Even though she had prepared herself mentally, Zoe Lancaster’s body still stiffened for a moment. Dappled sunlight fell into her eyes, burning so brightly that she could barely keep them open. In that instant, her defenses went up almost instinctively.
Her expression, however, remained calm. "I don’t know what you mean."
She hated how Simon Hawthorne’s perceptiveness was often so sharp it made people uncomfortable. He left no room for error, forcing her to go all out, not daring to take a single misstep.
"Every time the child in your womb is mentioned, you instinctively tense up, Evie. Haven’t you noticed?" Simon’s dark eyes locked onto her, gleaming with a sharp, cold light. Yet, his tone was calm and collected. He even leisurely stroked her stiff back. "Are you afraid I’ll do something to this child, or..."
His gaze trailed downward, landing coldly on her belly. "...is there some other hidden truth?"
Zoe bit her lip hard and looked at him mockingly. "Then I suppose I understand what you mean now. Are you actually still holding out hope? How many women would use their own reputation to spin a lie?
"Simon, the only reason you’re so suspicious now is because your pride is acting up, isn’t it?" She had no choice but to take a drastic approach, deliberately picking words that would anger him. "President Yates is indeed incredibly good to women. If I hadn’t met you, I definitely would have—"
"Zoe Lancaster."
His expression was virtually devoid of joy or anger, yet it exuded a terrifyingly oppressive aura. His grip tightened inch by inch around her waist. "Watch how you speak to me. You know I’ve tolerated you enough lately."
Zoe felt a tightness in her chest. "Tolerated? Tolerated what exactly?"
She met his eyes. "Including the fact that you were absolutely certain I cheated on you with Miles Yates during our marriage, yet you kept me by your side like an act of charity? Including wanting to forcefully get rid of my child, but leaving me a shred of dignity?"
The man’s brow darkened, a thick gloom settling over his features.
Zoe took a deep breath and laughed softly. "Should I thank you?"
Back then, his suspicion had left her riddled with scars!
Yet he thought this was his mercy and tolerance toward her?
At that time, she never imagined that after being humiliated and confined by the Hawthorne family, forced to copy the *Precepts for Women*, ganged up on, and smeared with baseless accusations until she nearly miscarried and fell into a coma... after waking up from what felt like death, his very first sentence would be an interrogation. A vicious, overwhelming questioning of whose child this was!
In that moment, her heart had finally been carved to pieces!
No woman could accept such suspicion from her own husband! It hurt a thousand times, a million times more than dying!
She could withstand everything the Hawthorne family forced upon her. She had tenaciously persevered, only to plunge into an eternal abyss because of his single question.
He was the man she shared a bed with, the man she had loved for so many years. She had gone through hell and high water to give him everything, suffering endlessly for his sake and swallowing her pride in the Hawthorne family. Ordinary people couldn’t endure a fraction of the harm the Hawthorne family had caused her, yet she had borne it all. But his simple sentence was the executioner’s blade that killed her!
How could she ever let that go?
What gave him the right to assume she was unfaithful and carrying another man’s child, nearly forcing her to abort it, only to turn around and suspect the child might be his?
What gave him the right to call all the shots?
So, she didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want to make things easy for him!
Almost vindictively, Zoe pulled out her phone, her eyes red. "Didn’t you want an answer? Fine, I’ll give it to you."
Simon watched helplessly as she scrolled through her contacts, found Miles Yates’s phone number, and dialed it right in front of him. In an instant, he realized what she was trying to do. His cold, pale cheeks grew terrifyingly dark, and a boundless frost settled in his eyes. He practically ground out through gritted teeth, "Zoe Lancaster! Don’t you dare!"
Zoe’s lips trembled, but she only offered a self-deprecating smile until the call finally connected.
"Zoe?" Miles’s voice was gentle, deep, and pleasant to the ear, unable to conceal his concern. "Are you okay? Is he giving you a hard time?"
Zoe maintained her gaze on Simon’s black eyes, which looked ready to tear everything apart. The large hand resting on her hip continuously tightened its grip, betraying his fury. A dense layer of cold sweat broke out on her back, her heart in her throat, yet she forced her voice to soften and called out with profound affection, "Miles."
She was calling him Miles so intimately!
The world seemed to fall dead silent.
In Simon’s eyes erupted a look of disbelief and a stunned shock that seemed to shatter him.
Something in his chest collapsed, causing an unbearable, throbbing pain in his temples.
Miles froze for only two seconds before quickly catching on. Resting his large hand against his chest and feeling the pounding heartbeat beneath his ribs, he more or less guessed what was happening. Yet, he played along without a second thought. "Yeah, I’m here. Don’t worry, all these issues will be resolved. You can rely on me."
Zoe’s wildly racing heart gradually steadied.
She thought to herself, "Thank goodness... thank goodness he didn’t blow my cover."
She admitted that she had only called Miles to dispel Simon’s suspicions and to get back at him. She also hated her own underhandedness; knowing full well that Miles genuinely had feelings for her, she still took the risk of using his affection to drag him into her conflict with Simon.
"I’m sorry," she told herself over and over again.
As long as her interactions with Miles were intimate enough, Simon would have no choice but to believe her. Miles was not a man who allowed others to manipulate him. As long-time rivals, how could they not understand each other?
She was forcing Simon’s hand, and she was forcing her own.
She had originally wanted to go with the flow and peacefully spend her final days. But Ken Lowell forcefully abducting her for an amniocentesis had given her countless nightmares. It crossed her bottom line; she could never forget that kind of trauma!
The exact moment Miles finished speaking, the phone was snatched from her hand and hurled viciously against the trellis wall. The device shattered instantly, its life coming to an abrupt end.
Zoe, however, felt neither joy nor sorrow.
A pair of slender, bony fingers pinched her chin and tilted it up. An emotion she couldn’t understand flashed through his eyes—it looked like sheer panic, though it might have just been her imagination. Aside from that fleeting look, his gaze was utterly frigid and suffocatingly oppressive. "So it’s ’Miles’ now!"
"What good does it do you to provoke me? Hmm?" His crimson lips curled into a slight sneer. "Zoe Lancaster, it’s me you love!"
He couldn’t stand her being so close to another man!
"But people change, don’t they?" She forced down the sour ache in her chest, allowing the pain to torment her. "Just like you. You clearly love Peyton Joyce so much, yet you still refuse to let me go. Simon, no one can have their cake and eat it too!"