Chapter 153 Found the Woman Who Bore Adrian Hawthorne’s Child

Chapter 153: Chapter 153: Found the Woman Who Bore Adrian Hawthorne’s Child

Evan York probably realized his words were somewhat unreasonable as well. He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, laughing out of sheer anger. "Sophie Winslow really knows how to cause trouble. I originally thought someone else had bewitched Adrian Hawthorne, but it turns out the culprit is right in front of us—" But then he paused, seemingly realizing this was inappropriate. After all, Julian Sterling was Sophie’s husband of many years.

Evan turned to look at Julian. Faced with his series of arguably unreasonable demands, Julian hadn’t shown the slightest hint of anger or disturbance. Even when Evan accused Sophie of bewitching Adrian, Julian seemed... entirely too calm.

Julian looked calmly in another direction. Evan couldn’t help but follow his gaze. The venue was bustling with people, and he had to search the crowd for quite a while before finally spotting Sophie’s back. Julian was looking right at her. Evan couldn’t help but remark, "You’ve got some really sharp eyes."

"There’s nothing difficult about solving this kind of thing," Julian replied in a mild tone, ignoring Evan’s comment.

Evan looked at him and fired off a string of questions. "You agreed? You’ll help me stall Sophie? You won’t divorce her yet?"

Julian still didn’t give a direct answer. Instead, he said slowly, "Adrian has kept his out-of-wedlock daughter a secret very well, but recently, rumors have suddenly started to surface. There are a few directions to guess why. One is that he did it on purpose. He probably never intended to marry into the York family in the first place, so he’s using his daughter’s existence to force you into breaking off the engagement yourselves."

Evan’s brows twitched as he was forced to face this cruel reality head-on. What Julian said... really did make sense. He had been too emotionally invested earlier and had temporarily forgotten this crucial detail. Now that Julian had pointed it out, it suddenly dawned on him. Was Adrian doing this on purpose?

The Hawthorne and York families had been connected for years. The marriage agreement was written personally by their great-grandfathers, and both families deeply valued such traditions. Even if they wanted to break it off, it would cost them dearly. It couldn’t be resolved easily with just one word. Otherwise, Adrian wouldn’t have dragged this move out until now—it was precisely because breaking the engagement would require a massive upheaval.

"I haven’t mentioned this to my family yet," Evan said, his expression darkening further. He wondered what right Adrian had to refuse to marry his sister.

Julian watched from the corner of his eye as Sophie ran toward Peter Preston with a bright smile. He calmly retracted his gaze. "Until there’s a proper solution, shedding all pretense of cordiality is unwise. The York family doesn’t need to play right into his hands."

"What are you saying?"

Julian gently swirled his wine glass. "The biological mother of Adrian’s... daughter might be a breakthrough point." The pretty little face of that child was still lingering in his mind. He frowned slightly, completely unaware of it, before slowly continuing, "Since Adrian could go as far as keeping the daughter while driving the mother away, it means the child’s biological mother couldn’t enter the Hawthorne family for various reasons. Otherwise, things wouldn’t be like this today. If you can find her and bring her back, whatever Adrian has going on with anyone else will collapse on its own."

Evan’s mind instantly opened up. Every word Julian said hit the nail on the head. Since Adrian refused to marry into the York family and had a child out of wedlock, but didn’t marry the mother, it meant he either didn’t want to or couldn’t marry her. But how could a mother whose child was snatched away ever be willing to let it go? If the biological mother were brought back, she would naturally ruin all of Adrian’s messy affairs.

Furthermore, if the biological mother came back and caused a scene, the fact that the Hawthorne family was at fault could no longer be hidden. They would naturally have to turn around and give the York family a proper explanation, instead of letting Adrian manipulate them as he was doing now.

"I really do need to talk to you about these kinds of things." Evan clinked his glass against Julian’s. He had been so furious just now that he almost went straight to confront Sophie. After all, Sophie was practically on the verge of becoming the "other woman."

Julian, however, didn’t think much of it.

Evan narrowed his eyes. "Still, Sophie is in such a rush to find a backer, and Adrian is actually interacting with her. I’m guessing Adrian doesn’t know her first marriage was to you, or else he wouldn’t be so willing."

Sophie was probably keeping Adrian in the dark about their relationship. The Hawthorne family had no reason to make an enemy of the Sterling family over a woman. Evan certainly wanted to go straight to Adrian and reveal Sophie’s identity as Mrs. Sterling. But right now... Evan glanced at Stella Sutton, who was already walking toward them. Given Julian’s public situation with Stella, it wasn’t convenient to lay everything out in the open.

As Stella approached, she subtly observed Evan’s expression. He had clearly been furious after she said those things, but now, he seemed to have calmed down. She had originally thought that, given Evan’s arrogance, he would never allow anyone to backstab his sister like that. At the very least, he would publicly humiliate Sophie or have her kicked out. But instead... everything was perfectly calm.

"What are you two talking about?" she asked, silently suppressing her thoughts.

Julian looked down at her and said, "There’s a medical triage and consultation company over there. Go introduce yourself."

Stella looked over, understanding the lengths Julian was going to for her sake.

Although the overseas team had been poached by Longview, Sophie felt a sense of regret, but she knew it wasn’t a dead end. Now that she was about to be granted exceptional admission, her network had naturally expanded. Philip Preston was the first to learn that she was looking for top-tier talent. Over dinner that evening, he immediately introduced Sophie to several past top scholars from the National Academy of Somatic Medicine’s branch.

"Since your status as an associate professor is about to be finalized, you can naturally transfer personnel to assist you. These people from the Academy can all collaborate with Helios on your project. Working with them will be a much better fit than with those overseas teams," Philip said, pushing all these resources right in front of Sophie.

Sophie grinned from ear to ear, her eyes curving into happy little crescents. "My dear senior brother is the most reliable one after all."

Peter Preston glanced over. His father’s lips curled up in a smug smile as he cheerfully placed more food into Sophie’s bowl. Just one sentence from his junior sister was enough to turn the old man into a beaming fool. Peter was completely speechless.

This turned out to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Sophie had never expected she would be able to pull personnel directly from the National Academy of Somatic Medicine’s branch. This would make collaboration much more convenient than working with an overseas team.

Meanwhile.

Stella’s project was also in full swing, but since the most crucial database had yet to be finalized, she inevitably felt a bit insecure. She had originally thought that after she snatched the team Helios wanted, Peter wouldn’t be able to hold out for long before calling her to trade Faye’s database for them. But everything remained dead silent.

That was until Finn Lockwood, having gotten word from somewhere, brought her some surprising news. "Helios actually hooked up with the National Academy of Somatic Medicine! I heard they transferred people from the Academy. What’s going on? Even though Philip Preston has roots in the Academy, he shouldn’t be able to open such a huge backdoor for Helios, right?"

Stella’s expression changed. She had thought she would be the one holding the initiative, and never expected things to develop like this. Did this mean she still couldn’t use the database belonging to Faye, the inventor behind Digital Chinese Medicine? Without Faye’s database to serve as her absolute trump card, wouldn’t her project end up being utterly mediocre? Stella felt a surge of anger. How could Philip so blatantly abuse his power for the sake of his own biological son!

Left with no other choice, she softened her voice and looked over at Julian, who was flipping through some documents nearby. "Julian, what should we do?"