Chapter III

I wasn't deceiving myself. Sophia was indeed my flesh and blood.

Did Richard and Monica truly believe they could outmaneuver me?

Years ago, Richard had extremely low sperm motility due to chronic alcoholism, so we decided to attempt IVF.

The day before the embryo cultivation, I accidentally caught Richard conspiring with a bribed lab assistant, sneaking around my sample freezer. I heard him jubilantly calling Monica, telling her he had successfully swapped in her eggs.

At the time, I didn't make a scene. I simply turned around, handed the attending physician a check for two hundred thousand dollars, and had him swap the eggs back to the backup samples I had collected previously.

While I was at it, I "kindly" asked the doctor to replace Richard's sperm with the frozen sample of my late ex-fiancé—who happened to be Richard's older brother, who had passed away years prior.

On the day of the embryo cultivation, Richard and I witnessed the birth of this "miracle" together.

He acted exceptionally excited, presumably thinking it was his and Monica’s child.

Watching his foolish display, I was already laughing inside.

For all these years, I watched him dote on Sophia like a fool, believing she was the crystalized proof of his love for Monica. The pleasure derived from that was simply indescribable.

He tried to scheme against me, but he had been played like a fiddle for over twenty years.

Richard interrupted my reminiscence, sneering:

"Still refusing to face reality? Sophia may have come out of your belly, but you were just a surrogate vessel! Her genes come from Monica."

I responded calmly, my tone laced with provocation. "Are you daydreaming?"

"If you don't believe it, we can do a DNA test!" Richard said decisively.

"I also want a divorce! You forced me into this marriage, treating me like an accessory you could summon and dismiss at will. I’ve tolerated you for twenty-five years; I’ve done enough for you!"

At the mention of divorce, a look of barely concealed joy flashed across his face.

Hah? He dared to say he’d done enough for me?

Married to him for twenty-five years, I had essentially lived like a widow for twenty-five years.

When I was raising the child alone, he was shopping in Paris with Monica.

When I was on Wall Street fighting for the interests of the Sterling family, he was drinking himself into a stupor in Las Vegas casinos.

But he had misunderstood one thing—I never married him because I was foolishly in love with him.

I married him solely to obtain the status of the Sterling family daughter-in-law and, subsequently, to take control of the Sterling Group.

Today, the Sterling Group is firmly in my grasp.

Therefore, Richard has absolutely no utility left to me.

"Divorce is fine," I shrugged indifferently.

"But a paternity test won't be necessary. I am certain Sophia is my child."

Sophia looked at me, her eyes steady. "Mom, I believe you."

Richard and Monica immediately panicked.

"Sophia, you don't even believe your own father?"

Sophia ignored him completely, simply standing closer to me.

Just then, a young man looking like a quintessential Ivy League freshman burst into the room.

He walked straight toward Sophia and shouted excitedly, "Sister!"

Everyone in the room was stunned.

As if an extra mother wasn't enough, now a younger brother had materialized out of thin air?