Her gaze rested quietly on the blanket spread over the sofa, and realizing there was only this set prepared in the guest room, Elly Campbell still picked up the blanket, planning to bring it to Adam Jones.
Just at that moment, the door to the master bedroom was pushed open once again.
Upon hearing the noise, Elly Campbell instinctively turned her head and saw Adam Jones reappear in the master bedroom, holding a cup of water in his hand, and walked towards her with measured steps.
Elly Campbell stared at him blankly, watching as he approached her and extended the cup of water towards her.
In his other hand, he held a contraceptive pill, which he also extended towards her.
Elly Campbell paused, looking up at him with a hint of confusion, meeting his somber gaze, and felt a sudden tightness in her chest.
Seeing Adam Jones manage a bleak smile, he said, "Take it."
Elly Campbell stood still, quietly observing the pill resting in Adam Jones’s palm, her feelings complicated.
She heard Adam continue, "It’s okay if you’re not ready yet; we can wait until you are. I’m not in a rush."
He forced a smile, God knows how much he wished he could have a daughter, a daughter just like Elly, but he knew now was not the right time.
Even though she let him get close, she had never trusted him unconditionally. How could she let down all her guards to have another daughter for him?
If he didn’t make her take the pill now, and she ended up pregnant, she would definitely opt for an abortion.
Wounding her body was something he could not bear.
Since he couldn’t bear it, he could only give up the possibility of having this child.
Seeing Elly Campbell still standing there, gazing dazedly at the pill without any motion, he suppressed the sorrow in his eyes and said with a strained cheerfulness:
"If you don’t take it now, I’m going to change my mind, and if you get pregnant, don’t think about terminating it."
No sooner had his words fallen than Elly Campbell swiftly picked up the pill from his palm, placed it in her mouth, took the cup of water from his hand, and swallowed the pill neatly.
Adam took the cup back from her hand, placed it on the table in the master bedroom, and, looking at the color of the sky outside, said:
"I’ve got an international conference to attend. You should get some sleep, no need to wait for me."
With that, he patted Elly Campbell’s shoulder, took his laptop, and went into the adjacent study.
Elly Campbell stood where she was, glanced at the cup on the table, then at the retreating figure of Adam Jones heading into the study.
For some reason, in the moment when that man turned his back and walked into the study, his tall figure seemed so lonely it was heart-wrenching.
When Adam Jones entered the study, he casually closed the sliding door, separating the master bedroom from the study. The forced relaxed smile on Adam’s face instantly disappeared.
Knowing she didn’t dare to carry his child again, but seeing how decisively she took the pill after he said, "If you get pregnant, don’t think about terminating it," that familiar, unbearable pain rushed toward his heart like a ferocious beast.
It hurt so much that he could only hide to the side, gritting his teeth and enduring.
After a while, he managed to suppress the pain in his heart, took a deep breath, stepped over to his desk, opened his computer, and started the meeting.
At this hour, it was just the start of the workday in San Francisco.
Elly Campbell thought she had grown accustomed to Adam Jones’s heart of stone, and even though she knew she couldn’t let go of him, she didn’t think she was completely unable to harden her heart.
But at this moment, she realized she wasn’t as strong as she had imagined.
It was just a contraceptive pill she had taken, yet from the moment he discovered the contraceptive, to him personally getting her water to swallow it, and now to him entering the study alone, her entire heart felt blocked by something, a suffocating discomfort.