When Gabrielle came out, she saw that Alvin had left already. But there was Westley, having changed his clothes, standing before a table of delicious breakfast, grinning.
The fragrance of the food hugged the room, made Gabrielle salivate, made her forget how tired she had been last night.
"You're done, Gabrielle. You must be hungry. Come and have breakfast," Westley called, beckoning her to a chair.
Sitting on one side of the small table placed beside the large glass wall, they watched the fish wriggling through the clean blue water as they ate breakfast. It had been just like this when they had dinner in the glass ball at that time.
It was a lovely sight.
Earlier, Gabrielle had been in quite a bad mood, having been disturbed by Westley the whole of last night. But now, as she watched the water, her bad mood ebbed away like the tiny wavelets that spread out around the swimming fish.
Watching these marine creatures had its little magic of transforming bad days into beautiful ones.
"We can stay here an extra day, or even as long as you want. What do you think?" Westley asked, munching slowly while he poured her a glass of milk.
Gabrielle held up the glass and sipped at the milk. Her eyes glinted with thrill as she stared at Westley. "You mean we can really stay here as long as we want?"
It was actually going to be fun to live here. But she knew that it would seem like living in an aquarium, and before long she would get bored.
"Of course, we can. It all depends on how long you want us to stay," Westley said seriously.
He neither sounded nor looked as if he was joking. He was a man who meant every single word he said.
Sensing that he was indeed serious, she decided to dissuade him immediately. She knew the kind of the person he was. "I really don't want to live here, Westley. It's okay if we can come here once in a while to have a nice time. But if I have to see this water and these fish every day, I'll get tired of it all after a while, you know."
Westley listened, staring calmly at her and nodding slowly in agreement.
"That's fine. You can always come here whenever you wish," he said in a gentle voice. He would never force her to do whatever she didn't want to.
"Okay," Gabrielle said, smiling warmly and enjoying her meal.
After breakfast, she changed into another dress in the bathroom. Then they both left the hotel and got on the car.
Alvin was already waiting for them in the driver's seat.
"Good morning, Mr. Morris and Mrs. Morris," Alvin greeted, bowing his head slightly.
Gabrielle was often so embarrassed each time Alvin greeted them this formally that she couldn't help but bow also.
"Here's your exclusive room card, Mr. Morris," Alvin said, handing Westley a crystal card.
He had asked Alvin to rent the room where they had stayed so that Gabrielle could always return here whenever she wanted.
Taking the card from Alvin, Westley gave it to Gabrielle. "This is the card to the room we stayed in today. It's ours exclusively from now on, so you can always come here with the card or ask the receptionist to let you into the room."
Gabrielle took the translucent card. It felt heavy on her palm.
Westley was really a different man.
"I don't think I can accept this, Westley," she said suddenly, slipping the card back into Westley's hand.
She had thought he would forget about what they had talked about during breakfast.
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