Minutes after hearing the bombshell Jodi dropped, Avery was still staring at her, her expression blank like she had not heard anything.
"Did you hear that, Ava?"
She shook her head, "I think I did but at the sa ti, I don’t think I heard well."
"Right?" Jodi nodded vigorously, excitent evident in her voice. "I knew you’d be shocked. It’s so obvious Mr Donovan only shows his best side to you. Tell , was it love at first sight for you two?"
"Who caused Lilian Albert’s downfall and why, Jodi? Don’t change the topic so soon," Avery questioned, ignoring Jodi’s question. Seeing as the latter never hesitated to address and treat her as a friend, she felt bad lying to her. And if she could help it, she wanted to refrain from lying to Jodi until her plans had been successfully executed. "Tell ."
"You won’t tell Mr Donovan I told you, right?" Jodi made her reluctance to answer obvious, her face contorting into a frown. Seeing Avery’s eyes harden into a glare, she was quick to add, "Don’t bla for asking. You might be my friend but your husband is still the most terrifying man in the country. Unfortunately, I can’t even trust my boyfriend to protect from him."
"I won’t tell him. Anything we say about him will be kept between us," Avery promised, her eyes softening. She could not bla anyone for fearing Archie. Instead of that, she’d see anyone who didn’t fear him as an idiot.
As for her...she was used to reminding herself to fear him but her brain and body always seed to forget the mont he appeared, and she would end up arguing with him.
"If you insist then..." Jodi drawled. When she continued, her voice had a hint of excitent in it, "It was at a charity ball, I think. I can rember the day well not only because it’s the day I saw Mr. Donovan exerting his power, but also because it was my first ti in a ball party. There were rumors then that Lilian Albert was once Mr Donovan’s..."
’Fling,’ Avery continued in her mind, knowing Jodi wouldn’t want to spell the word out for her.
"... Friend," Jodi continued. "So she was dared by one of her friends who was also at the ball, to approach Mr Donovan and address him fondly."
"And she did?" Avery asked.
"She did. She called him Archie and that marked the end of her career."
"What?!" Avery exclaid, disbelief evident in her eyes. "I don’t think the na triggers him since I call him that too. Maybe he had unsettled scores with her."
Jodi had a knowing smile on her face as she waited patiently for Avery to finish talking.
"I was coming around to that. Mr Donovan didn’t have unsettled scores with her."
"You can’t be sure—"
"I can. He exchanged pleasantries with her when the ball just began and there was no problem," Jodi stated. "Besides, he told her she was being punished because she gave him false hope. Apparently, only his wife calls him that and when Lilian did, she lifted his hopes for nothing. End of story."
Avery sat there in shock for the next few minutes, a flurry of mories flashing through her mind. The mories started on the day she t him and continued up till two weeks ago. She could not rember calling him anything other than ’Archie’ for the past three years yet he had never punished her. Except...
’Our testimonies didn’t seal the deal. We have soone who needed this power as much as we did, backing us up.’
Jon’s voice echoed in her ears, reminding her of the day she asked who helped him plot the downfall of her family. He’d only given a vague answer then but it had been enough for Avery to know they had soone powerful behind them.
Definitely not Archie... right?
If he could destroy a career an innocent person had been building for years in a day just because the person called him ’Archie’, then for her that had been calling him that for as long as she could rember, didn’t that an he could destroy her, her family and even the butterflies that passed by their garden?
’Shut it, Avery,’ she reprimanded herself, snapping out of her ridiculous thoughts. Archie would have killed her if he wanted to many years ago. There’s no reason he’d help Jon and his family, or save her after he killed her family.
Besides, he wouldn’t hide behind those idiots if he was the culprit. Archibald Donovan wasn’t a coward; that was one thing she knew and was sure of, when it ca to him.
Sitting beside a confounded Avery, Jodi’s heart beat faster with each passing second the forr went without a word.
’Have I said sothing I shouldn’t have?’ she asked herself, her fingers tightening around the throw pillow in her hand. It was all she could do not to hit her own head to cure her stupidity. Ava looked innocent, nice, kind and every good attributes one could assign to the wife of a multi-billion dollars company chairman. For sure, she wouldn’t encourage the fact that her husband had destroyed a person’s career just because that person called him a na she only called him.
’Fuck it, Jo! You will be in hell if you don’t get Ava’s mind off it now,’ she concluded in her mind, and slung her hand over Avery’s shoulder.
"Down to earth, Ava. You asked what happened the day I t Archie, didn’t you?" she lunged straight into her narrative even before Avery answered her, "So as I was saying...the day I t him was the legendary ’do anything and you’ll go scot free’ day."
Avery was successfully distracted when she heard that. She asked, "Do anything and you’ll go scot free? To Archi—Arch?"
"Yeah. Anyone in A² Corp. can be rest assured to do whatever they like on that day and they’d go unpunished. It has been tested and trusted by several employees," Jodi explained with such conviction that made Avery almost ask if she had also tested it.
Instead, she asked, "Why is that? Did Arch personally declare that day as a free day or what?"
"No. I’m sure you’d know if I told you the date but unfortunately, I can’t rember. That day was actually his brother’s death anniversary."
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