Chapter 5

From that day on, Gerard seemed to be deliberately avoiding her. He came back to the villa later and later, and some nights he didn't come back at all.

The villa sank into its old dead silence.

And Jessica's heart shut again, closing the door she had only just managed to pry open a crack.

She tore the check into tiny pieces and threw them in the trash.

The days went on, flat and colorless.

Until two months later, when Jessica began to feel that something was wrong with her body.

She was always exhausted, always sleepy, and the faintest smell of cooking oil made her stomach turn.

At first she thought it was just her stomach acting up.

But it went on for more than half a month, and instead of getting better, it only got worse.

That morning, she had barely swallowed one mouthful of milk before she couldn't hold it in anymore, rushing to the bathroom and throwing up until she was dizzy and spent.

Martin Lambert the butler took one look at her pale face and said, worried, “Ma'am, this can't go on. Let me make you an appointment with a doctor.”

Jessica couldn't win the argument, so, all but “escorted” by the butler, she went to the private hospital under the Roman family's name.

After a whole round of tests, the doctor looked at the report in his hands, and his face turned strange.

“Ms.…… Ms. Fox,” the doctor pushed up his glasses and asked, treading carefully, “are you…… are you certain your husband is Mr. Gerard Roman?”

“Yes. Is something wrong?”

“Wrong…… that's putting it mildly.” The doctor muttered it under his breath, then lifted his head and looked at her the way you'd look at someone from another planet. “Congratulations. You're pregnant. And…… according to the ultrasound, it's triplets.”

Something went off in Jessica's head like a blast.

Pregnant?

Triplets?

How could that be?

She and Gerard had only ever done it that one time.

And besides, wasn't he unable to father children?

She was still reeling when the door of the exam room swung open.

Gerard walked in. He'd clearly gotten the call from the butler, and his face was dark enough to drip water.

He didn't even glance at Jessica. He went straight to the doctor, his voice cold as ice.

“What's wrong with her?”

The doctor wiped the sweat off his forehead and stammered, “Mr.…… Mr. Roman, congratulations.

Your wife…… she's pregnant, five months along. It's…… it's triplets.”

Gerard's whole body went rigid.

Slowly he turned his head, and those hawk-sharp eyes fixed on Jessica's flat stomach, blazing with a towering fury and…… an undisguised, icy disappointment.

“Pregnant?” He walked toward her one step at a time, and every step landed like a foot pressing down on her heart.

“Jessica, you'd better give me an explanation.”

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a crushing weight, enough to nearly break her.

He thought she had betrayed him.

Jessica had no way to defend herself. She didn't even know how to explain any of it.

Just then the head of the ultrasound department, an old doctor pushing sixty, came rushing in with the ultrasound scans in his hand.

His face was frozen in pure shock and disbelief as he hurried up to Gerard.

“Mr. Roman! Mr. Roman! This…… this is unbelievable!”

The old doctor was so worked up his voice shook. He pointed at the three tiny gestational sacs on the scan and cried out, :

“Thirty-five years in this field, and I have never seen triplets like these!”

Gerard's face went darker still. He snatched the scan away, the fury in his eyes about to boil over. :

“Never seen? What's that supposed to mean?”

“No, no, no! Mr. Roman, please, don't jump to conclusions!”

Seeing that he'd taken it the wrong way, the old doctor waved his hands quickly, picked up another freshly printed report from beside him, and held it out, his tone urgent and hushed.

“Take a look at this first!”