Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights blazed, yet the world felt exceptionally quiet. Zoe Lancaster could seemingly only hear the chaotic, uneasy thudding of her own heartbeat.
Simon Hawthorne remained silent for a long time. He took out a tiny glass vial from somewhere, which contained a single white pill, and pushed it toward Zoe’s hand. His tone was so calm it bordered on ruthless. "So what if it was?"
Having imagined many possible answers, Zoe thought she would be able to face it calmly. However, this one sentence struck her where it hurt the most.
She lowered her gaze and stared at the pill inside the vial. The blood rushed to her head, tearing wildly at her mind. A layer of mist clouded her vision until she could barely see.
It was a contraceptive pill. After all, everything had happened so suddenly back there that there was absolutely no time for safety measures. Simon was unwilling to let her carry his child.
This realization tore her apart inside. A persistent, aching pain overwhelmed her senses as her lips trembled. "So all this time, you watched me live in constant fear over what happened. Was it fun for you?"
It turned out she had been entirely delusional all along. She had thought that her momentary slip-up, her one-night stand, would make Simon care that she had slept with another man. She had paid the price for her mistake and tried so hard to change the outcome. Yet, in the end, as the very person involved, he had just stood by and watched her agonize in distress day after day, playing her for a fool. Now, he was ending this farce with a dismissive, "So what if it was?"
She felt a level of emotional disregard she had never experienced before.
"Fun?" A storm brewed in Simon’s cold eyes. "Isn’t this exactly the result you wanted to see?"
Zoe couldn’t refute that. She had indeed desperately hoped that the man was him. But the knife still pierced straight through her heart. What she cared about more was his attitude!
Simon frowned slightly, his dismissive tone carrying a faint hint of coaxing as he urged, "I don’t want to argue with you about this. Take the pill."
No wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth. He truly wanted no ties to her—he probably wished he could just shove the pill down her throat. Zoe’s nose stung with unshed tears. She stood up, grabbed the glass vial, and looked at him, no longer able to suppress her true emotions. "Are you that afraid I’ll get pregnant with your child? Well, I won’t take it!"
She smashed the vial fiercely onto the floor, shattering it into pieces, before turning on her heel and storming out the door without looking back.
Simon’s expression darkened. He lowered his eyes to the shattered glass on the floor. One shard had bounced up and left a bloody scratch on his ankle, but he seemed not to feel it. He just stared coldly at the white pill that had rolled to his feet, a heavy, unresolvable gloom spreading in his eyes.
Out in the freezing winter night.
As the biting wind eagerly drilled into her bones, Zoe, clad only in a thin nightgown and slippers, instantly went stiff and numb from the cold. Yet, it did nothing to numb the pain in her heart. She kept her head down and walked forward. Tears plummeted to the ground, but her expression remained disturbingly blank.
She mentally cursed Simon with impotence. If he was going to force her to take pills, he might as well never be able to father children!
A car suddenly blocked her path. Shane Shaw got out and walked up to her. "Madam, please get in the car. I’ll take you back."
Zoe didn’t want to take her anger out on others, nor did she want to see anyone associated with Simon right now. She sidestepped him and continued walking.
Shane sighed helplessly. "Forgive me, Madam." He immediately grabbed Zoe’s arm and forcibly pulled her into the car.
How could Zoe possibly match the strength of a burly man like Shane? Her throat was dry and aching as she yelled, "I don’t need his pity!"
The central locking system clicked shut.
"Mr. Hawthorne asked me to get you back safely," Shane said.
Zoe slumped limply against the backrest. In Simon’s eyes, she really was as easy to control as an ant, molding her however he pleased depending on his mood. Struggling was futile. A sudden wave of mental and physical exhaustion washed over her.
Shane drove Zoe toward the city center. She huddled silently in the backseat, turning her head to look at the brightly lit high-rises. Her fair face remained pale, and it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Shane glanced at her through the rearview mirror several times.
"Stop the car," Zoe finally reacted, her voice slightly hoarse.
Shane pulled over to the side of the road. "What do you need, Madam? I’ll go buy it for you."
Zoe replied with icy detachment, "No need." She opened the door and stepped out herself. There was a 24-hour pharmacy by the road. She walked in silently, her throat bobbing once before she spoke, "A box of 48-hour emergency contraceptives, please."
Shane had just walked in when he heard her request. He furrowed his brows.
Zoe had already filled a disposable paper cup with water from the pharmacy’s dispenser. She swallowed the pill right then and there. Looking at Shane with a pallid, fragile, yet breathtakingly beautiful face, she said, "You can report back to him now. I took the pill. Tell him not to worry."
Shane pursed his lips, entirely at a loss for words.
After paying, Zoe returned to the car. Smashing Simon’s pill had been a momentary loss of control. Now that she had calmed down, she wondered what right she even had to be angry. Just because she liked him? In Simon’s eyes, what qualifications did she possess? She was nothing more than a complete joke.
Back at the apartment building, Zoe headed upstairs in a daze. Downstairs, Shane dialed Simon’s number and reported truthfully, "Mr. Hawthorne, Madam bought a contraceptive pill and took it. She said... to tell you not to worry."
A long silence hung over the line before the man’s dark, mocking voice finally came through. "Suit herself!"
Back on her floor.
Getting off the elevator, Zoe saw Preston Quincy standing outside her door. He was still wearing the same suit from Mr. Quincy’s birthday banquet. It was obvious he had been waiting there for a long time; stubble had even begun to sprout on his chin.
The moment he saw her, his eyes lit up briefly. Then, noticing her flimsy attire, his expression shifted to distress. "Zoe, why are you only in your pajamas? Where did you go? I’ve been waiting for you all day, and I couldn’t get through to your phone."
An indescribable pang of sorrow hit Zoe, yet her response remained cold. "Is there something you need?"
Preston looked at her, his lips moving for a long moment before he managed to speak. "Zoe, please don’t misunderstand the trending search. I really didn’t do anything."
Only then did Zoe unlock her phone to take a look. Photos of Preston had catapulted him to the number one trending spot.
In the pictures, he was lying on a bed with his face blurred out, while a scantily clad woman straddled his legs and unbuckled his belt. The images were highly explicit, accompanied by the headline: "The Chaotic and Filthy Private Life of a Trust Fund Brat".
Preston painfully ran a hand through his hair. "I don’t know why these photos exist, and the headline is so... I tried to have it taken down, but I can’t get rid of it no matter what. Zoe, I’m really not..."
Zoe glanced at the comments section. The discussion was blazing hot, filled with insults, envy, and mockery alike.
"A trust fund kid actually needs to hire a hooker? I know this woman. She’s a hostess, twenty grand a night."
"Ugh, that’s so disgusting, isn’t it?"
Zoe immediately turned off her screen. She didn’t want to read any more comments criticizing Preston.
"Why can’t you get it taken down?" she asked.
Preston watched her expression nervously. "I don’t know. The platform refuses to negotiate with me. I don’t understand why they would write a headline like that. I swear I never did any of those things!"