Chapter 86: Why Are You Lying?
Michael took a deep breath. Since this had happened so abruptly, he had not gotten the chance to think properly about the situation yet.
He pinched the area between his eyebrows when he heard Mrs. Lucas’s questions. He did not want to pursue this matter in front of his grandmother. After all, Mrs. Lucas was in an extremely good mood from learning about Wendy’s pregnancy. If she found out that the child might not even be his in the first place, she would probably collapse.
He grabbed Wendy’s hand and said, "Nothing’s wrong, Grandmother. We should get going now, we’ll come back to visit you in a couple of days."
His grip around her wrist was extremely tight, causing her to feel some pain.
"Ah, you should tell me what’s going on first," said Mrs. Lucas. She stood intending to chase after Michael and Wendy, but the urgency of her actions caused her to nearly fall.
Winnie quickly grabbed Mrs. Lucas’s arm and helped her regain stability. With a furious expression on her face, she said, "Mother, judging from this situation, it seems possible that the child does not even belong to Michael in the first place. Maybe Wendy..."
Before she could get to the end of her sentence, Mrs. Lucas interrupted her sternly, "That’s impossible! Wendy would never do anything like that to Michael and to our family!"
Michael dragged Wendy all the way back to the car. Once they were both insides, he slammed his foot down on the accelerator and quickly drove out of the mansion. He ignored all the traffic lights on their way home, driving through green and red lights alike without stopping at all.
Feeling frightened by his behavior, Wendy held on to her safety-belt tightly. She swallowed dryly and said, "Michael, don’t behave like this. Calm down."
Michael’s face only grew sullener as he stepped down harder on the accelerator pedal. Wendy’s heart started pounding. If she had known that the time stamps on the medical reports would have caused so much trouble, she would have forced the doctor to correct the mistake on the spot.
She tried to explain herself again, "Michael, believe me, there was an error in the printing. When I first got pregnant, I tried asking you if you liked kids. Do you remember that? I was already aware of my pregnancy then."
This was precisely the incident that Michael had thought about, which made him assume that he was the father of the child right away.
Observing Michael’s silence, Wendy felt helpless. Soon, they pulled into their neighborhood. Michael stepped into the elevator first, leaving Wendy to follow behind him. He did not switch on the living room light even after entering the apartment. Instead, it was Wendy who did. The dark room was instantly illuminated.
Standing behind Michael, Wendy said, "Michael, I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t believe me, I can call the doctor right now." She truly felt very helpless. She had not even planned on telling Michael about her pregnancy in the first place, but he found out about it anyway. She had just accepted that reality and she was now being suspected of cheating on him.
Logically, she knew that she could not blame Michael for this. After all, this was exactly what it looked like due to the error in the time stamp on the medical report. It was perfectly normal for him to suspect her of cheating. Despite understanding this logic, she still felt disappointed. She realized once again just how little they trusted each other in this relationship.
The only reason why Wendy wanted to prove her innocence now was not because she wanted Michael to be good to both her and their child.
She simply did not want to be misunderstood. After all, she had never cheated on him, and she had no reason to say that she did. She did not want to be accused of doing something like that.
She still planned on asking for a divorce after clearing her own name, just like she had originally planned.
"Sure, go ahead and call the doctor," said Michael, who did not wish to accuse Wendy of cheating simply because of the time stamp on the reports. If she could prove that there was an error, he would believe her.
Hence, Wendy took out her phone and dialed the doctor’s number. She turned on the loudspeaker mode.
They waited for what felt like forever. Even though only a few seconds had passed in reality, time seemed to stretch on infinitely. The living room was completely silent except for the ringing of the phone. Michael and Wendy stared at the electronic device intently. Finally, someone picked up.
"Hello, doctor, I am Wendy Stewart. I am the pregnant woman that you did the prenatal check-up for at the hospital today. Do you remember me?" Wendy immediately asked. The doctor sounded friendly and polite when he answered, "Yes, I do. I personally called you earlier to remind you about them."
"Yes, that’s right," said Wendy. Since the doctor remembered who she was, she decided to go straight to the point, "Well, when I got my examination results earlier, I realized that the time stamps on the report and ultrasound image were wrong. I even asked you about it, and you told me that it was just an error and assured me that did not affect the test results, right?"
"Ah?" The doctor sounded doubtful. He paused for a moment, as though he was trying his best to recall something.
Michael and Wendy involuntarily glanced at each other. They were both hoping for the same answer. Wendy did not want to be wronged and gain notoriety for being a cheater. Michael, on the other hand, also wished that the child belonged to him.
"Doctor? Are you there?" said Wendy as she waited for him to answer her question and prove her innocence.
The doctor replied, "Yes, I’m here. I was just thinking about what you said. I tried to remember if what you said had happened earlier, but I don’t recall it at all. Could you perhaps be mistaken about it?"
