"I don’t see anything suspicious about it," Valentina interrupted. "It’s like free publicity for her, don’t you see? She gets more reactions and comnts on her page in ten minutes than I do in one day, though ninety percent of those comnts aren’t leaning towards the good side. They are hate comnts."
"That explains that then," Roberts said, in support of his sister’s words. "Now that your sense of judgent isn’t hindered by paranoia, you can now think well and see things from all angles, Valentina."
"Oh, shut up, Rob!" she snapped in reply.
Brian sighed, "Why don’t you all let carry out one final test on her, this Ava Donovan? By her reaction, we can know whether to finally put our minds at rest or to dig more into what kind of person she is."
"There’s no problem in trying that out," Valentina agreed.
"It wouldn’t hurt," Kathy chipped in.
Roberts sighed. "Do whatever you want. I know I have the dead Avery with , but I will be waiting here for news of your failure," he said, taking two steps backwards to sit on the couch beside Brian.
The latter glanced at Jon, "How about you, Chairman McCAllum? What do you think?"
"Hmmm..." Jordan humd, pretending to think about the question before giving his answer. "I’ll go with my wife. It wouldn’t hurt to carry out an extra check." He turned to Valentina, "By the way, Tina, you have to apologize to this Ava girl for what you did. If possible, befriend her and invite her ho for lunch, that way we can all get the chance to analyse her character. It could even serve as a publicity stunt." His eyes clouded dreamily. " I can already see the headline: Valentina McCAllum shows her kind heart once again, by showing love and befriending a murderer... Or rather, a person with a murderer’s face."
Valentina sat up, her eyes sparkling with interest.
"Well, that’s true. Keeping her close will also enable to trample on her wings when she starts to grow. That’s a perfect idea, Dad!"
Everyone else nodded their agreent at the decision, while Jon’s face curved into a sinister smile. He rose to his feet and took out his phone, discreetly typing out ’Ava Donovan’ in the search bar so the selfie she posted earlier that day was displayed to him. He swiped the screen for a full picture of her and zood in on her exposed waist.
’Great!’ he thought, ’She might not be Avery, but she looks so much like her that it won’t make any difference when she’s lying beneath and begging to fuck her.’
His long ti dream of having his nice and pretty niece under him was about to co true. Even though he hadn’t been able to fulfill it with the real person; the fact that he was provided with a striking doppelganger only ant that fate was behind him.
He turned to Brian and asked, "How soon should we expect the results of you testing her?"
"Two weeks at most," Brian replied, "As long as Valentina’s helping , it shouldn’t even take two days."
"Of course, I’m helping you..." Valentina trailed off, her eyes widening slightly at the mail that just dropped in her inbox. "The shoot was postponed to tomorrow morning. You can tell anything you need to do by then." She lifted her gaze to et her brother’s boyfriend’s, throwing him a smile.
Brian returned the smile. "We can talk about it later."
"I guess we are done here then," Kathy said, picking up her glass of juice and downing it in one go. She headed out of the library without sparing a second glance back, and Valentina followed, murmuring sothing about how she would need to make use of this strange holiday by shopping for new clothes.
Jon started to head towards the door, when Roberts voice stopped him.
"Dad, Tina said this Ava Donovan attends NewDun University. The butler you paid to finish off Grandpa, doesn’t he have a daughter there too?"
"Ross?" Jon raised a brow. "Seems so."
"We could use this girl, you know? I might be completely sure that Ava Donovan isn’t Avery, but that doesn’t an you guys skepticism isn’t getting to ." He gritted his teeth, "It grates on my nerves and I don’t think I can handle it for much longer, so instead of this unnecessary test, why not let’s use Butler Ross’ daughter to get to her. It’s much easier and dependable than trying to use a silly test that wouldn’t work if the Ava girl has been expecting you."
Job shrugged in total indifference.
"Do whatever. Just make sure to report to when you get results." He pulled open the door and stepped out, taking slow steps further down the hallway before suddenly stopping dead in his tracks.
He pressed his phone against his ear and smirked.
"Ross? Ah... Long ti. I presu everything is going fine with you... Yes, I just need a tiny bit of help from you... Let’s eat lunch together later in the week. I will send you the address and you, co with your daughter."
★★★
Avery had a deep frown on her face as she stepped out of the elevator into the foyer, her eyes glued to her phone where she had sent countless ssages to Jodi and was yet to receive even one reply since earlier that afternoon when she left Archie.
First it had been to ask if she saw the mail from the production team that the shoot was postponed until the next day. Then the next was to inform her she just left Archie’s office to get lunch with Stuart, who had invited her via text ssage. And now, it was to ask if she got ho safely.
"Gosh," she released a puff of air, running her hands through her hair to remove the hairband she’d used to tie it up in a loose ponytail. "She must be viewing as a clingy friend now," the words ca out in a low mutter.
’Wait,’ she thought, raising her head to look up at the dimly lit chandelier that hung low from the ceiling, ’Why am I ssaging her when she left with her boyfriend? They probably won’t be seeing themselves for another month so they have to make use of the short ti they have... don’t they?’ She lowered her head again to the single ticks that marked her ssages unread. ’But what could they be doing that made her unable to read my ssages at least?’
"What couples do."
It took five whole seconds for Avery to realize she had spoken that thought out loud, and an answer had co, from Archie. She blinked, snapping her head towards the entrance to the dark hallway that led to the cellar, where the sound had co from.
Archie was standing there, in a gray colored t-shirt that snug tightly against his chest and similar colored joggers, with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a fountain pen in the other. Why was he ho already?
The ti was just 7pm.
Trying to stop herself from reliving the mories of what ensued in the dark hallway behind him, she forced her eyes to stay on his face.
"You are ho," she murmured.
"As you can see," Archie deadpanned. His eyes swept over her body and a pleased expression dominated his face, "I see you changed out of those godforsaken clothes."
"Because I was uncomfortable," Avery rolled her eyes. She’d co ho to change into a sleeveless sundress and sandals before going to join Stuart at the cafe, whose address he sent to her. "Not because of what you said. I didn’t care one bit about it."
"Hmm," He looked like he was already bored with the conversation. "Will you stand there forever?"
Avery stepped forward. She slipped her feet out of the sandals.
"Why are you ho this early?"
"To prepare. You are sleeping over tonight. Surely, you didn’t think I would want to waste a second of that experience, toiling away in the top floor of that god-damned building."
Avery’s eyes shrouded in confusion. How could she have forgotten what sparked their conversation earlier that day? She asking him to tell her what insult Tina and her friends had used on her two years ago that made him spike their als, and he asking her to sleep in his bed tonight as paynt for telling her.
He didn’t even tell her yet and he was already preparing for what? Her sleep over?
"You rember that I agreed to that but you don’t rember you haven’t told yet?"
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