Ken Lowell froze when she saw Zoe Lancaster faint. "Why did she..."
But Peyton Joyce had sharp eyes and immediately spotted the blood on Zoe’s legs. She instantly clenched her fingers, her expression indescribably strange.
Ken reached out to grab Simon Hawthorne, but he seemed completely consumed by his emotions, which had morphed into palpable fury. His voice was hoarse and ruthless. "Don’t touch her!"
Ken was so frightened that she momentarily forgot to react.
Peyton’s expression was grim. "Mrs. Lowell, something is wrong with Zoe. Her legs are covered in blood!"
Ken suddenly snapped back to reality. "Blood? Her period... No, why would she faint from her period?" Suddenly, a suspicion sprang to mind, and Ken’s face paled drastically.
When Simon Hawthorne laid Zoe on the bed, his hands were trembling. She was clearly so light, practically weightless, but seeing the blood staining his fingertips made his throat constrict so tightly that he could barely make a sound. The blood was so cold, so glaring. An inexplicable panic fueled an uncontrollable rage in him as he roared, "A doctor! Call a doctor!"
He didn’t even dare to move her again, terrified that the slightest carelessness would worsen her condition.
The Hawthorne Residence had a private medical team and ample medical equipment, ensuring that minor illnesses and injuries could be treated as quickly as possible. The doctor arrived promptly and immediately got to work.
Simon stood by the window, his gaze fixed on the bed. Zoe’s face was deathly pale, and she remained unconscious. Lying there, she looked so frail that she seemed to possess no physical presence at all. His mind was in absolute turmoil, and he felt like he was suffocating. Desperate for an outlet, he clamped a cigarette between his lips and lowered his head, trying to light it. But his hands were shaking. He flicked the lighter once, twice, three times, yet he still couldn’t light it. With a cold expression, he viciously threw the cigarette onto the floor.
He waited until the doctor removed his stethoscope and walked over with a complicated expression. "Mr. Hawthorne, Mrs. Hawthorne doesn’t have any external injuries. Her fainting was caused by a combination of physical weakness, exposure to the cold, and prolonged fasting."
Simon lifted his eyelids, his voice low and hoarse. "The blood... What’s with the blood?"
The doctor frowned and let out a heavy sigh. "Mrs. Hawthorne is... pregnant."
THUD. At the door, Peyton and Ken both froze. Peyton’s phone had slipped from her grasp and hit the floor.
Simon was stunned. The hand still stained with Zoe’s blood trembled slightly. He looked bewildered at first, but as clarity slowly returned to his eyes, a trace of warmth seemed to seep into his expression. "She’s... pregnant?"
But as soon as the words left his mouth, the doctor’s expression turned troubled. Unable to gauge Simon’s thoughts, he explained, "However, due to external shocks and other factors, she is showing signs of a threatened miscarriage. It is very hard to say whether or not the baby can be saved."
It felt as if a sharp weapon had been driven right into his chest, utterly shattering his internal organs. Every breath he took was laced with agonizing pain. Simon fell into a daze, his body swaying slightly.
The doctor hastily reached out to support him. "Mr. Hawthorne!"
Simon swatted his hand away. His eyes remained locked on the figure on the bed, a stormy tempest brewing within his irises—complex and suffocating. "Get out."
Let alone the doctor, even Ken and Peyton dared not step half an inch closer.
The moment the bedroom door closed, Peyton narrowed her eyes, completely devoid of any concern. She hadn’t expected Zoe to be pregnant, but it didn’t matter. The result would be exactly the same.
Zoe lay in bed for a very long time. She was trapped in a nightmare, completely unable to break free. She was kneeling on a cold, hard floor, pounding on a door in desperation, praying that someone would come to save her and the baby in her womb.
"Open the door! Please, my stomach hurts so much...
"I was wrong, I was really wrong! I’ll admit to everything, just let me go to the hospital, please!
"Simon, I shouldn’t have gone against you. Please help me... Help our baby..."
She didn’t know how long she cried and screamed. She shouted until her throat was completely hoarse, hurting so badly that she could barely make a sound. Not a single person came to save her.
She watched helplessly as traces of blood trickled down her thighs. Utter terror washed over her. Tears spilled from her eyes like pearls falling from a broken string, smashing into the floor endlessly. She tried to wipe the blood away with her shawl, as if doing so would mean nothing had happened, but the more she wiped, the more she bled.
Her entire body trembled from a mix of agonizing pain and absolute despair. Blood stained her hands and her body. It was as if a vibrant, fresh life had been buried right then and there, making her feel as though she were suffocating. That was her baby—the baby she had exhausted all her strength trying to protect—and no one had come to save her.
In her daze, she seemed to hear the endless, wailing cries of an infant.
She snapped her eyes open. Her hair was soaked in cold sweat, and her lips were terribly parched. She was no longer in the dark. Overhead, the Napoleon III chandelier cast a soft, gentle glow. She was in the villa—her and Simon’s home.
She instinctively reached out to touch her stomach, but she couldn’t sense whether there was any life inside. That was until a hand pressed down on her arm, forcing her to lie flat again.
"Are you feeling unwell anywhere else?" The man’s voice was hoarse, yet it retained its elegant and pleasing tone.
Lost and bewildered, Zoe turned her head, her gaze crashing straight into a pair of eyes she had once been deeply enamored with. He was sitting by the edge of the bed. She had no idea how long he had been sitting there. His normally fair complexion now bore a sickly pallor. He appeared so calm, as though the seas were perfectly tranquil, but there was an inexplicable, looming sense of danger—like the calm before a storm. It made him look so... breathtakingly terrifying.
Almost purely out of reflex, Zoe viciously shook off his hand. Her demeanor was filled with defensiveness, distrust, and absolute revulsion.
"What happened to me? Did someone... check my body?" The end of her sentence trembled. She tried desperately to steady her mindset so she wouldn’t give herself away.
She was terrified. She was terrified that he already knew everything, and she was also terrified that her baby was already...
Watching the woman desperately try to appear calm, he finally made a slow movement. Completely ignoring her resistance, he gripped her shoulders and made her lie back down. "The doctor said you’re extremely weak right now. You need to rest properly, preferably on bed rest."
He was too calm. His composure made Zoe inexplicably panicked. She forcefully suppressed the urge to touch her stomach. "And then?" she asked, wondering what else the doctor had said.
Simon raised his eyes and looked at her deeply. "Is this the reason you refused to tell me?"
Zoe froze at his sudden question.
His fingertips gently brushed aside the sweat-soaked strands of hair clinging to her cheek. There was no disgust in his actions; instead, they felt intimately tender. "Why were you so afraid of me finding out? Why were you in such a rush to leave? You were willing to do whatever it took, even if it meant deeply hurting me, just so you could... run away with this child?"
BOOM. Like a muffled clap of thunder striking her mind, Zoe instinctively hugged her stomach and shrank back, as if terrified that he would harm her and the baby.
He knew. He finally knew.
Observing her reaction, the darkness in Simon’s eyes grew even thicker. It looked like mockery, perfectly masking the subtle threads of pain beneath.
He swallowed hard through his dry throat, his gaze slowly falling upon her lower abdomen. His voice was grim and heavy, leaving no way out for himself either. "You’ve constantly refused to give me a definitive reason, so allow me to take a guess. Whose child is this?"