"What did you say?" Wendy looked at her screen and checked the number again, comparing it to the same number that had called her in the first place. The digits matched, and she was sure that it was the same doctor that she had met in the hospital.
"Please think about it again carefully," said Wendy, sounding anxious. "My name is Wendy Stewart, and my pregnancy was first confirmed at your hospital five months ago. After that, I never returned for any prenatal check-ups, and it was you who called me today to remind me about them. Don’t you remember?"
"I do remember you," said the doctor. "And I even have your examination results on my end. I looked at them again and I’m certain that you’re four months pregnant, and that your fetus is perfectly healthy."
Those words made Wendy frown deeply. "What was going on?"
"I’m five months pregnant!" said Wendy as she grew increasingly agitated, "Why won’t you tell the truth?"
"You’re five months pregnant? Miss Stewart, you must be kidding me," said the doctor in a helpless tone, "The prenatal check-ups that you did today are meant for women who are not more than four months pregnant. If you truly are five months pregnant, the accuracy of the tests would be affected, and the results would likely have been inconclusive. This is something that is widely known. If you doubt my professionalism, you can check it out on the internet or ask someone else about it."
Those words left Wendy feeling completely despondent. The only person who felt even worse than her was Michael.
"Why are you lying?" said Wendy. Her tone was no longer as agitated as before. It was strange that the doctor was suddenly denying everything that he had said to her in the afternoon. She knew that there was probably something else going on, but there was no point even if she figured that out. Would Michael trust her? She was afraid that it would be hard to prove her innocence.
"Miss Stewart, I don’t understand why you suddenly called me to ask these ridiculous questions," said the doctor in a helpless tone.
"But I will fulfill my responsibility and tell you that it’s impossible for this kind of error to happen at the hospital. Also, a fetus would be in a different developmental stage depending on whether it is four or five months, so I wouldn’t have made this mistake. If you don’t believe me, I still have a copy of your medical report in the hospital. You can come by tomorrow and check with other doctors."
His words made her feel even more trapped. Michael had remained quiet the entire time, but she could distinctly feel the coldness radiating from his body.
Right now, he was absolutely livid. Just an hour ago, he had been elated about Wendy’s pregnancy. But within a short span of time, he felt like he had fallen from heaven and straight into hell. How could he accept the truth about Wendy’s pregnancy? He thought, no, I cannot accept this!
Wendy shook her head when she saw Michae’s reddened eyes. She wanted to explain herself, but before she got the chance to, he grabbed her arms tightly and questioned her aggressively, "Who is the father of this child? Is it Christian?"
Christian had returned from abroad four months ago. If the fetus was really only four months old, then right now, Michael had every reason to suspect that Christian was the father. After all, his half-brother had expressed his obvious interest in Wendy since he returned and had even been honest with Michael about wanting to steal her away from him.
"When you and Christian met at Grandmother’s birthday dinner-was that really your first time seeing each other?" Michael’s tone was very ominous. Every single word he said felt like a dagger in Wendy’s heart.
However, he felt the same amount of pain as her. He continued, "Now I know why you tried to stop me from hitting him back then, why the two of you continued to meet in private, and why he gave you flowers. You also became his assistant afterward and stayed by his side every single day. That was right around when you started insisting on getting divorced even though you loved me so much in the past. When I asked you if you had fallen in love with Christian, you denied it. I always did suspect that there was something going on between the both of you, but I never questioned your loyalty to me. Do you know how happy I was when I found out that you were pregnant? The thought that this baby might not be mine did not even cross my mind. Ha ha, really do feel like the dumbest man in this world! Tell me, have the two of you been acquainted since before Grandmother’s birthday? Did you fall in love with him at first sight?"
Michael’s eyes were red-rimmed. Anger, despair, heartache, and other complicated feelings could be seen within them. He had a death grip around Wendy’s arm, and his nails were already starting to leave red marks. It was extremely painful for her.
However, she forced herself to endure the pain as she looked into Michael’s eyes.
Every single word that he said had made it clear to her that there was no trust between them at all. No matter how good he had been to her recently, it did not matter. It was just a short-lived fairytale. Eventually, all fairytales had to end.
Michael had said that he felt like the dumbest man in the world, but Wendy disagreed. On the contrary, she was the one who should be feeling that way. It was she who stupidly fell in love with Michael in the first place, and it was her who continued to believe the sweet lies that he fabricated for her. She was fully responsible for all the humiliation and pain that Michael had put her through.
Her eyes grew moist as her teeth sank down into her bottom lip. Staring fixedly at Michael, she said, "Michael, do you really not believe me at all?"
This was the last time that she would try to fight for his trust. If he said no, then their relationship would be completely... finished.
