Me After Meeting You

Amber almost wanted to laugh, as a way of letting him know that he shouldn’t try to pick up girls if he didn’t have the skill for it, as doing so made his actions seem ludicrous. Sighing, she said, “Mr. Axton, perhaps you’ve forgotten that I’m a doctor.”

He paused. “What do you mean?”

“Meaning, I can examine my body to understand what I’ve experienced.”

This was nonsense, if she were to base her judgment solely on how her body felt and the state of her bruises, she was hardly able to make such an analysis. However, she didn’t want to reveal that her judgment was solely based on her psychiatrist’s instinct.

Ian, however, didn’t seem to have thought of this and was now glaring at her somewhat unrepentantly.

Amber was worried that he would rashly grab her and actually force her into bed with him, but luckily he made no further abnormal movements.

***

After leaving the room, Amber let out a deep breath that she had been holding onto for a while. She walked calmly out of the hotel and after she exited, she found an isolated corner where she could bang her head against the wall in private.

Why on earth was her alcohol tolerance so poor?!

And what in the world was that fellow trying to do, pretending that they had had a one night stand after she got drunk? She couldn’t accept such a cliched plotline that sounded like it came straight out of some vulgar novel!

After spending a significant amount of time shoring up her mental state, she finally calmed down enough to take her phone out of her handbag. She had a few missed calls, some from her parents, some from her elder brother and some from her teacher, Nancy.

Amber called each of them in turn to assure her family members that she was alright before finally calling Nancy, who asked, “Didn’t you go home last night?”

“No, something came up, so I didn’t go back home. Were you looking for me for some reason last night, Professor?”

“It’s nothing. It’s just that your parents called me after they couldn’t reach you. Right, what did you think of Ian Axton?”

Was she actually trying to play matchmaker? Amber couldn’t believe that Nancy would have time for such an inane thing.

“Emotional detachment, that Mr. Axton has a physiological inability to feel emotions, right?”ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“Yes, an accurate diagnosis.” Amber smiled with praise.

Amber was momentarily stunned. “He’s really suffering from that?” She had made that diagnosis up. Recently, she had looked at some medical case studies of patients who had an inability to feel emotions, during her interactions with Ian, she had noticed that he seemed to exhibit some of those symptoms and had proposed it on a whim as an outlandish hypothesis.

“Yes, really. But his situation is a bit special. With regards to how, you’ll just have to find out after you interact more with him. I won’t tell you now so as not to impair your professional judgment.”

Amber remained silent. and her teacher continued, “His entire family didn’t realize that this was an illness until now, mainly because Ian still doesn’t have a partner even though he’s already thirty. His grandparents found me and hoped that i could find a solution to their problems. Amber, Axton Group is a major partner and sponsor of my laboratory and Ian Axton is like a dear child to me. Since we’re so familiar with each other, I’m unable to have a proper doctor-patient relationship with him. Thus, I’m hoping that you can help me in this regard.”

***

Since it was November, the weather was very cold. Even though Amber had a thick layer of clothing on, she was still sneezing fiercely.

Even though she was clutching her arms and shivering, goosebumps were all over her body as she called a taxi and got into it. The driver noticed her plight from his rearview mirror and asked if he should turn the heater on for her.

Amber nodded. “Thank you.”

She couldn’t help but glance back. The words “Axton Grand Hotel” shone clearly in the morning light.

She finally recognized where she was, far from La Marquesina, the nightclub where she had been partying last night and farther still from her home.

She rarely ever came to this area, so despite being a local, she found the surroundings unfamiliar.

“Please make the next left turn and go to La Marquesina.” After finally seeing a familiar landmark, Amber gave some instructions to the taxi driver.

“At this time?”

“Yes.”

The driver looked at her with a funny expression, then smiled and asked, “Do you work there?”

Amber, stone faced, replied, “No.”

The driver chuckled, decided not to say anything else and turned left ahead.

Amber took out her phone and googled ‘Axton.’ Only one piece of news mentioned Ian Axton and even that was a year old. All it said was that Axton Group was to be passed down from father to son with Ian Axton taking over and becoming its new CEO.

The rest of the many news articles dealt almost exclusively with Axton’s corporate expansion plan. Amber didn’t read these articles, as she was not interested in such matters.

It was indeed quite early. They reached La Marquesina right around 9 AM, but the doors were already open and a worker was cleaning the floors. Amber walked in and found the manager. “I left my handbag here last night. Could you let me check the security cameras?”

The manager was on guard towards her request and perfunctorily replied, “Which room were you in? I apologize, but under normal circumstances, we’re not allowed to let customers look through the security footage.”

Amber reported the room number. “I’m not interested in anything else except for the footage near the exit. My handbag has some very important information that I need to reclaim, so could you please help me out?”

The manager thought for a while before replying, “Would it be fine if you stated the approximate time at which you lost your bag? That way, we can review the security footage for you.”

No matter what Amber said, the manager seemed reluctant to agree and he was even starting to suspect her true motives. Exasperated and helpless, she suddenly thought of name-dropping Ian. “Do I need to have Mr. Axton talk to you, then?”

“Mr. Axton?”

“Yes, Ian Axton. My missing handbag has his documents inside.”

The manager looked at her suspiciously before finally giving in. “Please wait here.” He turned and went into the office, most likely to talk to his boss. After a while, he returned and brought Amber in to look at the security footage.

The footage had no audio. At 11:18 PM, she saw Ian’s driver lift her out of the private room. Ian walked by his driver’s side and the three of them left directly by car.

Throughout the whole process, no other people entered or exited the room.

11:18 PM it shouldn’t have been more than half an hour since Amber had first entered the room. Additionally, the time she had been drunk was far shorter. Within that period of time, then nothing much could have happened.

So, Amber was quite certain that, last night, not long after she had gotten drunk, Ian had brought her away to Axton Hotel.

As for his motives … she suddenly remembered a question that Ian had asked her. “Would you get in bed with your patients?”

Then, she had replied ‘no.’ As she remembered this, Amber laughed softly.