He was silent for a moment. ‘And it worked?’

She laughed, her face raised towards the high ceiling. ‘No, it didn’t work. Far from it.’ She wandered out onto the deck, needing the fresh air and aware without looking that he was following her a few steps behind. ‘I’m sure you know, but the way laser surgery works is to damage the underlying cell tissue in the skin just enough to encourage new cell growth. Ideally what will happen is that the cell tissue will be spurred into action so that basically the skin heals itself—’

He interrupted. ‘But that didn’t happen with you?’

‘No. The technology was too new, too raw, and the technician misjudged the dosage. Instead of taking away the mark he used too high a dose. It burned my skin too deeply…’ She trailed off, her blue eyes rippled with what he could tell was crushing pain. And still he could only imagine the disappointment of a young girl with a dream to be as beautiful as her mother. To be as beautiful as she could be.

As she should have been from the start.

As she was now.

‘But there’s no trace of anything. What happened?’

From his angle at the side of her he could see the grimace that screwed up her face, could almost feel the death-grip her hands had on the railing. He watched her take in a couple of breaths, almost as if she was forming her words. And then she spoke.

‘I got lucky. There was a doctor visiting from the US who was said to be performing miracles with laser surgery, but the medical authorities at home were sceptical—nobody trusted the new technology after a series of bungled attempts. I wasn’t the only experiment gone wrong, apparently.

‘Anyway, somehow the doctor heard about my case, and decided I would be the perfect one to prove that laser surgery had improved and could perform miracles.’

‘Weren’t you scared to go through that again, after the first attempt?’

‘I was petrified. I didn’t want to do it. But that doctor explained everything so well—they were past the experimentation stage, they were really getting results—and convinced me that the surgery really could make a difference. I was sixteen years old with no family to protect me, and I wanted to go to university. I was a good student—my scar saw to that; there was no chance of boyfriends or distractions—and I knew I was good enough to get into medical school if I kept going. But I couldn’t stand the thought of going like I was.’

She turned her face towards his. ‘You see, I’d had enough of looking like a freak. I was growing up, and I wanted to be pretty. I wanted to have boyfriends and relationships. Is that so hard to understand?’

She wandered to the corner of the deck, placing her arms on the railing and looking out over the sand and surf, looking beyond the ocean, remembering her past and her pain.

He leaned against the frame of the open door, sensing that she wanted him to keep his distance right now. ‘And this time?’

She straightened and turned suddenly, her eyes bright. ‘It worked. It worked so well that no one could even tell I’d ever had a birthmark on my face. And I decided then and there that I was going to become a laser surgeon to perform miracles and change lives like that doctor had done for me.’

It was like a kick to the guts. So that was why she’d become a laser surgeon? Not for the money. He stood transfixed as another of his preconceived notions about Jade disintegrated into dust.

‘So is that how the foundation came about? Was it your idea all along?’

She nodded, her face wistful. ‘I knew how lucky I’d been. If it hadn’t been for that visiting specialist I never would have had the chance to be treated by someone so talented, with the power to completely obliterate my birthmark. When I set about establishing the foundation, I wanted to make that possibility a reality for other kids who couldn’t afford treatment and would otherwise be forced to spend their lives like I spent my early years—hiding my face—hiding from the staring eyes and the spiteful names. I knew how that felt. I knew exactly how much it meant to look normal.’

He nodded, the pain of her youth a tangible thing, weighing down her words. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I’m finally starting to understand why you ended up working where you did.’

Tags: Trish Morey Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net