Chapter 67 It's YOU, you Imbecile!
Elena's POV
It's been a month. One whole month of simmering rage, indignation, and silent plotting.
And I'm still furious at me. Furious at the universe. And absolutely, completely, unequivocally furious that Damian-my Damian, the idiot who got me pregnant-has the audacity to be out there gallivanting with Rachael like nothing happened.
Like he didn't just ruin my uterus.
Damian, of course, was seated across the conference table in his usual smugly charming way, his designer suit perfectly tailored, hair impossibly styled, and that infuriating half-smile that made women swoon and men hate him in equal measure.
I'm sitting in the middle of a meeting, trying my absolute best to look calm and professional while listening to Damian prattle on about quarterly projections.
My jaw is tight. My hands are folded neatly on the table, but inside, I am simmering like a pressure cooker.
I mean-seriously.
I clench my fists under the table, nails digging into my palms.
My stomach churns. Not just because of the looming nausea that's become my constant companion this month, but also because he's there, charming, oblivious, and happy.
"-and that's why the Q2 projections are looking promising," Damian says, flicking the pointer at the slide. "Any questions?"
I raise my hand mechanically, the room barely noticing, my mind racing. My stomach flips violently. Oh no. Not now. Not during this meeting.
"Excuse me," I choked out, the word barely a rasp. I shoved my chair back so violently it crashed into the wall behind me, making a sound loud enough to silence Damian mid-sentence.
I didn't walk; I launched. Down the hallway, past the gaping faces of the junior staff, toward the safe harbor of the executive bathroom. I barely made it to the sink before the world turned inside out.
I throw up. Again. And again. And again. I can feel the anger and nausea spinning together in a perfect storm. He got me pregnant, and he doesn't even know it yet.
"Unbelievable," I mutter. "You-him-ugh-why now?!"
I wanted to text him right then: Congratulations, you're an inadvertent sperm donor. Now stop looking at Rachael's cheekbones.
The rest of the afternoon was torture. I powered through the afternoon reports, but my head was swimming. The fluorescent lights hummed with aggressive energy.
My internal clock screamed for a nap, but I had a deadline. Eventually, the world started to tilt. My skin felt clammy and stretched tight over my skull.
I gave in, lowering my head onto my folded arms, letting the cold metal of my watch press against my temple.
A gentle tap on my shoulder makes me startle.
"Elena... you okay?"
I lift my head, squinting. Damian. Of course it's him. His hand rests lightly on my shoulder, a tentative gesture that makes my blood boil with irony.
"I'm fine," I snap, shoving him away. "Do not touch me. Leave me alone!"
He frowns, taking a half-step back. "You look pale. Really pale. Are you sure-?"
"I said I'm fine!" I yell, voice cracking.
"You are clearly not fine. You barely made it through the meeting and then disappeared for half an hour."
I tried to stand, to make a dignified exit, to prove I was functional, but my legs betrayed me. The ground rushed up to meet my face.
And then-black.
I felt the immediate, powerful impact of his arms catching me, lifting me effortlessly from the seat. His grip was a vice-firm, immediate, and utterly efficient. I was a passenger in my own emergency.
"Hospital. Now," I heard him bark, his voice clipped and serious.
I dimly registered the smell of his expensive cologne and the feeling of being strapped into the passenger seat of his sleek sports car.
He was driving like a maniac, swerving through traffic, my bag clutched in his other hand.
The next thing I remember is the bright, sterile white of the Emergency Room. A nurse was attaching a cuff to my arm.
Damian was hovering, a monument of frustrated competence.
"She's been exhausted, severely stressed," he was telling the nurse, painting a picture of a typical executive assistant breakdown.
If only you knew, Damian, I thought weakly.
Suddenly, my phone started ringing-the loud, annoying one reserved only for my mother.
"I'll grab it," Damian muttered, moving toward my leather satchel on the side table.
As he reached for the phone, something small and stiff fluttered out of the side pocket and drifted silently to the floor. It was a folded piece of paper.
I watched, helpless, as Damian instinctively bent and picked it up. He unfolded it, his movements slow and mechanical.
The ultrasound image.
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crack the glass walls. Damian's face went utterly blank, the high-powered CEO persona evaporating, leaving only shock and confusion.
"Elena," he whispered, his eyes wide as saucers, glued to the grainy image. "You... you're pregnant?"
I didn't speak. I just watched his brain try to process the image of the foetus and the cold, hard, fact that it belonged to me. He looked at the date stamp on the image, and then back at me.
The timeline. He knew the approximate date of our mutual, reckless stupidity. He had to know it was his.
But then, the most infuriating thing happened. His gaze flickered away, a shutter dropping behind his eyes.
He replaced the shock with a carefully constructed mask of concern, pushing the photo away from him.
"Who... who is the father?" he asked, his voice low, official, and utterly without a hint of self-recognition.
I realized, with a blinding flash of renewed, cosmic rage, that he had compartmentalized our night so completely that he saw the ultrasound, knew the date, and still didn't consider himself a viable candidate. He thought I was just sleeping around with someone else.
The realization was so sharp, so utterly unjust, that my vision narrowed again, my head spun, and before I could even open my mouth to scream "It's YOU, you imbecile!" the welcome blackness mercifully returned, drowning out the man who got me knocked up and didn't even know he'd done it.