Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 228: Withdrawal

The next day Anne woke up a bit late, after a quick routine she went downstairs, had breakfast and headed outside where she found the driver waiting outside the car for her.

She hadn’t seen Andrew inside, so she had assumed he had gotten ready early and was waiting for her in the car. She had even eaten in a hurry in order not to end up running late and dragging him behind since he had once told her clearly that they would go to work together, but as Anne looked into the car through the windows, there was no one sitting there.

She looked to the driver who moved to open the backdoor for her and asked, "Andrew isn’t out here yet?"

Could it be he slept in too?

That was very unlikely, other than the times he’d...well the few times she’d slept next to him, she had never witnessed him sleeping in before, he was usually out of his room even before she woke up.

"Master Andrew left very early this morning, he instructed me to take you to work." The driver replied humbly.

A contemplative frown sat on Anne’s face. Last night he seemed to have come back really late, Anne had returned to the manor after work hours, but the butler had told her to have dinner because Andrew had called and instructed them to serve her since he wouldn’t be eating at home because he had a dinner meeting with someone.

She knew work meetings required one to discuss over meals sometimes, but for some strange reason last night, her mind had chosen to conjure up a weird image of Andrew dining with a woman.

That thought had caused a sudden panic to assault her heart but she had immediately shoved it off.

What was that feeling, jealousy? What right did she have to be jealous if he had a late dinner meeting with a woman, it wasn’t as if he was truly truly her husband right? 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Anne still remembered how sleep seemed to have deserted her last night, making her decide to ditch her bed and just pace around her vast bedroom to clear her head but in reality she would stop in front of the windows everytime to peek outside hoping to glimpse his car driving through the gates anytime soon.

It wasn’t until several minutes past one AM did the car finally show up after she had tired herself pacing repeatedly, and the moment she had seen his car her heart had quickly soared with glee and a strange sense of relief it felt as if she would immediately be able to fall asleep if her back touched the bed, all the exhaustion that refused to come when she had been wondering about his whereabouts crashed into her at once and she dragged her tired feet back to bed only to hear murmurs along the hallways outside, a voice that sounded like butler Jones saying,

"Mistress must be sleeping by now, she went inside several hours ago."

Judging from the sound of footsteps, Anne could tell he was with Andrew but what she didn’t expect was for his footsteps to stop right outside her door instead of his own. She could see his shadow from the space below the door, as the doorknob turned indicating someone was about to come into her room, Anne immediately plunged into her sheets and shut her eyes tight as if she’d fallen asleep.

Why had he come to her room? She wondered quietly while keeping her face blank like someone who was truly sleeping without any ripples that would sell her out.

She heard him approaching until his footsteps stopped right at the foot of the bed, she couldn’t tell what else happened but she heard receding footsteps from the outside as if someone was leaving to go downstairs but the shadow near her bed was still there.

Anne realized it must have been butler Jones who left and Andrew was still in her room.

Did he plan to sleep in her room tonight?

The edge of her bed suddenly dipped as if someone sat there and Anne fought the urge to open her eyes and take a look but stiffened subconsciously when she felt something lightly brush off the fine baby hairs on her temple, she struggled with the urge to shiver under such a light contact. The soft brush of his coarse finger lowered down her jaw, a sweet feeling trailed right from the spot he touched till it reached her heart.

Her body unconsciously relaxed under the subtle touch, and she felt herself slowly drifting off to sleep like someone being lulled into slumber.

Just as she was beginning to get comfortable under his touch, he stopped, pulling away as she felt the space at the edge of her bed become vacant and receding footsteps sounding till the door shut and the footsteps faded into the next room.

Anne finally opened her eyes meeting the emptiness in her room, she was all alone now that it almost felt as if the presence she felt a while ago had just been her illusion if it weren’t for the lingering warmth of his touch on her face.

Anne reached up and touched very lightly over where his fingers had brushed, her touch careful as if she didn’t want to replace the warmth he’d left there with her own.

A special feeling bloomed in her heart and it brought a smile to her face, a smile born from a strange excitement that made her heart flutter.

Even as sleep had lulled her in, she’d been having good thoughts that made her smile.

Anne had thought she would get to see him in the morning when they were going to work together, she would have asked him about that young woman that had come to his office to make a proposal because she wanted to find out something about her late brother. Anne had empathized with her because she knew what it felt like to want to find closure about a dead relative.

She had wanted to ask Andrew if he had ended up helping the young woman but Andrew having left early made Anne suspect that something might be wrong at work, just like he had suddenly left his office yesterday at the moment she had crawled out from under the desk when the people in his office had left, he had received a call at the time and his expression had suddenly changed, the only thing she’d heard him say at the time was,

"I see, so he chose to bribe the investors. Stall them, I’ll be there in a bit."

Though what he had said over the phone hadn’t given her an idea of what could be wrong, Anne couldn’t help but feel curious and slightly worried at the same time.

Anne reached the office and immediately she entered the department, all her team members were gathered around talking about something, they stopped talking when they noticed her come in.

"Manager Thompson, team B has decided to withdraw from the company imaging project. Manager Hastings says she’s withdrawing to give you the chance to shine on your own and take this project further."

"What? Clara chose to withdraw?" Anne asked, unable to believe Clara had chosen to withdraw just like that when it was a joint project meant to be managed by both teams. She could still remember hearing Clara making a pretentious request that Anne be taken off the project because of her pregnancy, volunteering to shoulder the project on her own, why was she suddenly withdrawing?

The phrase; if you can’t have it, ruin it, suddenly came into Anne’s mind.

She didn’t trust Clara’s intentions and even more so that she knew the woman could go down and dirty to achieve her goals.

Anne was certain this wasn’t Clara being sacrificial, this was her scheming something beneath the surface.