From His Fake Wife to Billionaire Heiress Chapter 51: A Broken Alibi

She hurried over to him, her face streaked with tears as she looked up.

Lucas drew a long breath, then let it out slowly, his gaze settling on Sophia with a weary complexity.

"Sophia," he began, his voice rough with exhaustion. "It's not that I want to doubt you. But right now, the lab report from the clinic clearly points to this medication."

He held up the sealed evidence bag and gave it a slight shake. Inside, the white prescription bottle looked like a lit fuse waiting to go off.

"I know it hasn't been easy for you since Riley and I made our marriage public. It's unfair, and it's been eating away at you."

He did feel guilty—not toward her, but as if his own moral ground was starting to crumble.

"Still, what you did... you shouldn't have gone this far. You took away something that mattered deeply to her.

"That was her chance to have a child, Sophia. How is she supposed to move on after this?"

"It wasn't me!" Sophia burst out, tears spilling over because it felt like he'd already tried and convicted her. "Lucas, why won't you believe me? What if Riley did this to herself? What if she tampered with her own pills just to frame me? She's clever enough—she could easily pull something like that off!"

In her panic to clear her name, the ugly accusation tumbled out before she could think.

But Lucas only shook his head, his expression more disappointed than angry, edged with something like hurt.

"How could that be?" he said flatly. "Riley has always wanted a child with me. But I gave you and Jeremy my word years ago—that no other child would come between Jeremy's future and what's rightfully his. That's the only reason she never tried.

"But that doesn't give you the right to use something this cruel to take away her chance of ever having children."

Sophia went still.

Nothing she said seemed to reach him. Every excuse felt flimsy against the story he'd already decided was true.

"But I didn't!" she cried, her voice breaking. "I swear to God, I never touched her medication! Lucas, if you don't believe me, let's go find the pharmacist who filled this for me—we can confront them together! Let's get it tested independently. Then you'll see!"

Fumbling with her phone, she pulled up the number and dialed it right in front of him, putting it on speaker.

The line rang again and again.

Sophia's stomach tightened. Then an automated voice cut in, "We're sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again."

She paled.

Why wasn't he answering?

"Maybe... maybe there's just poor reception," she muttered, more to herself. Refusing to believe it, she immediately redialed.

Same result. That same cold, recorded message left her feeling like she was falling through ice.

Lucas stood silently, watching her.

Slowly, his face shifted into something resigned—and thoroughly disappointed.

To him, this was all the confirmation he needed.

There was only one reason a pharmacist would suddenly disappear and cut off all contact.

They'd taken her money to do something unethical.

And now that it had come to light, they'd vanished.

Sophia looked guilty. She'd been lying all along.

"Enough," Lucas said coolly, stopping her before she could try a third time. "Stop calling."

Her hand stilled in midair.

Lucas tucked the evidence bag back into his jacket pocket.

"Sophia," he said, his eyes tired. "This time, whether you actually did it or not, I'll handle it. You're still my wife. And we have Jeremy."

He paused, then added quietly, "It's just... I remember you used to be kinder than this."

Without another glance, he turned and walked out of the bedroom.

Sophia remained standing alone in the middle of Lucas and Riley's room.

She felt as though she'd accidentally swallowed a live wasp—disgusting, irritating, stuck inside her with no way to get it out. She wanted to gag.

*****

Not long after Lucas left, Riley's phone buzzed with a text from Sebastian. "Dinner tonight?"

Riley picked up her phone, considering.

In her current state, there was no way she could go.

She typed back, "Can't. I'm in the hospital."

A few minutes later, he replied, "What happened? Are you okay?"

Riley didn't feel like explaining. She simply wrote, "Not feeling well."

After that, she muted her phone and opened the company files Vincent had just sent via encrypted email.

But she'd overestimated her energy.

Under the pale hospital lights, the words on the screen began to blur and swim in front of her tired eyes.

Just as she was starting to drift off, there was a soft knock at the door.

The nurse peeked in. "Ms. Harper? There's a Mr. Torres here to see you."