Chapter 4

To spare my father from suffering, and to keep the Henson stock from falling, I decided to give in.

If I had anyone to blame, it was myself—for misjudging a man, for rescuing an ungrateful wretch.

Egbert Gilbert sent me a draft of an apology and told me to memorize it, so it would come out smoothly during the live stream.

My fingertips rested on the screen. The words looked like countless needles, until my eyes went red.

I clenched my fists hard and read the apology aloud, carrying an emotion I couldn't name.

Once I had it memorized, Egbert went live immediately.

He spent a fortune, and the stream's popularity shot up in an instant.

I knelt before Ava Finch as if I were numb.

"Ms. Finch, I'm so sorry!"

"And I'm even more sorry to the viewers watching on the other side of the screen, because I deceived them."

"Ava Finch is a good doctor. I was jealous and afraid she would steal my husband, so I smeared her."

"Before the examination even started, I arranged it with her and made her do exactly as I instructed—take off her skirt, pull up her top, and so on."

The viewers in the stream immediately turned on me, calling me shameless.

The apology wasn't over yet. I couldn't stop.

Holding down the tightness in my chest, I kept reading.

"I forced her to say those things on that live stream, because I used Mrs. Gilbert's position to threaten her family."

The comments were all curses, everyone saying I'd be struck by lightning.

Ava gently helped me to my feet, tears in her eyes as she accepted my apology.

In the end she won everyone's praise, while I became a rat in the street that everyone wanted to beat.

My phone rang. It was my father's number. I hurried out of the camera's frame before I answered.

"Eugenia, you're not that kind of person! Why would you say those things about yourself?"

"Is Egbert Gilbert bullying you? Is he using the Hensons and my life to force you to give in?"

I didn't know how to answer him.

When grief and rage overwhelmed my father at once, it finally triggered his illness.

Terror scattered my wits, and I ran for the hospital, deaf to every sound.

Egbert froze for a moment, then chased after me.

Days of exhaustion piled up, and a sharp pain tore through my lower abdomen.

Before I could even reach the door of the emergency room, I pitched forward and fell.

Egbert reached out to steady me. I lifted my hand and knocked him away.

But the pain was too much; I had no strength to stand.

Egbert simply called the doctors over, and I was taken to the operating table, with my father in the room beside me.

The doctors were helpless.

"Mr. Gilbert, the baby in your wife's womb is showing signs of miscarriage."

"All the senior doctors in the hospital have gone away for training. Only one is left, so it comes down to whether we save Old Mr. Henson or the baby in your wife's womb..."

"Save my father!"

My face pale, I begged with every bit of strength I had.

But my father seemed to be conscious, and afraid of putting me in an impossible position, in the end he chose not to wake up.

The sound coming from the red line on the monitor stabbed at my ears—he wanted the doctor to go and save the baby in my womb.

I understood him. But he didn't understand me.

His life stopped in the very moment the doctors turned to save the baby in my womb.

I wept tears of unbearable grief, and the baby was cut out.

As I was being taken to the ward, I wanted to go out and see my father.

That was when Ava pushed the door open and walked in.

"Eugenia Henson, why do you look ten years older?"

"Ha, so what if you're stubborn? In the end I still used your Henson family and your father's life to force you to heel. All you could do was kneel like a dog and never fight back."

"But I never expected that dead old man of a father to sacrifice himself to save the child."

"So stupid!"

I glared at her, furious, and she laughed again. "Isn't it stupid, though?"

"Because the baby in your belly was never yours at all—it's mine and Egbert's."

"While you were getting your checkup, I swapped your eggs with mine!"

"Your father died for nothing. I really should thank him—sacrificing himself to save my child's life."