Chapter 623 Sonia’s Choice
“Really?” Tim asked with narrowed eyes, clearly a bit suspicious.
An unhappy Toby lifted his chin. “If you don’t believe me, you can cross-check with her later.”
“Well, since you’re saying that, I’ll explain it to you then.” At this point, Tim sobered and twirled his scalpel in between his fingers. “I assume you know about Sonia sending the woman named Jessica Reed to me for egg retrieval.”
“Yeah.” Toby inclined his head.
As Tim twirled the scalpel even faster, he continued, “I won’t beat around the bush then. I had the gynecology department conduct a detailed inspection of her body. Her reproductive system is a bit special wherein we cannot retrieve any eggs from it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Toby frowned.
“It means she’s a premature baby,” Tim answered. “Her reproductive system isn’t fully developed and her eggs are too weak to be viable once they’re taken out of her uterus. So, there’s no way to send them abroad for in-vitro fertilization.”
At that point, Toby pursed his lips as he never knew Jessica had such an illness. “Are there any solutions?” he asked in a low voice.
Leaning back in his chair, Tim replied, “While I don’t know why Sonia is insistent on having a child with Jessica’s genes, there is a solution if she’s hellbent on doing so. The solution is to have Jessica carry the pregnancy herself so that the eggs won’t have to be retrieved for in-vitro fertilization. Only then will her eggs be useful.”
While running a finger along the rim of his mug, Toby processed Tim’s words. “I see. I’ll let Sonia know and see where she plans to go from there.”
“Alright. You go ahead then.” Tim nodded. “But I have to warn you both that it won’t be easy for this woman to get pregnant either. As I said, her reproductive system isn’t fully developed and she’s going to need a long period of recuperation and a second complete puberty before her body can successfully carry a child.”
“How long would that take?” Toby cut to the chase.
After a moment of thought, Tim answered, “At least half a year, based on the report from the gynecology department. Furthermore, even if she manages to get pregnant, she’ll have to remain bedridden or risk miscarrying.”
“I see.” Toby then coolly asked, “She doesn’t know about your examination, does she?”
“She passed out like a pig. How would she have found out?” Tim placed the scalpel away. “Relax. Sonia had me carry out everything on that woman in secret.”
“Good.” Toby relaxed.
After a few more words to each other, both men hung up.
Right at this moment, Sonia exited the bathroom while drying her hair.
As he watched her emerge fragrant and pink-cheeked like a lotus flower, his eyes darkened and his Adam’s apple bobbed before he asked hoarsely, “Done?”
Not noticing his strange behavior, she walked over to sit in the armchair opposite him. “What did Tim say?”
Toby lowered his lids and averted his gaze.
What he was afraid of was that if he stared at her for too long, he wouldn’t be able to resist her.
After all, he was a virile man with the woman he loved seated temptingly opposite him. It was impossible for him not to have any impulse to ravage her.
However, he knew she would not agree to have sex with him.
Therefore, he was willing to respect her wishes and wait for her.
Before Sonia was ready, he wouldn’t do anything but show her some light affection.
Toby finally picked up his already-cold tea and took a sip to suppress the heat in his body before answering with a slight cough, “Jessica’s test results are out.”
Following that, he related the contents of the phone conversation in detail to her, leaving nothing out.
After Sonia listened to the contents, her hair-drying motions abruptly stopped. “I didn’t know she had such a condition.”
“Tim says she does, at any rate.” He spun his mug.
As she pursed her lips, she continued, “It’s my fault for oversimplifying the situation. At first, I thought she was extremely healthy and never knew her reproductive system wasn’t fully developed.”
Toby asked while placing his mug down. “Is Jessica really a premature baby?”
Sonia nodded. “Yes, and come to think of it, her mother, Sandra, did it to her.”
“Oh?” He raised his eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
At that, her expression darkened slightly. “When I was five, my father gave me a villa. Sandra found out about it and was extremely upset. She believed that everything he owned was to be their joint property once they were married, so she took issue with him buying me a villa.”
“Hence, she caused a premature birth so that he would take the villa back from you and transfer it to her name,” Toby guessed with his brows furrowed.
Sonia shook her head. “No, the villa wasn’t the only issue here. What she wanted was to banish me from the household so that she could have everything my family owned.”
“What?” Toby’s face sank.
With a sneer, she continued, “The truth was that the villa incident made her feel like I was the biggest threat to her and the child in her stomach. She believed that as long as I was there, she and the child would have one less portion of the inheritance, and so, taking the opportunity while my father wasn’t home, she purposely fell in front of me and blamed me for pushing her over and causing her to go into early labor. She wanted my father to believe that I had been so vicious since young that I couldn’t even tolerate my own stepmother and step siblings. She wanted him to abhor me so much that he would send me away.”
The more Toby listened, the uglier his expression became and an intimidating aura soon started to emanate from his body.
Seeing that he was angry on her behalf, Sonia chuckled and refilled his mug with hot water. “All of that is in the past now. I’m no longer angry, so you needn’t be angry either.”
“I feel bad for you.” Giving Sonia a sympathetic look, he asked, “Why didn’t you write to me about this?”
While pouring herself a mug of tea, she told him, “They picked on me so much when I was young that I couldn’t have told you everything. So, I picked a few random incidents to write to you about.”
“I see.” As Toby held his mug, he pressed, “What happened after that? How was this matter resolved?”
Sonia pursed her lips in disdain. “At first, Sandra thought she could successfully get my father to send me away by doing what she did. What she didn’t know was that there was video surveillance at home exposing her plot. Not only did she fail to achieve her goal, she was locked up by my father and had all her bank cards frozen. Her life became even worse than what it was before she married into the Reed Family. It was what made her utterly loathe me and brainwash Jessica into thinking that I had pushed her and caused Jessica to be born ailing and two months early. In truth, when Jessica was young, she was indeed very sickly due to being a premature baby. However, as Sandra’s daughter, she never questioned Sandra’s lie, and that’s one of the reasons why she doesn’t want to see me.”
It was only that she hadn’t foreseen Jessica’s premature birth resulting in an underdeveloped reproductive system.
“Shameless tricks from a shameless duo,” he muttered with disgust.
Sonia laughed after being amused by his comments.
“By the way, where do you plan to go from here?” Toby asked, looking at her. “Are you not intending to have children, or are you going to do what Tim has suggested and have Jessica pregnant?”
As she chewed on her bottom lip, she answered, “I have to have children.”
“So, you’re going for the second option?”
Sonia hummed in agreement. “For the time being, that’s the only solution.”
To continue the heritage of the Reed Family, she had to have Jessica bear a child no matter the cost.
That was the only thing she could do for the Reed Family now.
“Discuss things with Tim tomorrow then so that he can arrange for someone to treat Jessica’s body.” Toby pulled the blow dryer out from under the coffee table and handed it to Sonia.
