In the steamy bathroom, Evan vigorously rubs a washcloth across his body. Bloody woman! He can't believe that she threw up at him. Is kissing him that disgusting? The thought makes him burn with rage.
He adjusts the water pressure and the water drips down his bronze skin. It flows across his defined abs, highlighting the sexy musculature of his torso. He gets out of the shower and towels his hair dry and then puts on a dark robe, tying it loosely at the waist.
The maids have cleaned the bedroom while he was in the shower, and it looks like they've done a good job. The lights are off, but a fragrant candle burns and flickers passionately in a candlestick on the carved wood cabinet. The dim light creates a romantic atmosphere.
A woman with a perfect body is lying on the bed with her back to Evan. The thick, white quilt slips enticingly from her shoulders, revealing a fair and beautiful back. Her hair falls loosely across the pillow in a way Evan finds seductive and charming.
Images and mories flash through his head. He rembers the way Avery touched him: how her agile fingers moved across his body, sotis light and sotis heavy and lingering, how she scratched his back as she orgasd. He rembers how she moaned like she was weeping, the sound of a woman beyond ecstasy.
He feels his loin tightening and his heartbeat increases. He can feel the blood pulsing through his body and pounding in his head. He lifts the quilt and slides beneath it, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. Suddenly he freezes. The woman is completely naked.
So she was playing hard to get earlier, he thinks, feigning unwillingness to touch him and determination to divorce him. But she hasn't changed at all; she still craves his touch. Anyway, he decides, soone's personality can't change as suddenly and drastically as Avery's seed to. He has to admit she's getting better and better at seducing him.
The sex last night was too good, arousing and satisfying him in a way he'd never felt before. He recalls burying his head in Avery's neck, inhaling her fragrance wildly and greedily. He eagerly buries his head in her neck, craving that familiar scent. But there's sothing wrong. She doesn't sll the way he expects her to.
She moans quietly, suggesting she can't wait to be loved. Gently, she rolls over and looks at him with big, misty eyes. He reads sexual desire in her expression, an open invitation to him.
Evan is shocked, and for a short mont, his whole body freezes. The woman is not Averyit's Leonie.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he demands.
Quickly, he jumps out of bed and calls for the maids.
"Evan, wait!" Leonie stretches her fair and graceful hand toward him but touches only air. Embarrassed, she grabs a pillow to cover her chest. She curls her body around the pillow, trying to warm herself, but her back and bottom remain exposed.
"Yes, Mr. Howel?"
A maid enters the room but stops abruptly when she sees a naked woman on the bed. Leonie's legs are now obscenely wrapped around the pillow, and she's wiggling back and forth.
"Where is Mrs. Howel?"
Evan raises his eyebrows and turns his head away from the woman in his bed. She seems to be out of control, tornted by so kind of aphrodisiac.
"She's gone out," the maid answers.
"What?" he demands, "Where?"
Does she think she can just walk away after throwing up all over him? He can't believe her nerve.
"She didn't say," the maid said nervously, "She asked us to deliver a special candle and said"
The maid pauses abruptly wondering if she should keep talking.
"What?" Evan demands.
"She said a night of pleasure is better than all the gold in the world. She wishes the best for you and Miss Sumr," the maid lowers her head with embarrassnt as she talks, "The candle is ant to increase sexual pleasure. She said she'd be here if you change your mind about the divorce."
Increase sexual pleasure? Change his mind? Evan suddenly understands what's happening. Avery arranged for Leonie to co to his bedroom, and she sent the special aphrodisiac candle to guarantee that he'd have sex with the other woman. It's all been part of her plan to make him get a divorce.
Evan breathes heavily. He kicks the lamp on the nightstand. The tal lampshade hits the ground hard and the lightbulb blinks and then flickers out.
The maid looks away from Evan in a hurry. She's confused and embarrassed. Everyone said that Evan secretly wanted Leonie; now thanks to Mrs. Howel's scheming, she's lying naked on his bed. It makes no sense for him to fly into such a rage. The situation is hardly shafulit's normal for a man as powerful as Evan to have several mistresses.
