Even Finn Lockwood couldn’t suppress a light cough at the term "Madam," and he found himself studying Sophie Winslow carefully. He wondered if Sophie had always had such a dry sense of humor.
A cold, mocking smirk played on Stella Sutton’s lips. She had no desire to bicker with Sophie over such sour, jealousy-driven remarks. Her gaze shifted to Sophie’s car. "Is this your car?"
"I stole it," Sophie replied flippantly, thinking the woman’s question was completely brain-dead.
Julian Sterling shot her a cool, indifferent look, but Sophie’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. Surely he wasn’t going to settle scores with her just because she had teased his precious Madam.
Finn knew that Sophie was deliberately changing her personality to play an unconventional game, so he stepped in to point out the issue on Stella’s behalf. "Sophie, I think you need to reflect on this. It’s highly inappropriate for you to use matching couple’s license plates with Julian, isn’t it? Won’t this make the public mistakenly believe you’re Mrs. Sterling?"
Couple’s plates? Sophie frowned. Following the direction Finn was pointing, she noticed a brand-new Rolls-Royce parked not far from her own car. The first few characters of its license plate matched hers exactly. The only difference was the final digit: hers was a 7, and the other was a 3.
Her 7, and Julian’s 3. Anyone would assume they were matching plates. Parked so close together, they were incredibly conspicuous, especially since both were universally recognized as top-tier luxury vehicles.
Yet Finn’s comment about "mistakenly believing she’s Mrs. Sterling" was utterly laughable. She had legally married the man—did she really need to use a word like "mistakenly" to clarify their relationship? Was this what Stella was kicking up a fuss about?
"Plates this similar... what a coincidence. You really went out of your way," Stella said, her condescending gaze sweeping over Sophie. Her tone remained steady, but a faint sneer tugged at the corner of her mouth.
"Are you implying I did this on purpose?" Sophie understood perfectly what the other woman was getting at.
Stella suddenly chuckled. "I never said that. Why are you in such a rush to defend yourself? It’s not like I’m angry with you."
Sophie found the entire situation completely absurd. Stella was putting on an act that was far more arrogant than her own. How was she defending herself? And what right did Stella have to be angry with her anyway? In what capacity? Did true love suddenly render marriage laws useless?
"If you’re so prone to anger, I can prescribe you some herbal remedies to clear your heat and calm your nerves," Sophie offered, her tone perfectly placid.
"There’s no need for that, Sophie. She’s just talking to you nicely and reasonably asking about your license plate," Finn admonished. He grew increasingly convinced that Sophie was deliberately targeting Stella. Getting such a similar license plate just to provoke Stella—when women got jealous and bitter, they truly could be unreasonable and absurd.
Stella followed Finn’s lead, saying with high-sounding righteousness, "I’m only advising you for your own good. That license plate number is unlucky. You’d be better off changing it."
Sophie looked at her quietly. It was blatantly obvious that Stella was bothered and angry about the matching plates with Julian, yet she insisted on putting on airs and pretending to be magnanimous.
She then looked at Julian, who had been indulging Stella this entire time. The man happened to lift his eyelashes, meeting her gaze. His eyes were completely unreadable. Sophie couldn’t discern if Julian was actually annoyed by the coincidental matching plates. However, his indulgence of Stella spoke volumes about his stance.
Her patience nearly exhausted, Sophie stared at him without blinking or backing down. "Please keep your brother’s wife in check."
The moment those words fell, Stella’s expression changed drastically. Even Finn’s smile froze. He immediately glanced around to ensure no one was listening.
Julian watched Sophie as she got into her car. He knew she had said that specifically to disgust everyone present. Since when had Sophie grown so many sharp thorns?
"Julian?" Stella couldn’t help but clench her fists in anger.
Julian’s gaze finally withdrew from the silhouette of Sophie’s car. "I’ll take you home. Don’t take it to heart."
Stella frowned again, her eyes lingering silently on the license plate of Julian’s car. As a woman, how could she not see right through Sophie’s scheming? On one hand, Sophie was taking an unconventional route, using erratic words and actions to attract Julian’s attention. On the other hand, she was pulling these underhanded tricks to mislead the public about her relationship with him, dying to have people speculate about who she was to Julian. What a master of manipulation. She disdained fighting with Sophie over something so petty; it was far beneath her.
Sophie headed back to the Helios Research Center. She had a new drug to develop and needed to oversee matters related to intelligent healthcare. There was still a lot to finalize before the new year.
The research center was mostly filled with pharmaceutical scientists who only knew how to bury their heads in drug data, and many of them were voluntarily working overtime.
Ivy Hawthorne worked in program planning and had been so busy lately that her feet barely touched the ground. When she finally managed to squeeze out some free time to meet up for dinner, Sophie decided to head home and cook for Ivy herself.
Sophie wasn’t exactly a great cook; she learned every dish by strictly following tutorials, having to re-watch the instructions every single time before she started cooking.
Ivy couldn’t help but click her tongue. "I strongly suggest that since Lydia is growing, you should just let me raise the kid. I’m much better at this than you are."
Sophie shot her a glance over her shoulder. The woman’s ulterior motives were blatantly obvious. "My everyday cooking might be average, but I’m actually amazing at nutritional meals, medicinal diets, and dietary ratios," Sophie countered. At the very least, she could keep a person in peak physical health.
"Lydia is only five and a half! If you feed her rich supplements every day, she’ll overheat. Don’t be a psycho!" Ivy was genuinely entertaining the thought of stealing the child. Lydia was so cool, cute, and well-behaved that anyone’s heart would melt at the sight of her.
Sophie laughed until she was gasping for breath. She had originally picked up her phone to search for recipes, but absentmindedly tapped into her Instagram feed. It was like a reflex—she had to scroll around for a bit before getting back to whatever she was supposed to be doing.
A casual scroll turned up something unexpected. She saw a Instagram post that Finn had uploaded not too long ago. It was a photo of Julian’s brand-new Rolls-Royce, except... the license plate had been changed.
Finn’s caption read, "It’s truly unbearable when someone tries to ride your coattails. Even a similar plate is unacceptable. Miss Sutton picked out the new number herself. Talk about exceptional, exclusive treatment."
Sophie knew Finn had posted it specifically for her to see.
When they had first added each other as contacts, Julian’s friends had all individually put her on their restricted lists. She was completely excluded from their friend group’s affairs and anything concerning Julian. The only reason she even knew she had been grouped into a restricted list was because Ivy and the others ran in the same circles and shared contacts.
Back then, she had been naive and foolish enough to ask them openly at a gathering, "Do you guys just not like posting on Instagram? I’ve never seen any of you post anything."
At the time, the entire table had just smiled in silence. It wasn’t until later, when she saw Finn’s and the others’ posts through Ivy’s Instagram feed, that she realized how much of a clown she had made of herself by asking that in public. Those meaningful looks they had exchanged were pure, unadulterated mockery.
She had felt incredibly humiliated then. It wasn’t that she wanted to pry into their lives; it was just that being blocked by Julian’s friends felt as if she had been deliberately erased from his life and existence. It left her feeling an inevitable sense of disappointment.
Following that realization, she had gone to Julian’s study and gently asked him why all his friends had blocked her. She remembered how Julian hadn’t even bothered to look up.
He had merely countered coolly, "How would you even know if you weren’t purposely stalking them? Do you really need to go to such lengths just to check up on me?"