Chapter 581 Homecoming
"Lilian," Fiona said with a tone of pity. "Do you still not understand? The fundamental difference between us is that you are entrenched in the chaos, and I am the one who remains rational and clear-headed, ready to walk away at any moment."
Lilian had treated her as an imagined adversary.
However, from the beginning to the end, Fiona had never thought about competing with Lilian for anything.
It was always Darwin who was chasing after Fiona.
If he had backed off, there would have been no story between her and him.
"Really? Now, I'm actually quite curious, what do you think about the child in my belly?" Lilian asked with a smile. "Shall we discuss the difference between when he sleeps with me and when he sleeps with you?"
"I have no thoughts about the child in your belly," Fiona said coolly. "Essentially, this is just something between you and Darwin. Whether it's his child or not, it's up to him to deal with."
Lilian had wanted to hear Fiona's voice break and rage.
She wanted to hear her accusations.
Or even the dirty words she might hurl at her.
However, Fiona remained calm throughout.
She even spoke with a hint of compassion.
"Do you truly not love Darwin?" Lilian asked with a mocking smile. "No woman can accept her loved one sleeping with another woman, let alone getting her pregnant."
"Define it however you want, but rest assured about one thing I will not harm the child in your belly. As for the matter of your attempted assassination of me, we'll settle that account slowly later," Fiona paused momentarily before continuing, "Do you have anything else to say?"
"It seems you don't intend to plead with me to keep this scandal as quiet as possible," Lilian stated deliberately.
Fiona detected a biting undertone.
"At most, netizens will criticize my poor judgment or say I was cheated on by my first love. I don't mind, so go ahead and make a big deal of it if you like." Fiona's voice remained indifferent. "It looks like you have nothing else to say, goodbye."
"Fiona!" Lilian shouted.
However, the line was already dead.
"Darn it!" Lilian hurled her phone away in anger.
"You want a scandal? You asked for it!" Lilian yelled hysterically.
She picked up her phone again.
Four hours had passed since the video was released.
Apart from her reaching out to Fiona, no one from Darwin's side had contacted her.
Lilian's eyes drooped.
Indeed, Darwin probably believed she was lying; he hadn't touched her, he could not have gotten her pregnant.
‘Darwin,
‘I love you so much.
‘If only you had shown some weakness, I wouldn't have dragged you into the abyss.
‘Since both of you, husband and wife, ignore me like this.
‘Then, don't blame me for disregarding our past favors.
‘You made me do this.’
Thalassa approached Fiona as soon as she hung up the phone. "Was that a blackmailing call?"
"Probably, but there was just too much nonsense being spouted. I got fed up and just ended the call," Fiona replied, her lips pursing slightly in annoyance.
Thalassa was clearly confused, a question mark float above her head.
"I just have this feeling that she's too confident," Fiona mused. "But at the same time, something tells me that Darwin wouldn’t have had an affair with her. Think about it, Thalassa, the timing of her pregnancy. Doesn't it coincide with the period when Darwin got injured in that explosion trying to protect me?"
Thalassa slapped her forehead in realization. "Oh, right!"
"Plus, Darwin was in a coma for a while after that. Before that, he was always with you. How would he have found the time to sleep with Lilian even once?"
"Exactly, doesn’t that make her confidence seem even more suspicious?" Fiona pondered.
"She even brought up doing a DNA test herself. Faking a DNA report wouldn't make sense – you and Darwin aren’t fools. You wouldn’t just do the test at one clinic," Thalassa said, her brow furrowed in confusion.
Fiona lowered her eyelids, deep in thought.
After a moment, she took out her phone and looked through the surveillance records of Lilian and Anniston from around the time of the accident. After the accident, the two women had met a few times, always for beauty treatments.
She sent the name of the beauty institute to Burl Allmond. "Check out this beauty place for any shady business and do it quick."
Burl was lightning fast. In less than ten minutes, he had something. "Surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, that sort of thing."
Fiona then quickly cross-referenced the timeline of events around Anniston's accident. From the first visit to the beauty institute to the last, and then to Anniston's fall into the sea—there would have been enough time for the embryo to be cultivated, implanted, and to start developing.
"Babe, did something just click for you?" Thalassa noticed Fiona lost in thought and waved her hand in front of her to catch her attention.
Fiona snapped back to the present.
"Thalassa, Lilian might actually be carrying Darwin's child," she said solemnly, locking eyes with Thalassa.
Thalassa paled in shock. "Did you remember some suspicious moment? I can't believe Darwin, claiming he's only been with one woman, and he turns out to be this type of guy!"
"The baby was conceived through IVF," Fiona declared gravely. "With Darwin, there's just one kid left in the Solomon family line. If he dies, the Solomon legacy is practically over. When Darwin was in that car accident and became comatose, the hospital preserved his sperm... After Darwin woke up, Anniston probably didn't destroy it."
"Oh my God!" Thalassa gasped in utter shock, covering her mouth.
"If that kid really is Darwin's, then, even if he never touched Lilian, there's no way he could clear his name now!"
Fiona's face was stoic, and she remained silent.
If things were as she suspected, then, it was truly a checkmate situation.
Unless they took the route of getting rid of Lilian in a way that left no trace behind.
That day, the internet was abuzz nonstop.
The only silver lining was the greenhouse Chicago and Stuart had been laboring over; they had managed to put it up by the end of the day.
As evening fell, the string lights hanging outside the greenhouse started twinkling to life one by one.
Fiona checked the time.
Darwin hadn't called since their conversation that morning.
However, Xavier, who was on a business trip with Darwin, periodically checked in.
As the night deepened, Chicago couldn't stay awake and fell asleep just past ten.
Around midnight, Fiona glanced out the window, thinking that Darwin probably wouldn't be coming back.
She turned off the lights and prepared to go back to her bedroom to rest.
At one in the morning, there was no sound at all.
Darwin's car pulled into the garage.
He got out of the car, looking up.
It was pitch dark as if no one lived there anymore.
A suffocating dread enveloped him tightly, along with a senseless surge of anger.
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