Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 240: One More Time

"If it wasn’t poison, what was in the glass?" Anne asked because she couldn’t wrap her head around why Andrew made the police take Clara away.

Anne had a very big suspicion on what was in that glass. Based on the way Clara had so certainly claimed she would make Andrew hers, Anne knew what she might have put in his drink.

It’s the most disgusting and lowest thing a woman could do but Anne knew Clara had done it anyway, not because she was a desperate woman longing to get a man’s affection but because her feminine ego refused to accept the fact that the man she wanted, the man she so willingly and readily tried to attract didn’t look at her in that way. If she had succeeded in getting him tonight it would have appeased her ego because she genuinely believed that no other woman was deserving of Andrew but her. Anne saw it in her eyes.

"The test came out clean." Andrew said, his voice smooth and cool.

Anne’s head whipped up immediately.

But that was impossible, what she had seen wasn’t a trick of light or an illusion, it had been Clara concealing herself in a corner of the banquet hall as she put a strange liquid from a green bottle into the champagne. It was that very drink she had gone on to give Andrew.

Anne was very clear about what she saw. How could the test have come out clean?

But that wasn’t the most important part. The main thing was that Andrew was supposed to not believe her anymore after the test came out clean, he hadn’t caught Clara in the act, and no one else had seen her doing it either, why did Andrew get her arrested even if the test proved her innocent.

"But... didn’t that make you think I was lying? And the police said they had evidence."

The man looking down at her right now could be said not to care, others might even say he had no emotions. And he spoke that way too but the content of his words suggested otherwise, because what he said next made Anne feel her heart again, it made a fluttering sensations that caused a warm feeling to flow through her body.

"You said she put something in it so she put something in it. Even if there’s no evidence I made one, all those people would have torn you apart if they thought you lied."

She realized he hadn’t just chosen to put Clara under punishment because he trusted her, he had also done that to protect her from all those people waiting to hear her being called a liar.

Anne stared at every rigid angle of Andrew’s face in a daze, there were no thoughts in her mind yet her eyes looked lost, all that filled her heart was warmth, the kind of warmth that didn’t diminish.

"Get in the car, the driver will take you home." His voice pulled her out of whatever universe she had been lost in. Anne quietly moved to sit in the car unable to say anything at all because she was too stunned by the reasoning of his actions. He punished Clara just because he trusted her words, he punished Clara to protect her from people criticizing her.

Those thoughts continued to ring in her mind even as she entered the car, and as she did she felt a warm hand shielding the top of her head before he retracted his hand when she was fully sat. She broke off from the thoughts looking up at his face.

He closed the door and stepped back, and their eyes met in this moment, he didn’t look away, staring at her so intently.

Love, lust, or desire, whichever it was he felt for her, she accepted it. She accepted it and she would hold onto it until her time with him was up.

She was foolish to push him away due to fear, she was foolish to try to suppress her emotions. Memories weren’t something to be scared of, they were something to be cherished.

She wasn’t scared anymore, she never should have been scared in the first place.

The car started to move at the very moment she was about to open her mouth to say something.

She wanted to take back everything she had said to him in a moment of heightened emotions, she wanted to apologize to him for pushing him away. But it seemed too late to speak at this very moment, so she decided to sit back in the car and wait till he came home later tonight and she would tell him.

When the driver dropped her at home, the household staff were all eagerly waiting for her, they rushed towards her asking about how the party went.

They had gotten her ready, so they wanted to hear about the banquet. Anne ended up sitting with them and chatting late into the night. Several times her gaze would drift over to the entrance, looking hopefully for him to walk in anytime soon but eventually she would look away, lowering her gaze to hide the disappointment.

"That woman is so evil! Mistress, women are cunning, they don’t care if a man is married they’ll do anything to get him, if she has set her sights on master she might want to try again."

After hearing about everything that happened at the banquet, all the staff felt infuriated on Anne’s behalf and some of them even suggested should have slapped Clara on the spot, pull her hair and tell her that the man she was trying to seduce was her husband.

Anne had merely laughed at their words, though it was known that their marriage was kept secret, the staff weren’t given the exact reason, they all just followed the household policy without question.

It was one of the younger maids called Ava who spoke up, seemingly carrying the kind of righteous fury that even Anne didn’t feel towards Clara.

Yes she had felt angry at Clara after figuring out what she did, but then again Clara had gotten what she deserved, Anne just hoped this would make her realize that cooking up schemes like these weren’t worth it.

"Mrs Sterling, you keep looking at the door. Are you waiting for master to get home?" It was Razia who asked this time, silencing the others who kept talking non stop.

Anne nodded quietly, smiling bitterly to herself. Her admitting to waiting for her husband made the ladies giggle among each other. "Be a bit patient Mistress, if you miss master this much everytime he isn’t home, you might just want to tie him to your bed next time and not let him leave."

"Your mind is so filthy Emma!" Another maid chided.

Though the others talked and laughed, Razia however seemed to notice something wrong about Anne’s expression. The older woman seemed to feel something was wrong.

"Did you and master have a fight?" She asked making the others look at her weirdly as if it were impossible.

Anne wanted to say that she didn’t dare fight with him, but recalling how emotional she had been at the time, it could be called that. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"I just...said some things to him that I shouldn’t have."

’Who cares about what’s real or what’s fake? I want you and you’re right here, that’s all that fucking matters to me.’

Now when the haze had cleared, now when she wasn’t feeling any pain, she felt her heart warm up sweetly as she recalled those words.

He said he wanted her.

He had been right, that was all that mattered.

But she had lashed out at him and made it seem like she didn’t care at all.

"It’s normal for someone to say something they don’t mean to their loved one, the only thing to do in this case is apologize and let them know you didn’t really mean it. Relationships hit rocky paths but communication helps steer the couple to the right path." Razia spoke with the softness of a mother advising her child, it made Anne feel relaxed.

"Yes mistress, you should totally apologize to him for what you said, he’s your husband he’ll surely forgive you and let it go. But just saying sorry alone might not work, so If the apology doesn’t work then you can just take it to the bedroom, that has a hundred percent chance of working, let me tell you mistress, all men give in to...ouch! Why are you hitting me Katie? I’m just stating facts."

"What facts? You’re just a pervert."

"How am I a pervert when mistress is his wife, and I’m just telling her how to calm her husband’s anger. We all know master’s temper is unpredictable, what if he stays angry with mistress for a long time?"

As they continued to argue Anne’s thoughts had already drifted far away.

Was it true that a verbal apology alone might not work?

Anne knew he desired her, he made that obvious and he had said it too.

Then did that mean she really had to...

Before an image could be conjured in her mind Anne quickly shook it off.

No, she couldn’t do that. What would she do, seduce him as a form of apology?

Anne’s face immediately burned with embarrassment.

Where would she get the guts to do that? And...the doctor had clearly said they couldn’t continue to...

But... would just one time have an effect on her health, if she had to do that to make him forgive her then, maybe just one more time?