Filed to story: Love Entangled with Her Unconscious Husband Novel >>
“Thank you for the kind offer, Mr. Tierney, but I have no intention of leaving Sterling Group anytime soon. A s long as Mr. Foster doesn’t fire me, I won’t leave his side.”
“Why’s that?” Charlie asked, puzzled.
“You can ask Chelsea her reason for not leaving the company.”
“She won’t leave because she’s in love with Elliot Foster. Don’t tell me you’re in love with him too?!” Charlie chuckled.
“I like him, but out of respect,” Chad answered honestly. “Everyone always talks about his temper, but there are many facets to a human being. Someone who never smiles isn’t necessarily a bad person, and someone who is always friendly isn’t necessarily pure of heart.”
“Are you talking about me?” Charlie asked. “Of course not,” Chad replied. “There is no hidden meaning. You’re a formidable man, but I would never betray Mr. Foster.”
Chad knew very well that Charlie wanted to poach him so he could use him against Elliot.
As his trusty right-hand man, nobody would know Elliot as well as Chad did.
“If I decide to turn my back on Mr. Foster today, I could very well do the same thing to you in the future. I’m sure you won’t be able to trust someone like that,” Chad said.
When Elliot arrived at the police station, the whole station fell into an anxious frenzy.
The captain rushed over when he received the call.
“Your phone was stolen? That thief must be out of his mind! I’ll get my men on it right away! You have my word that I will get your phone back within the next twenty-four hours!” said the captain as he placed his hand on his chest and promised Elliot.
“It’s not my phone that was stolen,” Elliot said.
“Oh! You scared me! I thought it was yours,”
“It was my wife’s,” Elliot said, then took a sip of water and asked, “Can you get it back in twenty-four hours?”
The captain was taken aback, then said, “Yes! Absolutely! We have surveillance cameras everywhere now, so we will definitely get it back! We’ll start a full-fledged investigation right now!”
Elliot nodded and said, “I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it! We’re just doing our jobs!” The captain flipped through the report, then asked, “Is your wife’s name Avery Tate?”
“That’s her,” answered Elliot.
“Got it! I’ll remember her name!” responded the captain.
Back at the Foster mansion, Avery was sitting at her desk and using her laptop to sign into her social media accounts so she could post a status update about her stolen phone.
She continued to sit at the desk in a daze after that.
Maybe it was a good thing if the thief wiped out everything in her phone and sold it off.
What she dreaded was a stranger invading her privacy and going through her phone.
She placed her hand on her spinning head and sighed heavily.
If she knew this was going to happen, she would never have left the neighborhood.
She could have just taken her walk in the neighborhood itself!
Avery got up from her desk and went into the bathroom.
After her shower, she climbed into bed and lay down.
She had to get a new phone and number the next day.
She tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep.
The sound of frantic footsteps came from the hallway outside, followed by a knock on her door.
“Are you awake, Madam?” Mrs. Cooper called. “Master Elliot just called to say that he got your phone back. You just need to go sign some release documents at the station. If you don’t want to go yourself, he can do it for you.”
Avery leaped out of bed and opened the door.
“They found my phone?”
“Yes! Master Elliot made sure they did,” Mrs. Cooper said, making sure to emphasize the key point. “I was the one who called him and told him about the whole thing. You’re not mad, are you?”
Avery shook her head.
She was ecstatic that her phone had been found, how could she possibly be angry?
She arrived at the police station with Mrs. Cooper half an hour later.
When Avery noticed that Elliot was holding her phone in his hand, she broke into a cold sweat.
“Give that to me!” she snapped, then rushed forward and tried to snatch her phone out of his hand.
Elliot raised his arm over his head before she could grab it.
“Are you that afraid of me looking through your phone?” he mocked.
“Did you?” Avery asked as her eyes reddened. “Who gave you permission? Do you have no regard for other people’s privacy at all?! I’m not your toy! You always do this! You never respect me!”
Everyone around them watched their altercation in stunned silence.
Elliot had stayed at the station the whole time to pressure them into getting the phone back.
Now that the phone was found in record timing, not only was Avery not grateful, but she was snapping at him.
This was the mighty Elliot Foster that put fear in the eyes of all those around him!
Where did Avery find the courage to raise her voice at him?
The thief was watching them fight, and could not help but interject, “It’s just a bunch of photos of a belly i n there!”
His words turned Avery’s eyes red with rage and made her body tremble.
It was as if she was stripped naked for all to see.
When she entered her second trimester, she would take a photo of her belly after every shower to check the progress of her baby bump.
Elliot did not check her phone, so hearing the thief’s words made him glance at Avery with a bewildered look on his face.
Holding back tears, Avery turned in anger and stormed out of the station. She did not sign the release paper, nor did she take her phone back from Elliot. Elliot signed the papers and left the station. On the car ride home, he passed her phone to her and said in a low voice, “I didn’t go through it.”
Avery took her phone and her breathing was heavy as she said, “But you already know what’s inside.”
“Are they important? Those photos…”
Avery gritted her teeth and warned herself not to lose her temper with Elliot. He was the one who had helped get her phone back after all. Her hand clenched around her phone as she asked, “If I told you that the baby you had forced me to abort wasn’t Cole’s but yours… Would you feel guilty at all?”
Elliot turned his head and glanced at her.
Avery’s expression was serious, and it did not seem like she was kidding.
He gulped and responded in a hoarse voice, “From the IVF treatments?” “Yes,” Avery answered. She met his gaze and said,
“You killed your own child with your own hands. Do you feel any guilt?”
She hoped to see even the slightest hint of remorse on his face to make herself feel better.
She prayed that he was a man of flesh and blood and not a cold-blooded money-making machine.
The expression on Elliot’s face puzzled her. He knew that he would be breaking her heart, but he still replied indifferently, “I don’t.
It was never meant to be born in the first place.”
Avery chuckled coldly and asked, “Would you be so calm if your own parents said that about you?” “I would thank them if they never gave birth to me,” he answered. “Not everyone wishes to be born into this world, Avery.”
Avery raised her brows.
Did he not wish to be born?
How come?
Elliot’s mother loved him unconditionally, he had a successful career, and there were plenty of people around him who treated him like he was the center of their universe…
Why was he so pessimistic?
What exactly did he have to go through?
“Are you depressed?” Avery asked as she could not help but analyze his words from a medical perspective. “There are treatments for depression. If you’re sick, you should go see a doctor as soon as possible.”
The expression on Elliot’s face relaxed slightly.
“If being sick could make you dwell on me, then go ahead and treat me like a sick person!”
It was close to midnight when they arrived at the mansion.
Once Avery was in her room, she was so tired that she did not have the energy to think about anything.
She got into bed and fell asleep soon after.
That night, she had a dream.
She dreamt of the reason behind Elliot’s pessimism.
In her dream, she saw a young Elliot and his father.
His father was an impossibly strict man that had no patience for his playful son.
Young Elliot had to endure the wrath of his father’s ruthless belt until he bled…
His howling cries were heartbreaking.
The bloody images in her nightmare made her wake up in horror.
Outside the window, dawn had broken, and the sky was getting brighter.
Avery got up on her arms and began to mumble to herself, trying to make herself feel better, “There’s no way his father would hit him like that. Even if he did, his mother would stop it… Dreams are almost always the opposite of reality. There’s no way he was abused.”