For Richer, for Richest Read Online Free Page B

see her. She's eagerly expecting you. She's been talking about nothing else all morning."
    "Is Vicki with her?"
    "Only leaves Sophia's side when she has to. Which doesn't leave much for her job." Brenda pushed a double door open and led us to the cardiac care ward. "This way. Room 322."
    We walked past a bustling nurses' station. A hospital is always a hospital, and smells like one. This one was brightly decorated for children, the walls covered with cartoon murals. But at its core it smelled like disinfectant and medicine. And both hope and despair. Nothing disguised that.
    Brenda led us to a station to scrub up. In this area of the cardiac ward, children were particularly susceptible to airborne diseases.
    "No need to gown up this time. Assuming you're both completely healthy? None of you have been exposed to anyone who might have Ebola or anything like that?" She raised an eyebrow in question.
    Jus and I shook our heads.
    Brenda smiled. "Good! I'd hate to disappoint a little girl today." Brenda stopped and knocked on the partially open door to a private room. "Sophia? Are you home? You have a visitor!"
    A child's voice squealed from behind the privacy curtain. "Is it Justin?"
    "It just might be. Shall I let him in and you can see for yourself?" Brenda led us into the room around the privacy curtain.
    A slender, underdeveloped little girl with a distended stomach lay propped up in bed, surrounded by a menagerie of stuffed animals. She was so small. She couldn't have been more than three or four. She had a mop of curly brown hair and wide brown eyes that looked too large for her face. At the sight of Jus, her face lit up, transforming her into a loveable imp.
    Justin's face lit up, too.
    She held her arms out to him. "Squishy, squeezy hug!"
    "Are you sure you're up for that? Last time I nearly squeezed the stuffing out of you!" He pulled her into a hug, rubbing her cheek with his beard while she giggled wildly and screamed at him to stop whiskering her. But when he tried to pull away, the little girl clung to him.
    "I think you're squeezing the stuffing out of me this time!" he said.
    She finally released him, totally ignoring both Brenda and me.
    "Your beard is different." She frowned and ran a small hand through his hair. "You cut your hair!" She made a pouty face so serious and flirtatious I almost laughed.
    "I did. Do you like my new look?" He held her gaze.
    "The jury's out," she said, sounding terribly grown-up, probably imitating her mom. Who was nowhere to be seen.
    Justin's answering laugh was deep and rich. "Where's your mom?"
    "Getting a coffee. What did you bring me?" The girl reached for the backpack hung over Justin's shoulder.
    "You are such an eager, greedy little thing!" He was still grinning as he slid the backpack off and set it on the bed. "Do you have Dolly with you?"
    The girl rolled her eyes in an exaggerated way, shook her head, and made a grown-up sound of disgust. I wondered if her mom sounded like that, too. "Duh." She pulled a doll out from beneath the covers. It had apparently been lying in bed next to her.
    Jus laughed, unzipped the backpack, and pulled out two pairs of sparkly pink pajamas, one sized for a doll, the other for the girl.
    Her eyes went wide. She clapped as he handed them over.
    He held a finger to his lips. "Shhhh. You can't tell anyone about these. They're brand new and exclusive to Flash. This is an advance sample. No one else has them yet. You'll be the first. Not only in Seattle, but the entire world."
    The girl was already pulling the clothes off her doll and dressing her in the pajamas. "Dolly and me are going to look so pretty! Like twins!"
    Brenda put a hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear, "I'll leave you now. Justin knows his way around. It was nice meeting you. I expect we'll be seeing a lot of you now." She gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze and disappeared behind the privacy curtain and out the door.
    Jus had been admiring Dolly in her new clothes. He stopped