Jorge continued to loosen his towel and Miley panicked seeing his unrelenting actions.

“Seriously?” Miley barked and rounded her eyes in shock. Jorge raised his eyebrows and snapped, “Dead serious!”

Jorge totally removed the knot, holding the towel ends together with his hands, ready to open it like a curtain any moment.

Miley shut her eyes and hurriedly turned around to avoid his teasing actions.

“Go… dress up first! I just came here to talk to you about something not for watching your striptease show! You pervert!” she exclaimed with a flaring nose. Her eyes were not ready to see that most developed and hard muscle Jorge was referring too.

She heard Jorge laugh in his enticing voice and Miley’s face turned crimson with embarrassment and she pouted her lips in annoyance.

“Are you done?” Miley snorted after a while when the sound of rustling of clothes stopped.

She did not hear any response from him. She was about to turn around to see him, but before she could, Jorge’s arms encircled her waist, tugging her back close to his bare chest.

“Ah… this is much better than you touching me. Do you know you can kill me with the high voltage of your touch? Your touch on my skin, in such an ambiguous environment, is a sheer torture for me. We have mutually agreed to do everything step by step with the correct procedure, so can you not act too playful, huh?”

Miley bit her lower lip and her face blushed. “I like it… This…” she whispered as she moved to face him, but Jorge tightened his hug making her unable to move at all and muttered, “Don’t you dare turn around.”

“Why?”

Jorge heaved a long, deep sigh before replying, “It’s really hard for me to control in such a situation. You on my bed, I am not in clothes… woman… I can end up eating you…”

Miley’s already red cheeks turned more deep red and she chuckled then said, “But I want to say something to you. Promise I will be quick and leave soon.”

“Hmm, one more minute. Let me hug you like this for one more minute.” Jorge whispered, with his chin on her shoulder and his warm breath falling on her ear and neck. She didn’t want him to leave her, and wished she could even sleep in his arms.

Miley’s heart raced at her naughty thoughts. His closeness was what made her fall for her in the first place. She smiled as she recalled the first time she experienced the same kind of feelings with Jorge’s closeness.

She still remembered that day, she was in junior high at that time. Her father bought her a bike on her insistence since she wanted to learn how to ride it. Jorge offered his help in teaching her, and she somehow ended up riding on his back later.

The memories of that day were still vivid in her mind, how she consciously and timidly held on to Jorge’s shirt. But Jorge grabbed her hands and put them on his waist with her hugging him tightly.

“You will fall if you won’t hold on to me tightly like this so make sure not to loosen your arms on me. Hold on me like your life depends on it.” He said so she followed.

That day she realised something changed between them… and… it all started. She felt the fluttering of her heart. A swarm of butterflies suddenly appeared and had gone in chaos in her stomach. She even unconsciously rested her cheek on his back, and it felt so good.

That was the time she realised that she liked Jorge more than a brother and a friend. She loved him like she loved her brother, but something was different than the love for a sibling and in a few weeks she realised that even the thought of him as a sibling made her want to vomit.

Since that day, she set her mind that Jorge was the man for her because it was also what her heart was telling her.

After a minute, Miley felt Jorge loosen the hug and gradually released her, making her stop reminiscing those memories and snap back to the moment she was in.

She quickly turned around and smiled at him saying, “goodnight,” followed by a quick kiss on his lips. She then turned around to run out from his room, giggling.

Jorge’s jaw dropped because he thought Miley had come to his room to ask or say something important. He shook his head and smiled then walked to his bed, touching his lips while a playful smile curved up on his face.

“Miley, are you sure you can wait for one whole year to pay back for my mistake?”

Jorge mumbled and wished Miley changed her mind as soon as possible and they both could get married at the earliest.

Miley, who almost tripped from running out from Jorge’s room, was still giggling while walking in the hallway when she saw her father walking down into the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Miley furrowed and muttered, “what is he going to do there at this hour?”

Out of curiosity, Miley quietly walked and followed him, wondering what her father was going to do there at this hour.

None of them visited the bas.e.m.e.nt ever, only the cleaning staff went in there to keep the bas.e.m.e.nt clean, especially her, as she was a little afraid of insects and thought it would be creepy underground where they kept some of their things that they no longer used.

‘No way!’ she mused at the sudden thought that crossed her mind. ‘Could it be that father was there to see her things?’

Her mother’s things were all kept there in the bas.e.m.e.nt ever since she left them. Her father could not throw away her stuff as if he was not ready to part away from the memories he had built with his wife. His pain was immeasurable yet he always smiled for the sake of his children. She once went there and looked at her photos and her things, but the pain was too much to bear for her, after that she never dared check their bas.e.m.e.nt again.

She was only ten years old when their mother left. She had gone for her ballet class that day and waited very long for her to pick her up, but she never came…

She went home after she called on her home number and only a chauffeur came to pick her up. She reached home only to find out that her mother had left their house for good. She could still recall how devastated her brother was, and most especially her father.

Miley shook her head because she did not want to recall those sad times. For a few days things were gloomy in the house but soon things started coming back to normal when father started to live life like a normal person.

She was not as bitter towards her mother as her brother, but that she left them like that brought her pain. It felt like she had completely erased them from her life…

She silently opened the door and walked in behind her father. There was only a dim light. There were a few rooms in the bas.e.m.e.nt and she followed the direction she remembered where her mother’s things were kept. She saw the door to the room she disliked coming to the most, was slightly opened…

She peeped in the room and saw her father was glancing through the albums kept there while drinking some wine. Miley bit her trembling lips. She hated to see that state of her father. Even though so many years had passed he was yet not over her, not after all the humiliation, deceit and not after all those long years. He was almost sobbing while he went through those photos.

He kept on mumbling… “Why? Why? Why couldn’t you stay at least for your kids? Why?”

Miley could no longer watch, so she turned around and quietly left the place. “She didn’t stay dad because she’s selfish!” she whispered, briskly walking back to her room. She would never waste tears for a selfish person like her mother, but she had tears for her father today…