Evan's look is piercing and grim. He glances at the candle across the room. Its dark blue fla is still twinkling. He walks over, picks it up and brings it up to his nose. He inhales quickly.
"Ask Dr. Walter to co here," he orders.
The first maid calls Dr. Walter and another enters to help Leonie get dressed.
Dr. David Walter cos quickly. He checks on Leonie first. Though she's dressed, she's still red in the face and she complains that she's unbearably hot. After that, he takes the candle and sniffs it.
"It slls like it contains a very powerful aphrodisiac," he says, frowning.
Evan clenches the glass jar containing the candle as if he's determined to break it with his bare hands.
"Er"
David is embarrassed. He knows that this type of aphrodisiac incites incredibly strong urges in anyone exposed to it for too long. Leonie's symptoms certainly match the drug's thod, but he's uncertain about what kinds of treatnt Evan might accept for her.
Evan seems to read his mind and frowns, "Is there an antidote?"
David nods, "Yes. I can give her so dicine."
"Just get her out of here," Evan orders, "Treat her as you see fit."
David is about to open his dical bag, but he freezes at Evan's words. How is he supposed to interpret that statent? It's easy to get her out of the room, but the treatnt can be complicated. The safest thod is, of course, to give her what she wants. dicine is only the second choice. If the aphrodisiac is strong enough and the dicine fails to function, the results could be terrible. But Evan doesn't want to know about this. He wants nothing to do with the problem.
David sighs. His parents worked in the mansion as butlers for their entire lives. Mrs. Howel treats him like one of her grandsons, and he grew up playing with Evan like a brother, but he doesn't dare to cross the line and touch Evan's woman.
"Do you need this room?" he asks Evan.
"Yes," Evan snaps.
"What a bloody ss!" David thinks.
He grinds his teeth and feels the hairs on his scalp rising. He hands his dicine bag to one of the maids and picks Leonie up.
David's arms feel wonderful to Leonie. She imagines she's found floating driftwood after struggling for a long ti on the sea. She wraps her arms tightly around David and buries her head in his neck to kiss him wildly. David loosens his grasp, embarrassed. Leonie feels a falling sensation and wraps her arms even more firmly around his shoulders.
David wants nothing more than to give her the dication and be done with her. She's making it very difficult to hold her. He makes it halfway out the door when he suddenly rembers sothing and turns to Evan, "By the way, Mrs. Howel asked for sothing half an hour ago. But I didn't give it to her."
Evan is toying with the candle and puts out the fla with his fingers, "What?"
"The morning-after pill."
David gives Evan a long and serious look, conveying aning beyond words. Evan's face suddenly drains of color. He is livid.
"I've never seen the ruthless Evan Howel so worked up over a woman," David thinks.
Evan puts the candle back on the cabinet, banging the glass hard against the wood. He cracks his knuckles and clenches his hands into fists. Then he gestures for David to take Leonie and leave. He orders Robert Tinder to forbid every pharmacy in the area from selling morning-after pills for the next 48 hours. With his family's power in both politics and the pharmaceutical industry, it will not be difficult to ban the pills.
Robert takes the orders and rushes away. In less than ten minutes, he returns with news.
"Sir, Mrs. Howel was seen at multiple pharmacies trying to buy the pills. None of them would sell to her so she went to St. yer Hospital."
"How persistent of her," Evan mutters.
The vein in Evan's temple bulges, and he paces the room with his hands clasped behind his back as if he's restraining himself from violence. The pure rage emanating from him sends chills down Robert's spine.
He stares at the candle on the cabinet.
"Follow her," he orders, "And tell Dr. yer that his hospital will find itself in an unfortunate financial situation if Avery cos into contact with any pills."
"Before you leave, I want her file," he adds.
In the last three years, he has never been so interested in any aspect of Avery's life.
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