Chapter 190: The Devil Is In Confusion?
"Nathaniel," Damian said, the rasp in his voice carrying a lethal edge of warning. "Is there a reason you’re roaming the marketing floor during work hours?"
Nathaniel let out a hearty, rumbling chuckle, completely ignoring the frost radiating off the CEO. He leaned in half a step closer, lowering his voice to a booming, knowing whisper.
"I won’t keep you from your duties, my boy. But let’s just say... word travels fast among the senior stakeholders. When the empire’s foundation expands, the entire market breathes a little easier." Nathaniel’s grin widened, and with an audacious, familiar approach, he offered Damian an unmistakable wink. "Congratulations, Damian. Truly. It seems things are finally shifting in the right direction."
With another hearty pat against Damian’s arm, Nathaniel turned on his polished heel and strolled toward the elevator bank, thoroughly pleased with himself.
Silence descended upon the hallway like an iron curtain.
Damian stood frozen to the floor, his jaw locked, his knuckles whitening around the cold edges of Anastasia’s new phone. A chill swept through his veins, chased instantly by a blinding wave of stunned disbelief.
No one dared to speak to him like that. No one dared to wink at him. No one patted his shoulder with smug, familiar warmth.
What the hell is going on in this building? Damian thought, his dark gaze dropping down to the dark, silent screen of the device in his palm.
*******************
Damian didn’t say another word.
His face hardened into a mask of carved granite, the cold weight of the phone practically burning against his palm. Without acknowledging Henry, he turned on his heel and strode back toward the private executive lift.
His long, lethal strides cut through the corridor like an executioner on the march, the lingering echo of Nathaniel’s wink and cryptic congratulations ringing in his ears like static.
Henry fell into step half a pace behind, maintaining a disciplined, watchful silence. The elevator doors slid open, swallowed the two men, and shot upward toward the top floor, sealing the CEO into an icy, simmering rage.
*************
Down in the sunlit lower plaza diner, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Anastasia sat in a deep crimson leather booth, a massive, double-patty cheeseburger resting on the parchment paper before her and a tall glass of artificial pink strawberry milkshake sitting between her hands. She took a slow sip through the red straw, closing her eyes as the cold sweetness finally quelled the bitter churn in her stomach.
"I take it back," Clara said with an amused snort, picking up a golden French fry. "Watching you look at that shake like it’s a religious experience makes me almost believe the antibiotics are doing you a favor."
Ana let out a light laugh, wiping her fingers with a napkin. "I feel human again. Honestly, the grease is doing more for my lungs than the hospital saline."
Before Clara could answer, a woman in a sharply tailored navy pantsuit stopped beside their table. It was Sarah, the vice president of corporate communications... a woman notorious for keeping her distance from marketing affairs unless a brand crisis was brewing.
Sarah offered a soft, guarded smile, dipping her head with an unusual, almost deferential gentleness.
"Ms. Vance," Sarah murmured, keeping her voice low and remarkably considerate. "It’s good to see you back on campus. Please... take very good care of yourself right now. Don’t let the strategy teams push you too hard."
Ana blinked, caught off guard by the woman’s delicate demeanor. She offered a warm, grateful nod. "Thank you, Evelyn. I’m taking it slow today, I promise."
With another knowing, tight-lipped smile, Sarah stepped away, rejoining a pair of associates near the takeout counter.
Ana shook her head faintly, picking up her burger. "Word travels fast in this tower. I suppose everyone in PR heard about the hospital admission over the weekend. It’s sweet of them to be so considerate, though."
Across the table, Clara didn’t pick up her fry.
Her dark eyes tracked Sarah’s retreat, then snapped back to Anastasia. Clara had worked in corporate politics for over a decade... she knew the difference between the polite, distant pity an executive gave someone who survived chemical poisoning and the ginger, walking-on-eggshells reverence Sarah had just displayed.
The pieces clicked together in Clara’s mind with sickening clarity.
The sudden nausea. The total aversion to coffee. The bizarre, specific fast-food craving. And now, the corporate communications lead offered a hushed take good care of yourself like Ana was made of spun glass.
Clara leaned across the booth, her gaze piercing, the playful banter completely evaporating from her demeanor.
"Ana," Clara asked, her voice dropping into a serious, guarded murmur. "Are you hiding something from me?"
Anastasia froze with the cheeseburger halfway to her mouth. She blinked, genuinely caught off guard by the sudden interrogation. A perplexed laugh slipped past her lips as she set the food back onto the wrapper.
"Hiding something?" Ana frowned, tilting her head. "Like what? A secret stash of fries? Clara, what are you even talking about? Why would you ask me that?"
Clara scrutinized her face. Ana’s hazel eyes were wide, clear, and utterly devoid of deception.
If Anastasia actually knew she was pregnant, she wouldn’t keep it locked away, Clara reasoned to herself. She certainly wouldn’t leak it to corporate PR before telling her friend, and she’d never let a whisper network get ahead of her own relationship.
Whatever was circulating through the veins of Sterling Tower, Anastasia Vance was completely in the dark about it.
"It’s nothing," Clara said quickly, forcing a casual wave of her hand as she leaned back against the red leather. "Just Sarah acting strange. You know how PR executives get whenever the Sterling name touches the news... they start tiptoeing around like everyone’s made of porcelain."
"Tell me about it," Ana sighed, blotting her lips with a napkin. She finished the last sip of her strawberry shake, feeling significantly more grounded and energized than she had all morning.
She slid out from the booth, smoothing down the front of her charcoal trousers.
"I should get moving," Ana said, checking the sleek watch on her wrist. "Damian probably has that replacement phone ready by now, and if I leave him alone with his brooding for too long, he’ll find an excuse to drag me straight back to the hospital. I’m heading up to his office."
*************
The private executive elevator chimed with a low, pneumatic chime as it opened onto the top floor.
Damian strode out, the replacement phone gripped firmly in his hand, its dormant glass cold against his skin.
Henry followed two paces behind, holding an encrypted folder, the silence between them heavy with the lingering echo of Nathaniel Sutton’s cryptic congratulations.
Reaching the doors of his corner office, Damian pushed them open with lethal, unhurried authority.
The scene that greeted him made him stop dead on the threshold.
Valerie was behind his massive mahogany desk.
Her designer wool coat was tossed haphazardly over the arm of his executive leather chair, her dark hair a frantic, disheveled mess.
She was leaning over his workspace, hands flying across the leather blotter, violently shifting stacks of acquisition briefs, tearing through the mail sorter, and yanking open the top drawer of his private credenza in a state of manic, frantic desperation.
"Where is it... where the hell did he put it..." she muttered under her breath, her voice trembling with sheer panic as she overturned an engraved pen holder.
Behind Damian, Henry stepped to the side, his posture rigid with professional shock at the outright invasion of the executive desk.
Damian didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t rush forward. He simply stepped into the office, letting the heavy doors swing shut behind him with a dull, echoing click that sliced through the room like a gunshot.
"Looking for something, Valerie?"
The low, velvet rasp of his voice struck her like an electric shock.
Valerie froze, both hands buried in his top desk drawer. The breath seized completely in her throat, the color draining from her face in an instant as she slowly, terrifyingly turned her head to face her brother.