Chapter 2

Cyrus Yates watched with wide eyes as Amelia bumped into his boss, Michael Sutton. He blamed himself for being unable to pull Michael out of the path of collision in time. "I'm fine," Michael said after he snapped back to his senses, brushing the spot where Amelia had collided into him. He was about to continue on his way when he noticed the fallen item near his foot from the corner of his eye—a transparent folder. He bent over to pick it up. There seemed to be a few medical reports tucked within the folder, not that he was interested in them whatsoever. Michael was just about to hand the folder to Cyrus when a term on the report caught his eye. Pregnant? Amelia was pregnant? Michael couldn't help but think back to what had transpired that night during the yacht party. He had been forced to sleep with Amelia and promised to give her anything that she wanted. He didn't expect her to only ask for 500,000 dollars. He had ended up giving her one million dollars instead to show his gratitude. He had then pushed the incident to the back of his mind. If he wasn't mistaken, Amelia was the woman that he slept with that night. How did she get pregnant? Could the child be his? Michael suddenly halted his footsteps. Cyrus looked at him with a bewildered expression. Michael was the type of man who wouldn't even bat an eye if there was a check that was worth millions of dollars on the ground. It was shocking that he would bother picking up something that someone else had dropped. Amelia had dropped the folder earlier when she ran into Michael. Could it be that he was acquainted with her? However, Cyrus didn't dare spend too much time mulling over his own speculations. "Mr. Sutton, it's almost time for the meeting," he hastily reminded Michael. Michael snapped back to his senses. His face was set in a mask of indifference as he handed the folder to Cyrus, saying, "Look into this." Cyrus swiftly took the folder from him. … Amelia had a simple family background and social relationships. It only took Cyrus an hour to compile a detailed report about her, which he swiftly delivered to Michael. Michael scanned through the pages. He wasn't interested in the other details of Amelia's life. He only wanted to know what she had been up to in the last month. Amelia traveled between two places every day—the hospital and her college. As a result, she only came into contact with a limited pool of people, namely her fellow students at the college. Michael was 90% certain that the child in Amelia's belly belonged to him. However, he refused to allow any possible mistakes. He looked up at Cyrus and said, "Call her and set up an appointment. I want to meet her." He had to get to the bottom of it no matter what. Cyrus immediately sprang into action to carry out Michael's orders, ignoring the multitude of questions he had. Unfortunately, he couldn't get ahold of Amelia, whose phone remained switched off the entire time he tried to call her. "She's not picking up the phone, Mr. Sutton." Michael had a decisive and straightforward personality. He couldn't wait for even a second, especially when it was something as important as this. "Keep calling her until she picks up!" he ordered with a frown. … Amelia had to return to the college since she still had classes in the afternoon. Her class was minutes away from starting when she finally made it back to campus. As a result, she rushed straight to the lecture hall and didn't notice that her phone was dead. She only realized that her phone had been switched off the entire time when Christina told her. "Can you wait for me, Christina? I… I have something to tell you, but I need to drop by the dorms to grab my power bank." "I'll just go with you." Amelia and Christina headed to the dorms together. They had just made it to the door when Amelia overheard a discussion going on inside that made her halt her footsteps. "Guess who I saw today when I accompanied my sister-in-law for her checkup in the gynecology department in the hospital." "Who?" "Amelia Warren." "Amelia? What was she doing at the gynecology department?" "Why else would she be there? She must've been treated for some disease from having such a wild private life. Furthermore, I saw her coming out from the office of a doctor who specializes in difficult and complicated diseases. I'm guessing she must have contracted an embarrassing disease." "Really? What are we going to do? We're staying in the same dorm as her. She's not going to spread the disease to us, is she?" The door to the dorm room was slightly ajar, so Amelia could clearly see the disdain and worry shining in the eyes of the women who were talking among themselves. She clenched her fists and forced herself to endure their mockery. However, Christina couldn't bear to continue listening to the women slander Amelia and kicked the door open. The door slammed against the wall with a deafening bang, making the women inside nearly jump out of their skins. They were cursing up a storm as they leaped to their feet but immediately fell silent when they noticed Christina and Amelia standing in the doorway. Christina