He Loves Me Right, Finally novel Chapter 172

Adriel pushed through the effort of keeping himself controlled and knocked on Jamie's door.

Jamie had barely pulled it open before Adriel stepped past him.

He tossed the water bottle to Jamie and kept moving toward the bathroom, his voice clipped and precise. "Get that water tested. Find out who delivered it to Wynette's room. Send Alice to stay with Wynette, and get the ship's doctor here."

Then he turned the shower on and stood under the cold water fully clothed, letting it pour over him without flinching.

He was certain. Something had been put in that water.

And the only person who'd given him water tonight was Wynette, offering it to him out of simple, genuine concern.

Adriel didn't believe for a single second that she was behind it.

There was no reason for her to do something like this.

If Wynette ever actually wanted something to happen, he'd have been more than willing without any assistance whatsoever.

The only conclusion that made sense was that someone had meant the water for Wynette, and by sheer, maddening accident, it had ended up in him instead.

The fury that moved through him was so complete it left very little room for anything else.

Jamie had been on the verge of making a quip about why Adriel was standing in his doorway instead of spending the evening with Wynette, but the look on Adriel's face and the words that followed killed that thought entirely.

He was already moving. "On it."

This is serious.

He went straight to Alice's cabin and knocked.

The moment she opened the door, he gave her the short version of what was happening, no frills, no softening.

Alice didn't bother with her jacket. She stepped right past Jamie and headed for Wynette's room at a near-run.

Wynette had no idea what was going on. She'd only caught Adriel's hurried exit and had climbed out of bed to see what was happening.

She'd just stepped into the corridor when Alice came around the corner, her face tight with worry.

"Wynette." Alice looked her over quickly, top to bottom, clearly checking for something.

The relief that flooded her expression when she found nothing wrong was immense. "You're okay. Thank goodness."

Wynette stood there, thoroughly confused by Alice's reaction.

She thought back to Adriel disappearing through the door and looked at Alice carefully. "What's going on? Did something happen to Addy?"

She didn't even notice, in that moment, that his nickname had slipped out of her mouth without any awkwardness at all.

Alice looked at her seriously. "When you got back to the room earlier, did anyone come to see you?"

She wasn't sure how to explain what had happened to Adriel in a way that wouldn't send Wynette straight into a panic, so she started smaller.

Right now, her first concern was whether Wynette was in the same condition as him.

This was Jamie's event. If something had happened to either of them here, he'd bear the weight of that, and Alice felt it pressing on her even now.

"Not exactly..." Wynette started, then her eyes went wide. "There was a staff member. They brought a bottle of water, said Adriel was worried I'd had too much to drink and wanted me to have it."

She stared at Alice, something cold crawling up the back of her neck. "Adriel came back and I gave him some of that water. Was there something wrong with it? Is he okay? I need to see him."

The realization that she'd been the one to hand it to him, to hold it up to his mouth herself, landed on her like something physical.

She hadn't suspected the water for even a moment.

Alice told her plainly. "It was drugged. Adriel is locked in Jamie's bathroom right now. The ship's doctor is already there. You can't go in."

Adriel had bolted the moment he'd understood what was happening, putting himself somewhere he couldn't hurt Wynette in a moment of compromised judgment.

He wouldn't want her seeing him like this, either.

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