Chapter 16: The injustice
All eyes turned to Ava. Each face in the room was filled with questions, doubts swirling silently.
"Is he telling the truth?" Dylan asked.
Ava’s lips curled into a cold sneer. "You trust him over your wife?" She had already anticipated his reaction, and it only deepened her bitterness.
"This is not what I mean," he retorted. "I’m just trying to figure out what the hell happened here."
Ava tilted her head slightly, crossing her arms tightly against her chest, her posture defiant. "Oh, really? And will you believe me if I say he spiked my drink? That he tried to take advantage of me?" There was a cold fury behind her calm tone. "If you don’t believe me, you can send the wine for testing," Ava said, nodding to her wine glass on the table.
"No, no!" Mr. Moore blurted out. "Mr. Brooke, you have to believe me! I didn’t spike her drink! She might have mixed something in it herself! She is setting me up!"
Sensing her carefully laid plans teetering on the edge of exposure, Gianna panicked. "Ava, are you sure you haven’t misunderstood something?" she asked, inching closer to the table. "Why would Mr. Moore spike your drink? Calm down first. Don’t blame anyone just like that." Her voice dripped with false sincerity as she extended her hand toward Ava.
Ava recoiled, pulling her hand back with a jerk.
Gianna stumbled back as if she was pushed forcefully. She flailed dramatically, her arms sweeping across the table. The glass tipped over in the process, crashing onto the surface with a sharp clink as the wine spilled across the table and cascaded down to the floor. The corners of her lips hooked into a sneaky smile.
Mr. Moore exhaled a small, furtive sigh of relief. With the wine gone, the damning evidence was erased. No one could prove he had tried to drug her.
"I’m sorry," Gianna said in a pitiful tone. She turned to Dylan; her face filled with exaggerated remorse. "It was an accident, Dylan. I didn’t mean to spill the drink."