Chapter 45 Farce

Chapter 45 Farce

After a long while, a nurse wheeled Sophie out and transferred her to the observation room.

She was already hooked up to an IV, her expression still exhausted.

Stanley walked to the bedside, tucked in the corners of her blanket, and after a long silence, finally spoke quietly, "Sophie, about this... should we notify the child's father?"

Sophie's long lashes trembled, and her eyes instantly reddened.

The child's father? That man who was being tenderly cared for by Emma right now? That man who had called her "shameless"?

"No need," her voice was hoarse, with a note of finality. "He doesn't need to know, and there's no point in him knowing."

Stanley looked at her broken expression, his suspicions growing stronger.

The Sophie he knew never showed weakness easily. To hurt her this badly, aside from emotional betrayal, he couldn't think of anything else.

"Sophie, tell me honestly, did that man deceive you?" Stanley's tone was heavy, edged with anger. "If he played with your feelings and then walked away, you don't need to bear this alone. A man like that isn't worth fighting for."

Sophie gave a bitter smile and was about to explain the truth about that absurd night when the examination room door suddenly opened. A female doctor wearing glasses walked out with a report, her expression somewhat odd.

"Who is Sophie's family member?"

"I am." Stanley immediately stood up, his expression tense. "Doctor, how is she? Is the baby okay?"

The female doctor pushed up her glasses, glanced at the report again, and spoke in a tone as calm as if stating routine results, "Baby? What baby? The patient isn't pregnant at all."

The air seemed to freeze in that instant.

Sophie's previously unfocused pupils suddenly contracted. Ignoring the needle in the back of her hand, she propped herself up abruptly, her face full of disbelief, "Doctor, what did you say? That's impossible! My previous test clearly..."

"Was that an official test result, or your own judgment?" The doctor interrupted her, holding the report in front of her. "Both the urine test and ultrasound show no gestational sac in the uterus, and your HCG levels are completely normal. Although you bled heavily this time, it's just a normal period."

"A period?" Sophie froze, her mind going blank.

"Have you been under too much stress lately, with severely irregular sleep patterns?" The doctor's tone became more stern. "Chronic sleep deprivation and severe emotional upheaval can cause hormonal imbalances. It's very common for periods to be delayed by a month or even longer. Plus, you probably caught a chill recently, so this period was particularly heavy. It looked like a miscarriage, but it was actually just accumulated menstrual blood."

Seeing Sophie stunned speechless, the doctor's tone softened, "You're still young. If you want children in the future, you'll have plenty of chances. Go home and rest, stop burning the candle at both ends, take care of your body, and your periods will naturally regulate themselves."

After finishing her instructions, the doctor turned and left, leaving the two people in the observation room in deathly silence.

Stanley opened his mouth. All the comforting words he'd prepared and his anger at the "scumbag" were now stuck in his throat. The situation was suffocatingly awkward.

Sophie stared blankly at the white bedsheet.

Not pregnant.

That so-called "morning sickness" was just a reaction from her chronic stomach problems combined with excessive stress.

For this non-existent child, she'd lost her six-figure job, burned bridges with the person in power at the Carter Group, and even at the entrance of that late-night club, she'd staged a self-pitying melodrama in front of Sebastian and Emma like someone unhinged.

Thinking of her bold declaration in Sebastian's office that "the child's father is a bastard," thinking of her pitiful appearance just now begging Stanley to save the child...

Sophie suddenly felt like a ridiculous clown.

This "unwed pregnancy" that had become public knowledge and made her think she'd fallen into hell turned out to be just an absurd misunderstanding.

She leaned against the hospital bed, watching the sky outside the window turn pale with dawn, suddenly wanting to laugh out loud, but tears fell first.

What was this?

Was fate playing this kind of cruel joke on her?

All her persistence, all her determination, all her pain—in this moment, they'd all become a pale and laughable irony.

In the observation room, the harsh fluorescent lights made Sophie dizzy.

She maintained that rigid posture, tears silently falling onto the back of her hand.

What she thought was a lifeline turned out to be just an absurd illusion.

All the anxiety of this period, the desperate outburst in front of Sebastian, the constant backing down in front of Emma—now they all felt like solid slaps across her face, making her cheeks burn.

She felt like someone performing a one-person show on stage, the audience having long left, with only her still giving it everything.

Stanley watched her slightly trembling shoulders, his heart feeling like it was stuffed with waterlogged cotton—heavy and suffocating.

"Sophie..." He stepped forward, his voice so soft it was as if he was afraid of shattering something. "Don't cry."

He wanted to reach out and pat her back, but his fingertips extended halfway before retracting.

In the end, he could only helplessly pull a few tissues from the bedside and clumsily offer them to her.

Sophie didn't take them, just buried her head deeper.

Stanley sighed and simply sat on the edge of the bed, his voice gentle but firm, "Not being pregnant is a good thing. You're not married yet. If you really were carrying a child, how would you move forward? Now, although it's been a false alarm, at least you're free, right?"

A good thing? Sophie laughed bitterly to herself.

She'd lost her job, lost her dignity, and in Sebastian's eyes had completely become a woman with a messy private life who told nothing but lies. What kind of good thing was this?

Seeing she still wasn't speaking, Stanley took off his expensive light gray cashmere sweater and draped it over her shoulders without asking.

"Let's go home first. You need to... cover up a bit." He awkwardly averted his gaze.

Only then did Sophie come back to her senses, feeling that embarrassing dampness beneath her.

She clutched Stanley's sweater tightly. The cashmere still carried his residual warmth and a faint woody scent, which gave her a sense of reality amid her near-collapse.

Stanley helped her up and escorted her to the car.

The streets at four in the morning were empty and cold.

Outside the car window, light and shadows from the streetlamps flickered rapidly across Sophie's pale face.

Stanley drove while observing her expression.

He pondered for a moment, then tentatively spoke, "Sophie, actually... if you don't have a boyfriend right now, have you ever thought about being with Sebastian?"

Sophie had been leaning against the seat with her eyes closed, but at these words, she suddenly opened them and gave a bitter smile, "Stanley, haven't you figured out the situation? He has a girlfriend—Emma."