funeral. I was at the crematorium when they...I carried the urn with ashes.'

He was there every step of the way.

He saw her bloodless face as she was pushed out of the operating room.

He rode with her from the hospital to the crematorium.

He waited when they took her body away and returned with the urn.

He buried her ashes.

He watched the undertakers erect her headstone.

Every scene was seared into his memory.

How could it be fake?

your

Deborah said weakly, 'I don't know what you saw. All I remembered was... the shot hit me in the chest. They pushed me into an operating room and gave me anaesthesia. I heard a doctor on the phone. He was talking to your father. But I couldn't catch what they said. I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in a foreign country."

Austyn was breathing heavily.

He recalled what happened after Deborah took the bullet for him.

He had wanted to follow her into the operating room but was blocked by his father's men.

They wouldn't allow him to go in.

He'd yielded, thinking the doctors needed the space to do their job, but now...

'I didn't know where I was,' Deborah continued 'A nurse came to check on me every day, but there were men stationed outside my room and wasn't allowed to leave. About a week later, your father called me. He...

Her voice caught.

She gritted her teeth and carried on. 'He told me that Deborah Connelly was dead. She died on the operating table. I was never to go back to Stamford. If I wanted to live, I had to listen to

The Aches

him.'

Deborah grasped Austyn's hand. "To convince you I was dead, he must have gotten a body that looked like me. I don't know how he did it. Makeup, or a mask, or something. You know how powerful your father was back then. He must've been planning this for a long time. It wasn't difficult for him to pull it off."

She saw the raging fire in Austyn's eyes.

He was starting to believe her.

'Austyn. Deborah put her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his chest.

His cologne was unfamiliar, but his scent still had the power to make her giddy.

"I'm back,' she cooed. 'I'm alive. I've missed you so, so much over the years."

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

'You are always on my mind. I counted the days by minutes, hoping against hope that I would see you again. The world was not the same without you. I wasn't the same without you. You don't know how many sleepless nights I've spent thinking about you..." Austyn's eyes fell on her hair.

He felt her soft lips brushing against his shirt and her warm body pressed against his.

Her scent was real.

Her voice was real.

She was real.