Chapter 414 Passive-Aggressive
Downstairs, Elliot gaped after Anastasia wordlessly.
For some reason, he felt like he was being abandoned. Women were perpetually unsolvable mysteries, and not even Elliot, with his businessman brilliance and intelligence, could figure them out.
He did not bother pouring himself a glass of water and followed Anastasia up the stairs instead. When he got to her bedroom doorway, he saw that she was seated on the couch on the second floor and asked, “Where’s Jared?”
“Playing Legos,” she answered coolly, deliberately avoiding his gaze as she flipped through her half-read book.
At that moment, Elliot saw the glass of water on the table next to her and reached out to take it. However, just as he brought it up to his lips, she said curtly, “Don’t touch my glass.”
Seeing as he had already begun to drink from the glass, he gulped down a mouthful of water. He then narrowed his eyes as he asked, “Why not?”
When she saw that he had taken a sip, she shrugged and said, “Fine, drink the whole glass of water. I’ll just go downstairs and pour myself another one!”
She was making it sound like he carried some infectious disease. We’ve already kissed multiple times, and all of a sudden she doesn’t want me drinking from her glass? He was baffled as he sat down across from her. His piercing gaze was inquisitive as he asked, “I drank your water. Why should that stop you from drinking the rest of it?”
He had sensed her hostility from the moment he came home, and her passive-aggressiveness was making him nervous, not to mention frustrated.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered in annoyance, not wanting to say anything more after that.
“Why not?” he pressed. He was never one to beat around the bush be it in business deals or conversations. He would much rather have an open discussion when it came to solving problems, and he wanted to have a solution as soon as possible. “Is there a problem between us that I should know about?”
“You know what, I never should have saved you last night! Sure, what Aliona did was despicable and disgusting, but it wasn’t as if you would be at a loss, right? You’d only have to put in some physical labor, but that’s about it! She’s the one who would have gotten the short end of the stick! Right?” Anastasia blurted out all of a sudden.
This only made Elliot more puzzled. However, before he could say anything, she went on to ask in all seriousness, “Did you think I was butting into your personal affairs last night and you secretly blame me for it?”
It was then that he realized they didn’t just have a problem; they were having a crisis. Otherwise, she wouldn’t take such a feisty tone with him at present.
Everything had been fine when he left home earlier, which meant something must have happened in between that made her lash out at him like this. He softened and asked in hopes of settling the matter amicably, “Anastasia, tell me what happened.”
She took her phone and pulled up the picture she had received from the unfamiliar number earlier, showing it to him as she snapped, “Next time you decide to fool around behind my back, find a woman who doesn’t look so eerily similar to me. It makes me sick.”
Elliot narrowed his eyes slightly when he saw the picture. I can’t believe Hayley sent it to her!
In a grave tone, he asked, “Anastasia, do you know who she is?”
“What, have I seen her before or something?” Anastasia was admittedly astonished by his question. She didn’t think that the person he was fooling around with was someone she knew.
“That’s Hayley.”
“What?” Anastasia gasped. “That’s Hayley?!”
That explained why she had found the woman so familiar yet so strange at the same time. She never expected Hayley to have gone under the knife and gotten all this work done just to look like her. The thought of this made her sick to the stomach; the person she hated and was disgusted by the most had decided to take on her face!
“She went for plastic surgery, and apparently, the procedure was done with your looks in mind,” Elliot elaborated, sounding equally unsettled and queasy.
“Well, she certainly snuggled up real close to you, didn’t she?” Anastasia mumbled unhappily.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’ve never felt anything but guilt toward her, and I don’t intend to let that progress into anything else,” he explained in a low voice as he stared at her imploringly as if silently begging for forgiveness.
Naturally, Anastasia knew that Hayley had set this up and taken the picture just to spite her. Besides, if she were to look really closely, she could tell that Hayley was the only one who was doing all the hugging; Elliot did not reciprocate her gesture at all.
Wait! Why am I getting jealous here? She isn’t someone I should be jealous of! Anastasia flushed as she pursed her lips. Then, she grew a little embarrassed as she offered sheepishly, “President Presgrave, would you like a glass of water? I’ll go and pour you one right now!”
Upon seeing the sudden shift in her demeanor, Elliot knew that her anger had waned. He had to admit that the furious side of her piqued a certain fear and anxiousness that he had never felt before.
Anastasia, on the other hand, was not envious of the fact that Hayley’s plastic surgery had been a success. After all, procedures like these often required a severe alteration of one’s bones, muscles, and nerves. There was no telling if there would be any long-lasting damages that came from this.
