Drowning in Memories

Chapter 3 Being Stabbed

He froze for a split second, a flash of surprise flitting across his face before he dropped his hand. "About last night… I'm sorry. I got swamped with work and couldn't make it back in time, leaving you stuck alone with Adrian. Mr. Sharp already knows what happened, and he's demanding I take you for a full medical checkup…"

The checkup was, without a shred of doubt, a syphilis screening.

Matthew was the one who had forced her straight into Adrian's arms. Now he was lying to her face, fooling the entire Sharp family and tossing her reputation aside like worthless garbage.

Clara's face paled even further, and she refused to go. Just a minute earlier, Adrian had already sent her his official medical records, proving he was completely clean.

Still, Matthew forced her into the car. They sat on opposite sides, the rift between them wider than an ocean. He even discreetly wiped his hands on his clothes—as if she were already filthy and tainted.

Clara turned her head away, her eyes rimmed red, yet she didn't say a word. Once, she would have rambled to him endlessly, throwing petty tantrums until he shut her up with an irritated kiss—if only to hush her for a moment. Not anymore, not today.

At the hospital, she followed every medical order mechanically, her soul completely severed from her body.

During the gynecological exam, she lay limp and hollow on the examination table, biting back screams of excruciating pain. The procedure should have been done under anesthesia—but Matthew had heard that tests without anesthetic yielded more accurate results, so he had forced her to endure every torturous second with zero pain relief.

Clara clutched her throbbing abdomen and limped out of the exam room, only to spot Matthew—his eyes blazing with fury—brusquely blocking Ivy, who had arrived for her own gynecological appointment with another man by her side.

"What the hell is this? Why are you here with him?"

Even at thirty years old, Ivy still played the part of a naive, childish little girl flawlessly.

She shot Clara a trembling, pitiful glance, her voice quavering as she spoke. "I'm thirty already, and I won't stay young forever. Can you stop controlling every part of my life? I've already crossed the Gilberts. Do you honestly think our family will stand against them for an adopted daughter? Marriage is my only escape. Does it even matter who I marry? Besides…"

Her gaze lingered on Matthew, burning with a scorching heat that would have melted them into each other's arms in any other situation.

He, the heir of the Coleman family, and she, their adopted daughter—no one in their elite circle would ever dare link them like that.

"No. The Gilberts will never trouble you again. You can't marry him! He's a worthless man, and he can't even perform in bed! I won't let this happen!"

Clara let out a sharp, bitter laugh that sliced through the air. 'So Ivy couldn't be with another man, but I could? Even if that man was Adrian, once rumored to be riddled with syphilis—was I nothing more than a sacrificial lamb to atone for Ivy's sins?'

She turned to walk away, only to be cornered by a horde of reporters shoving their microphones in her face. Suddenly, a deranged woman lunged forward, splattering her from head to toe with foul-smelling yellow slop.

"Go rot in hell! Matthew's mistress deserves to die too! Let him crumble and lose everything he has!"

Matthew had made countless enemies over the years. To seize land and power, he had sunk to every despicable trick imaginable. This woman must have overheard his conversation with Adrian the night before. Blinded by rage, she had latched onto the lie, clinging to it as the truth, fully convinced Clara was Matthew's lover.

Clara screamed and shook her head frantically, but the woman—her eyes blazing with hatred—pulled out a knife and stabbed her over and over in the abdomen.

She wanted to scream that she meant nothing to him. She twisted around in a panic to beg for his help, only to watch him shield Ivy as they rushed off… never once glancing back.