Billionaire Defiant Wife

Chapter 154: Andrew Deeply Desires Avery

Leonie doesn't find anything in her former room. She walks out in a snit and begins to search for other places in the house. When she comes to Avery's old bedroom, a maid nervously stops her.

"Miss Summers, you can't go into there," the maid says, "Although Mrs. Howel has moved into Mr. Howel's bedroom, some of her important belongings remain in her old room."

"My things are just as important," snaps Leonie, "Why not help me try to find them?"

"What things did you lose, Miss Summers?" the maid asks anxiously, "I can help you find them."

The maid twists her skirt nervously. She's afraid that Leonie will accuse her of stealing the item since she's the one who used to clean her room.

"No, you can leave. I can look for them alone," Leonie replies.

The maid doesn't know what to do. On the one hand, Leonie is one of Mrs. Florence Howel's favorites, but Evan has expelled her from the house. Leonie quickly grows impatient with the maid's hesitation.

"What's wrong?" she snaps, "Are you afraid that I'll steal something that belongs to Mrs. Howel?"

"No, of course not," answers the maid, staring at her shoes, "I'll leave you now."

"Wait a minute!" Leonie calls over her shoulder, "Where is Mrs. Howel?"

"She hasn't gotten up yet," the maid answers.

"She hasn't gotten up?" Leonie asks, surprised, "You mean she's slept all night and all morning?"

The maid nods curtly.

"Where is Evan?" Leonie asks, scheming, "Will he be coming back to the house to have lunch?"

"Mr. Howel heard that Mrs. Howel is sleeping, so he won't come back," the maid replies.

Leonie sighs. A lunch with Evan would be the perfect opportunity to set her plan in motion. She glares at the maid.

"You can leave," she hisses.

The maid quickly runs away. As soon as they leave, Leonie slips into the room and shuts the door behind her. She rummages through the drawers of Avery's makeup table and overturns a box on the tabletop.

She was inspired by Veronica's suggestion and recruited chemists and biologists to make an aphrodisiac agent that she can add to Evan's food. The liquid is colorless, tasteless, and odorless, and it's almost impossible to detect scientifically. She wanted to slip it into Evan's food, but she's frustrated to discover he won't be eating in the house. The Howel family insists on the freshest food and ingredients, and she knows it's too risky to add the agent to random foods in the hopes that it will somehow get to Evan. She can only hope that her original plan to send Evan laced wine will work.

Leonie is so angry that she viciously kicks the legs on the makeup table. She aims to kick after kick at the wood until he toes ache. She squats down and sees that her toenails have broken, and her foot is bleeding.

Evan finishes eating his lunch in the conference room and carefully wipes his mouth with a napkin. Seeing that his boss is done eating, Robert enters the room carrying a tablet. He nods in greeting at his boss and wipes his sweat and fingerprints from the tablet's screen.

Evan glances at Robert and hopes there's no urgent work for him to attend to. He desperately wants to slip home and check on Avery. He's been worrying about her all morningit's not like her to sleep so much, especially after she went to bed so early the night before.

"I've looked into Gabrielle's background," Robert announces, "It is indeed true that she became Mr. Clifford's special nurse because she lost her internship at the hospital."

"What about the relationship between Mr. Clifford and my wife?" Evan asks impatiently.

"Before Avery went to Pleasure City, Mr. Clifford and Mrs. Howel did not have any contact with each other," Robert coughs, "We can't confirm why she had a photo of him, though. It's been many years since the photo was taken."

"Perhaps Mr. Clifford's school was adjacent to Avery's school," Evan muses, "The photo may have been an accident."

"Yes, as we can see, Mrs. Howel is not friendly to Mr. Clifford," Robert said, nodding eagerly, "When Mr. Clifford wanted to shine his stone and took Gabrielle away with him, Mrs. Howel immediately went to save her sister. She doesn't trust or like him."

Evan frownstalking about Andrew makes him irritable, and he hates the way Robert is desperately defending Avery. Before he tries to rescue Gabrielle, he wants to understand why Andrew is holding her prisoner. If he just wanted to shine his stone with her blood, he wouldn't need to imprison her. As a man, it is easy to tell for Evan whether Andrew desires Gabrielle, and it's clear that he doesn't. On the other hand, Andrew deeply desires Avery.

Robert clears his throat, nervously. He knows he has to speak, but his tongue feels heavy. He's terrified of Evan's reaction to the news, worried that his boss may get violent.

"No more nonsense!" Evan snaps before Robert can gather the courage to speak.

"This is the surveillance video from the hotel in Pleasure City," Robert said nervously, "It seems Mrs. Howel and Mr. Clifford spent some time in the same bathroom together."

Evan impatiently grabs the tablet. There aren't any cameras inside the bathroom, but the footage was recorded by a camera right outside the door. Evan presses play. On the screen, Andrew walks into the bathroom. A few moments later, Avery walks toward the bathroom; the door opens, and someone pulls her inside.

Evan can hear voices talking, but the sound quality is fuzzy, and he can't make out their words. Then muffled, but sexual sounds begin. First, Evan hears a deep groan and assumes it's Andrew. As the cries continue, Evan starts to listen to a higher-pitched moan. Then Andrew groans loudlythe sound of a satisfied man. The sound pierces his heart. He clutches the tablet almost hard enough to break it.

Evan plays the video back again and again and makes it louder and louder. He orders Robert to bring him a speaker and connect it to the tablet. He stares at the screen and feels uncontrollable rage rise in his chest.

"How dare she make love with another man!" he thinks over and over again.

Evan's face is pale, and the blood vessels protrude on the back of his hands. Suddenly, he grabs the tablet and throws it at the wine rack in the conference room. Bottles shatter and spill wine. The screen of the tablet flickers and goes black. Evan stands unstably.

"Andrew Clifford," Evan hisses, his lips arcing into a terrible grimace.

He takes a bottle of wine from the top of the rack and smashes the top off of it. Then he swigs from the broken bottle, unconcerned about the sharp glass on his lips. He quickly drains the wine. His blood burns with wine and anger. Then it begins to glow with something else.

As the aphrodisiac takes effect, Evan begins to feel abnormally hot. He frowns and stamps around the room. His entire head feels hot. Although he was just furious with Avery, now all he wants to do is fuck her.