Chapter 533
Chapter 532:
Her trembling hands fumbled blindly through her Hermès bag for a mint, for anything. Her fingers were numb and clumsy. The bag slipped from her grasp and spilled across the floorboards. Jocelyn pressed a hand over her mouth and curled into a tight ball on the wide seat, her body wracked with dry heaves.
The driver heard the sounds. He pulled the vehicle immediately onto the shoulder, threw it into park, retrieved a bottle of Evian from the console, and handed it back without a word.
Jocelyn took a small sip. The cold water hit her stomach and threatened to come straight back up. The dizziness was worsening. The world tilted sideways and refused to right itself.
She couldn’t go back to the penthouse. She couldn’t face Gaston — not yet. Not until she could separate the sick woman’s venom from the painful truth it had been wrapped around. She couldn’t let him see her like this, undone by the words of a woman he despised. It would feel like a betrayal. She needed to be steady when she faced him next. She needed an ally, not a witness.
Using the last of her fading strength, Jocelyn reached down and retrieved her phone from the floor. She scrolled past Gaston’s name and pressed Bella’s number instead.
The line connected.
“Bella,” she whispered, her voice barely holding together. “I’m sick. I’m having the driver take me to the private clinic on the Upper East Side. Meet me there. Don’t tell Gaston p>
The Maybach pulled back onto the highway and accelerated toward the city, while Jocelyn faded into a dark, suffocating semi-consciousness in the backseat.
An hour later, the armored Maybach pulled into a discreet private alleyway on the Upper East Side, coming to a smooth stop at the rear entrance of an ultra-exclusive medical clinic.
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Bella was already on the pavement, pacing frantically. The moment the heavy car door swung open, she rushed forward.
Jocelyn looked like a ghost. Her skin was the color of ash, her lips pale and bloodless. The driver practically had to carry her out of the vehicle.
“Oh my god, Jo!” Bella shrieked, grabbing Jocelyn’s arm and taking her weight. She barked at the clinic staff waiting by the door. “Get a wheelchair — now p>
Jocelyn slumped into the leather wheelchair, her head lolling back against the headrest. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow. She didn’t have the strength to speak. When Bella asked what had happened, she could only manage a weak, dismissive shake of her head.
The clinic’s VIP attending physician rushed them through the private corridors and directly into a lavish, soundproofed examination suite.
Bella was forced to wait in the hallway. She paced the carpeted floor, phone clutched tightly in her hand, staring at Gaston’s contact name on the screen. She knew the billionaire would burn the city to the ground if he found out Jocelyn was in a hospital bed without him. But remembering Jocelyn’s weak, terrified voice on the phone, Bella decided to wait for the test results first.
Inside the bright, sterile room, nurses drew vials of blood from Jocelyn’s arm and hooked her up to a glucose IV drip.