scoffed as she strode into the dorm room and looked at the women, who had been happily gossiping behind Amelia's back just seconds ago. "I was wondering why this dorm room had such a foul stench coming from it. I could smell the disgusting scent even through the closed door. Turns out the stench is coming from you. Don't tell me that you didn't brush your teeth growing up? Why do your mouths smell even worse than a toilet?" Christina pinched her nose as she walked by the group of women, making it blatantly obvious that she was repulsed by them. In fact, even a fool would realize that she was criticizing them. "Who do you think you're insulting?" one of the women demanded hotly, getting up to her feet to retort against Christina's mockery. "I'm insulting you. What are you going to do about it? The rest of you need to take a look at your reflections in the mirror too. I'm afraid you'll never be as clean as Amy even if you bathe yourselves in formalin. In fact, you should worry about yourselves more. Don't go catching a gross disease now." "You—" "Let's go, Christina." One of the women was just about to confront Christina when Amelia led her away. "Who does she think she is? What makes her think she has the right to insult us?" The other women shook their heads in unison. They also didn't know who Christina was. "Why did you drag me away, Amy? I can go another 300 rounds with them!" Christina felt a little dissatisfied at Amelia for dragging her out of the dorm room. She hadn't gotten her fill of scolding those women yet. "It's pointless to do such a thing," Amelia replied a little helplessly. "They're just nobodies." She had never been one to waste her time on people who she deemed to be unimportant. Her time was immensely valuable, and she wished she had more of it to do the things that were meaningful to her. "You're the only one who would endure such a thing. If I were in your shoes, I would have knocked their teeth out a long time ago," Christina said heatedly. She had her family's support, so if anyone dared cross her, she could immediately retaliate tenfold or even twentyfold. However, Amelia was different from Christina. Just living was exhausting to her, so she didn't have the energy to get into an argument with those women. All she wanted to do was peacefully and steadily get through her senior year. She was willing to endure anything that wasn't related to her studies or well-being. It was why she could pretend that she hadn't heard any of the malicious things that her roommates had said about her. "Christina… I'm pregnant." Christina had been planning to comfort Amelia for the unpleasant encounter earlier. She could tell that Amelia was in low spirits. However, she wasn't able to get even a word in before Amelia dropped the bomb on her. She was stunned in place, but it didn't take long for her to connect the dots. "You must have gotten pregnant that night, right?" Christina's words sounded less like a question and more like a statement of facts. Amelia didn't deny her words. "It's all my fault. If I hadn't dragged you to the party that night, you wouldn't be…" Regret festered in Christina's heart. She had been adamant about dragging Amelia to the party that night. Her heart ached watching Amelia work multiple jobs while attending class and taking care of the sick Rachel at the hospital. She wanted to help Amelia, but coincidentally, her parents had cut off her allowance during that time because she had flunked her exams. In the end, she figured that if she couldn't help Amelia financially, she could at least help her relax. She had no idea that things would end up that way. Although Amelia had repeatedly comforted Christina by making it clear that she had willingly slept with Michael, Christina had still felt incredibly guilty. Amelia immediately said comfortingly, "Don't think that way, Christina. My pregnancy has nothing to do with you. I was the one who willingly slept with that man. I'm only telling you now because I need your help. Can you lend me your aid?" Christina stopped beating herself up upon hearing Amelia's words. "Of course!" she replied in a rush. "I'll do anything that I can. Just tell me what you need me to do." Amelia breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Christina's change of demeanor. She told the latter that she would be getting an abortion in the next two days, so she needed her to sign the consent form. Christina agreed with her request. They continued chatting with each other briefly before they separated. Amelia returned to the hospital. Rachel was scheduled to be discharged from the sterile room in the wee hours of the morning, so she had to be there to oversee it when it happened. She only remembered that her phone was still switched off when she reached the hospital's entrance. She quickly turned it on and immediately received a call. Amelia hesitated for a moment when she saw the unknown number flashing on the screen, but in the end, she decided to pick up. "Hello, is this Ms. Warren? I finally got ahold of you! Mr. Sutton would like to meet you. Are you free right now?"