The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 561

The same monotonous routine had dragged on for over a week, and Clara spun through her days like a top, terrified to stop.

If she stopped for even a second, the panic in her chest would become unbearable.

Emily was coming in for her NT screening today. Daniel was originally supposed to accompany her, but he had a sudden, inescapable emergency court hearing.

Mr. Reed had acted like he was facing a major crisis and even planned to hire two premium care nurses at a high price to follow her around. Emily thought he was blowing things out of proportion, so she simply dragged Clara down from the floor above.

In the pampered heiress's words: "Staying cooped up in a hospital room every day will make even the healthiest person sick. Just consider it keeping me company. Come down, get half an hour of fresh air, and clear your head."

Clara knew Emily was just making excuses.

Even without Daniel, Emily was a grown woman fully capable of handling registration and check-ups on her own. Calling her down was just a pretext because she was afraid Clara was genuinely going to lose her mind from the isolation.

And she truly was on the verge of losing it.

Stepping out of the elevator, Clara immediately spotted Emily sitting on a bench in the waiting area.

"Clara, over here!" Emily looked up, saw her, and waved.

Clara sat down beside her, subconsciously rubbing her lower back.

"Is it crowded today? You should have told me last night so I could come early to handle the paperwork for you. It's too exhausting waiting in line by yourself."

"It's not tiring. I just needed to show up on time and sign in," Emily answered casually, her gaze fixing on Clara's face.

She didn't look like a family member accompanying a patient at all; she looked more haggard than the actual patient lying in the hospital bed.

She touched the back of Clara's hand. It was ice-cold.

"You're freezing. Did you skip breakfast?" Emily frowned. "You look awful. Hasn't Rhys already been moved out of the ICU? He's stabilized, right? So why do you look more like you're on your deathbed than he does?"

Clara felt helpless against her rapid-fire questions.

Shaking her head, she said, "I had a few bites. I've probably just been too exhausted these past few days, plus I haven't been sleeping well. I just don't have much of an appetite and can't stomach a lot of food."

It broke Emily's heart to hear that. She squeezed Clara's hand a little tighter. "Rhys's situation isn't going to be resolved overnight. Didn't Dr. Black say all his vitals are under control now? If you run yourself into the ground first, who's going to take care of him when it's time for his surgery? And what about Felix?"

Clara understood every single word.

From the very first day Rhys was hospitalized, she had repeated those exact words to herself countless times.

Rhys had to wait for a lung transplant, undergo surgery, and endure a long recovery period afterward. Felix had only just worked through his psychological trauma and was finally able to act like a normal kid who could whine and cry. The company had just launched, and Simon and Alex were so busy they barely had time to breathe.

She was a wife, a mother, and a business partner.

So she couldn't collapse.

Watching her walk into the consultation room, Clara leaned back against the chair, closed her eyes, and massaged her throbbing temples.

People constantly walked up and down the corridor, mostly expectant mothers accompanied by their husbands.

Footsteps, murmurs, intercom announcements, and the distant ringing of phones at the nurse's station.

This place was brimming with vibrant life—the absolute opposite extreme of the building next door, which was suffocated by the smell of antiseptic and the rhythmic beeping of monitors.

Clara could hear snippets of conversation from every couple that passed by.

"Are the results out? Let me see."

"The doctor said everything is completely normal, so don't worry."

"Hey, slow down, what's the rush?"

Every single sentence was so utterly ordinary. In any normal family, these conversations were too mundane to even mention.

But she desperately wanted that kind of "completely normal."

A moment later, a couple who had just finished getting blood drawn sat down beside her. The husband was holding a bag of greasy sausage breakfast sandwiches. He opened the bag and handed it to his wife. "Hungry? Take a few bites to tide you over."