Chapter 117 Is He Sleeping with Someone Else?

Chapter 117: Chapter 117: Is He Sleeping with Someone Else?

Sophie Winslow understood perfectly. Reading between the lines, it seemed she had somehow become the ungrateful one.

She let out a cold, ambiguous scoff. She didn’t touch the tea, nor did she intend to argue with Ms. Coleman. Trying to reason with someone who refused to see the truth would only drain her mental energy and leave her exhausted.

"I’ll handle my own things," she said. "You don’t need to worry about it."

She knew the reality of the situation. Having been forcibly moved back by the old madam today, there was no way she would be allowed to throw a fit and leave again. If she resisted to the bitter end and word reached the old madam, it would only enrage her, leading to threats of revoking the divorce certificate. There was no need to meet force with force. Some matters required a more roundabout approach.

Seeing that Sophie wasn’t stubbornly demanding to leave, Ms. Coleman finally smiled and nodded. "I’ll have someone bring your things upstairs. You can take your time unpacking."

Terrified that Sophie might refuse, Ms. Coleman immediately instructed the servants, "Move everything to the master bedroom."

Sophie saw right through Ms. Coleman’s little scheme but couldn’t be bothered to call her out. She was just trying to prevent Sophie from sleeping in a different room. But even if the old madam could force her to move back, could she really monitor them to see if they were fulfilling their marital duties?

As the servants carried the moving boxes to the master bedroom, Sophie asked, "What is Julian Sterling’s new number?"

Ms. Coleman couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. For a married couple to not even know each other’s phone numbers—to have a marriage devolve into this after so many years—was truly rare. Unsurprisingly, Ms. Coleman knew the new number.

Sitting in the living room, Sophie dialed Julian’s number. Regardless of what happened next, she needed him to come back and deal with this mess as soon as possible.

RING RING RING—

This time, the call went through, and someone picked up.

"Who is this? Julian is still resting."

Stella Sutton’s voice drifted into Sophie’s ear, laced with a sense of smug contentment. It was blatantly obvious that the two of them had likely been together this whole time.

Sophie fell silent for a moment. It was just past nine in the morning. Since when did Julian start... sleeping in?

In the past, no matter what the circumstances were—even if their marital intimacy had lasted late into the night—he would always wake up at ten to six without fail to exercise for an hour. When he spent the night with her, he never stayed in bed.

Evidently, having the woman he truly loved by his side made him crave those extra moments of lingering affection. He had even made a special exception by giving Stella access to his phone.

A trace of mockery flashed through Sophie’s eyes, but her voice sounded as detached as an outsider’s. "Please tell Julian to come back as soon as possible. I need to speak with him."

Upon hearing Sophie’s voice, Stella didn’t utter a single word in response. She simply hung up.

The blatant arrogance of someone who was permitted to be spoiled was on full display. Anyone who didn’t know better would have thought Stella was the legal wife and Sophie was the desperate mistress clinging to the marriage.

Sophie couldn’t care less whether Stella passed on the message or not. She had no choice but to head upstairs and sort out her luggage. At the very least, she wouldn’t be able to move out immediately in the coming days. Until the divorce certificate was officially in her hands, she had to keep a low profile. Now that it was glaringly obvious Ms. Coleman was the old madam’s spy, Sophie decided not to act too rashly.

She returned to the master bedroom where she had lived for seven years. Having moved out for a while, stepping back inside brought a faint, creeping sense of unfamiliarity.

The feeling was especially strong given the room’s sheer size. An interior designer had specifically curated a photo wall, and every picture’s placement had a distinct meaning. Over the span of seven years, she had completely filled that wall with memories. There had been wedding portraits, solo shots of herself, and photos of Julian.

But now...

Only a handful of pictures remained. She already knew about the wedding portraits; Seth Sutton had burned all of them. But her solo photos had also been taken down, nowhere to be seen. In all likelihood, Julian had thrown them away.

Sophie wasn’t particularly surprised. Ever since Julian had stood by indifferently while Seth burned their wedding photos, she knew exactly how insignificant she was in his life. Yet, even if she understood the harsh reality, that photo wall had been the culmination of seven years of her heart and soul. It had been her beautiful vision of the future.

Sophie stared at the wall—now completely devoid of any trace of her—for a long time. She took a silent, deep breath and turned away to unpack her bags. She didn’t take everything out, only retrieving the daily necessities and personal items she needed.

She was just waiting for Julian to sort out the divorce certificate so she could move out at a moment’s notice. This place... had long ceased to be her home. She refused to be a caged bird; she was going to fly away from this prison where her past self had trapped her in the name of love.

After sending all the servants out, Sophie pondered her next move for a long time. Naturally, she wasn’t going to let herself be manipulated. She had to try every possible method. As long as she could ensure the old madam didn’t successfully revoke the divorce, there would be room to maneuver.

She took all her important documents out of her bag and locked them securely in her suitcase.

Halfway through, Ivy Hawthorne called to check in. Sophie gave her a brief rundown of the situation.

Ivy immediately cursed in outrage. "Isn’t that just mafia tactics?! They’re blatantly bullying you because you don’t have a background or a powerful maiden family to back you up!"

To put it bluntly, the Sterling family saw Sophie as someone with middling status—easy to manipulate at will. Furthermore, she truly didn’t have a powerful family backing her. Her mother had been lying in a coma on a hospital bed for over a decade following a car crash, and her grandfather was already of advanced age. If Sophie’s maiden family had been an elite, influential powerhouse, would the Sterling family have dared to pull a stunt like this?

Sophie understood this reality perfectly well. But one couldn’t choose their origins. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with her family; both her mother and her grandfather loved her more than life itself.

As for her career...

"Helios’ new drug development is almost ready for the market, right? Combine that with your surgical robot that broke through those technological barriers, and you can try to officially join the National Academy of Somatic Medicine," Ivy declared. "Once you become a national asset and secure Lydia’s custody, you can finally reveal your identity as Faye. Even the Sterling family will have to think twice!"

In truth, the identity of Faye had always been synonymous with a genius at the National Academy of Somatic Medicine, serving as an idol to countless people in the medical field. Sophie had once been just a step away from officially joining the Academy. As a top-tier talent valued by higher-ups, even the Sterling family wouldn’t be able to treat her carelessly.

Sophie nodded. "Since I used the name Faye when I gave birth to Lydia, it’s not convenient to go public right now. But once I have the divorce certificate in hand, there will be no need to hide anymore."

She would make sure that day arrived as soon as possible. She refused to be shackled by anyone ever again. Returning to this marital home was merely a temporary measure.

That evening, Sophie took a shower. The spring temperatures had already climbed to nearly twenty degrees Celsius. Wearing only her nightwear, she stepped outside, planning to check if the crabapple tree she had planted by hand a few years ago had sprouted.

The marital villa featured a traditional Chinese garden design. It occupied a vast area of land, divided into several distinct courtyards. The courtyard housing the master bedroom she shared with Julian was relatively secluded. Other courtyards contained Julian’s private office space, where high-level executives would occasionally come for meetings. The distance between the areas was considerable, keeping the zones clearly separated so they wouldn’t disturb one another.

Upon arriving in the garden, Sophie’s gaze instinctively drifted toward the center. This was where the wedding photos had been burned.

Her eyes lingered there for a moment. Just as she was about to pull her nightwear tighter around herself, the sound of a car engine approached from the distance.

Sophie turned around, only to find herself face-to-face with a man and a woman walking shoulder-to-shoulder, whispering intimately to one another.