Chapter 71: The Devil’s A Bastard
"Damian was forced to marry her... when his heart was still completely mine!" Vivian’s sobbing voice echoed off the marble tiles, feeding the stunned crowd of onlookers outside.
Ana stood paralyzed, the world spinning around her. But as the whispers in the hallway grew louder, a sudden, blinding heat tore through the ice in her veins.
The fear melted away, replaced by raw, unfiltered rage.
Ana stepped forward, her dark eyes flashing with pure fury. She looked down at Vivian... screaming on the floor, clutching her torn blouse like a tragic victim... and snapped.
"If you want him that much, Vivian, go get him yourself!" Ana’s voice cut through the washroom like a whip, loud and sharp enough for the entire floor to hear. "If he wants you so badly... like you claim... Then why is he with me now? Go and beg him to accept you!"
Vivian’s fake sobbing abruptly stopped. Her face contorted into a hideous, ugly snarl as Ana’s words stripped away her victim facade right in front of the crowd.
Triggered past her breaking point, Vivian surged up onto her knees, her eyes burning with pure venom.
"Of course he wanted me!"
Vivian shrieked, throwing away every ounce of calculated caution... She didn’t care about the aftermath.
"Do you want to know what he said when he heard about your pathetic little miscarriage, Anastasia?! He told me he was glad! He was relieved that your broken, worthless womb didn’t tie him to the Vance family forever!"
A collective gasp echoed through the hallway.
The security guards froze. The employees backed away in absolute shock.
In a single, horrific breath, Vivian’s victim acted completely shattered... leaving her exposed as a malicious monster, and painting Damian as a cold, heartless bastard.
Ana felt her chest cave in.
An agonizing, suffocating humiliation washed over her as she felt every single pair of eyes in that hallway pinning her down.
Her deepest, most painful scar... the quiet, private agony of her lost child... had just been sliced open and thrown onto the floor for the entire office to stare at.
She could feel their pity, their shock, their invasive stares burning into her skin like fire.
She felt stripped naked, exposed, and entirely broken.
The room went black at the edges. Before Clara or anyone else could reach out to her, Ana shoved past the frozen crowd, sprinting blindly down the corridor toward the private elevators. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think under the weight of those stares. She just needed to run.
She burst out of the glass lobby of Sterling Global and fled into the rain, leaving before Damian’s elevator even reached the marketing floor.
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Anastasia sat tucked in the corner booth of a quiet, dimly lit café three blocks away.
Her hair was damp, her body trembling uncontrollably as she stared down at the untouched cup of hot tea in front of her. The heavy, suffocating silence of the café was the only thing keeping her from screaming aloud.
The bell above the door chimed.
Heavy, familiar footsteps crossed the hardwood floor, stopping right beside her booth.
Damian stood above her, his expensive coat lightly dusted with rain, his obsidian eyes dark and searching. He stared down at her trembling frame, trying to piece together what could have possibly driven her to sprint out of the building before he could even arrive.
"Anastasia," Damian spoke, his baritone low as he studied her pale face. "What happened back there? Why did you leave the office?"
Ana didn’t look up at him. She couldn’t bear to see his face.
"Please... just leave me alone, Damian," Ana whispered, her voice dangerously thin and trembling. "I am not in my right mind right now. Just go."
Damian’s jaw tightened slightly. Instead of leaving, he looked down at her with sharp, unyielding judgment.
"Only weak people run from the battlefield, Anastasia," Damian said smoothly, his voice dropping like iron between them.
Something inside Ana violently snapped.
"Weak?" She whispered, her voice cracking.
She slammed her hands on the table and stood up so fast her chair screeched against the floor. "I am sick of your game, Damian!"
Without another word, she shoved past him and bolted out the café door, plunging back into the heavy, pouring rain.
The downpour was merciless, drenching her within seconds as she blindly walked down the slick, empty sidewalk. The cold water washed over her face, blending with the burning tears she could no longer hold back.
A heavy, warm hand clamped around her arm, pulling her to a sudden halt.
Damian spun her around to face him, his broad frame shielding her from the wind, his grip tight on her wet skin. "Stop running, Ana..."
"LET ME GO!" Ana screamed, her voice breaking into a ragged, desperate sob under the roaring rain. She beat her small fist against his broad chest, fighting against his grip with everything she had left.
"She brought up my dead baby again!" Ana wept uncontrollably, the agony pouring out of her chest in raw, suffocating waves. "She mocked my baby, Damian! She sat there in front of everyone and mocked our loss, and told me you were glad it happened!"
Damian’s dark eyes widened slightly, a sudden, lethal stillness washing over his sharp features.
"I am so tired..." Ana sobbed, her knees giving out beneath her as the weight of the past two years crushed her entirely. "It kills me every single day, Damian... it kills me!"
With trembling, slippery fingers, Ana aggressively yanked the massive, blinding diamond ring off her finger. She didn’t care about Marcus. She didn’t care about his threats or his slave contract anymore.
She threw the ring directly at his chest.
"Take it back!" she cried out.
The silver band hit his damp shirt and fell into the pooling rain on the pavement.
Ana’s strength vanished completely. She caved inward, her face burying directly into the crook of Damian’s broad chest, her hands clutching weakly at his soaked lapels as she broke down into quiet, uncontrollable tears under the dark, heavy storm.
For the first time in two years, the cold, ruthless barrier in Damian completely vanished.
He didn’t pull away. He didn’t mock her.
His large, heavy arms wrapped firmly around her waist and back, pulling her drenched, broken body flush against his heat, sheltering her completely in his embrace under the pouring rain.