Chapter 191: Devil’s Ex Wife Is Pregnant?
Heavy doors clicked, locking the room in a suffocating vacuum.
Valerie slowly pulled her shaking hands out of the mahogany drawer. Her knuckles were stark white, her throat completely paralyzed as Damian stepped forward. He didn’t rush. His movements were slow, measured, and terrifyingly calm—the predatory stride of a man who held every single card.
"I asked you a question, Valerie," Damian said, his voice dropping into a lethal, velvet whisper that raised the hairs on her neck. "What could possibly be so vital that you chased my executive assistant, broke building protocol, and decided to ransack my desk?"
"Damian, I—I was just looking for..." Valerie stammered, her voice cracking as she pressed her back against the high leather spine of his executive chair, desperately searching the corners of the room for an escape that didn’t exist. "A charger. My phone died in the cab, and I had to make a call, and I thought—"
"A charger." Damian tilted his head, a dry, humorless smirk carving into his lips. "In my private acquisitions drawer. Beneath three sealed non-disclosure agreements."
He closed the distance until barely two feet separated them across the polished wood, his obsidian eyes boring into her skull with arctic precision.
"Try again. Before I have building security escort you to the curb like a common trespasser."
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
The sharp, sudden vibration of a phone cut through the deadly silence.
Damian’s jaw tightened. He didn’t turn around, his gaze remaining pinned on Valerie’s terrified face.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Ping. Bzzzt.
The vibrations didn’t stop. A rapid-fire barrage of alerts began hammering the device inside Henry’s breast pocket, buzzing against the quiet of the office like an enraged hornet.
Bzzzt. Ping. Bzzzt.
"Silence it, Henry," Damian warned, the rasp in his voice fraying with raw irritation.
"Apologies, Mr. Sterling, it’s—"
Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
The notifications multiplied with frantic speed—calls, corporate chat pings, high-priority board alerts firing off in an unbroken, deafening chain.
Damian finally snapped. He whipped his head around, his eyes blazing with fury as he glared at his assistant.
"Get out," Damian growled, the command slicing through the air like a blade. "Take that damn thing and get out of my office until you learn how to use a mute switch."
Henry gave a stiff, immediate bow. "Right away, sir."
Stepping quickly backward, Henry slipped through the double doors, letting the latch click firmly shut behind him to restore the room to its tense, suffocating interrogation.
Out in the quiet, carpeted corridor, Henry exhaled a sharp, exasperated breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose, thoroughly aggravated at having been dressed down for the fifth time before midday over administrative chaos.
"What on earth could possibly be blowing up this urgently..." Henry muttered under his breath, his brow furrowing in deep annoyance as he reached into his jacket and pulled out his secure company device.
The screen lit up with over forty unread alerts, executive group chats, and marked-urgent memos from senior vice presidents, institutional liaisons, and private investor lines.
Henry tapped the screen to open the primary thread.
As his eyes scanned the top three messages, every ounce of professional composure drained instantly from his body. His posture went completely rigid, his breath catching dead in his throat, and his eyes blew wide in sheer, unadulterated shock.
Damian turned back to his sister, the icy composure on his face hardening into pure, unyielding dominance. He closed the remaining distance in two brutal strides, rounding the mahogany desk and catching Valerie firmly by the forearm.
"Damian, wait! Stop, you’re hurting me!" Valerie gasped, dragging her heels against the plush carpet as he hauled her effortlessly toward the center of the room. "Let go of me right now!"
"I have indulged your juvenile tantrums for entirely too long," Damian said, his low, gravelly tone flat and completely remorseless as he dragged her forward. "It’s time I ship you to a branch office abroad—perhaps Geneva or Zurich—where you can learn some actual discipline and manners. Clearly, I have been far too soft on you."
"You can’t just deport your own sister because of a desk drawer!" Valerie whined, squirming against his iron grip.
Her eyes frantically darted downward in search of leverage, and that was when she saw it. Clutched tightly in his other hand was the pristine, dark-screened flagship device fresh from the tech wing.
Anastasia’s phone.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. The fear of getting shipped across the Atlantic vanished beneath a wave of pure, desperate survival instinct.
"Wait—is that Ana’s phone?" Valerie asked, her voice hitching as she abruptly stopped fighting his grip, pointing an eager, trembling finger at the device. "Just give it to me! I’m heading downstairs anyway. I’ll take it straight to her on my way out so she has it for her meetings. Just hand it over!"
Damian halted, looking at her with absolute, incredulous disbelief.
His grip on her arm didn’t loosen by a fraction of an inch. His obsidian eyes narrowed, studying her sudden, frantic compliance with sheer, cynical mockery.
"Are you serious?" Damian drawled, his voice dripping with venomous amusement. "One second you are shrieking like a condemned prisoner, and the next you’re begging to run personal courier errands for my wife? What is literally going on inside that empty head of yours today?"
"I’m just trying to help!" Valerie blurted, blood rushing to her ears as she tried to spin another lie. "I know I broke the last one, and I felt terrible about it, so I thought if I just—"
BANG!
The heavy double frosted-glass doors flew open with violent force, rebounding off the interior stops with a thunderous shudder.
Henry stood panting in the open doorway, his tie slightly askew, his trademark stoic composure utterly obliterated. His face was the color of chalk.
"Sir!" Henry gasped, stepping straight across the threshold without an ounce of his usual measured protocol. "We have a massive problem on our hands!"
Damian didn’t release Valerie’s arm, but his head snapped toward his assistant, his brow furrowing in irritation. He naturally braced for a catastrophic market short, a corporate security breach, or a hostile regulatory raid from Wall Street.
"What is it, Henry?" Damian demanded, his voice turning crisp, sharp, and business-ready. "What exactly happened?"
Henry swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as he struggled for breath, the sheer volume of internal leaks and shareholder inquiries overriding every professional filter he possessed.
"Everyone thinks Mrs. Sterling is pregnant!" Henry blurted out.
The office went dead, breathless, and terrifyingly still. The air turned to liquid lead.
Damian’s grip on Valerie went slack. His hand fell to his side, his face draining of all color as his dark eyes locked onto Henry with a chilling, predatory stillness that could crack glass.
"What," Damian whispered, the velvet rasp of his voice deadlier than a loaded gun, "did you just say?"