Chapter 20: Sienna is Also Pregnant
Meanwhile, Sienna was inspecting Evelyn and Damian’s bedroom like the lady of the house. She pulled open the nightstand drawer, going through the items Evelyn had left behind one by one. A folded piece of paper fell out. It turned out to be Evelyn’s pregnancy test report.
A child?
No! This absolutely cannot happen!
This would ruin everything for her!
Without hesitation, she found a lighter and burned the thin paper to ashes. Watching the black fragments drift away, a vicious smile appeared on her face.
The next day, Damian and Evelyn agreed to meet at a Michelin restaurant. The moment Evelyn arrived at the reserved table, she saw a sickening sight.
Damian was sitting with Sienna. Sienna was practically leaning against him, the posture intimate.
Seeing Evelyn, Sienna did not pull back. Instead, she curved a victorious smile, took a document from her bag, and pushed it towards Damian.
“Darling, look, our baby is very healthy.”
It was a pregnancy test report. The name on it was Sienna.
Evelyn felt like a clumsy joke. The air seemed to freeze, and she was nailed firmly to the spot.
Her gaze was locked on that pregnancy test report.
Sienna.
“Our baby.”
These words echoed repeatedly in Evelyn’s mind, like relentless slaps, making her dizzy and her stomach churn.
What was she here for?
For the nascent life in her womb, for a final, dignified negotiation regarding those eight years of affection, and for the people she had implicated...
She had carried a ridiculously faint thread of hope, ready to reveal her hand, negotiate, and even compromise for the sake of the child.
And the result?
Reality had delivered the loudest slap in the face.
Damian finally looked up. In the deep eyes that Evelyn had once been lost in, there was not a trace of surprise or guilt, only the annoyance of being interrupted. He did not even gesture for her to sit down. He just stared at her coldly, as if she were a stranger who had trespassed at an inappropriate time.
Sienna’s smile, meanwhile, grew brighter, like a blooming, thorned rose. She pressed herself closer to Damian, one hand proudly stroking her flat stomach, the other draped showily over Damian’s shoulder.
“What is wrong, Evelyn?” Sienna said. “Are you not happy for us? You always wanted Damian to have a child, did you not? Now, I have made it happen for him.”
Evelyn ignored her, her gaze cutting through the candlelight on the table and straight at Damian.
“Damian, is what she is saying... true?”
Damian’s brow furrowed slightly, apparently annoyed by her questioning. He picked up the wine glass on the table, gently swirling the crimson liquid inside. His gaze rested on the glass wall, deliberately avoiding hers.
“It is true.”
Three words.
Three light words, yet they struck like three bullets, instantly shattering Evelyn’s last line of defense. That pathetic hope, that courage summoned for the sake of the child, completely collapsed at this moment, ceasing to exist. Eight years of affection, eight years of devotion, had turned out to be nothing more than a self-deceiving solo act.
She felt hollow inside and out, left only with bone deep coldness and boundless absurdity.
A burst of laughter erupted from Evelyn’s chest without warning. The laughter was dry and broken, like rusty gears grinding to turn, jarringly prominent in the quiet restaurant.
She laughed.
She laughed at the scoundrels in front of her, at her own foolish eight years of love, and at the child in her womb who might lose its father before it was even formed.
“Evelyn, are you alright?” Sienna feigned concern, knitting her brow, but her hand clutched Damian’s arm tighter, practically hanging on him. “Do not scare me. I know this might be hard to accept right now, but... but it is the truth.”
Evelyn’s laughter stopped abruptly. Her gaze went past Sienna and fixed rigidly on Damian’s face.
“Accept it?” Evelyn demanded. “Damian, what do you want me to accept? That you got your secretary pregnant with a bastard?”
“Evelyn!” Damian said sternly. “Watch your words. Sit down. Do not make a scene here.”
Make a scene?
The word felt like a burning iron brand searing Evelyn’s heart. She was his wife, yet now she was the one making a scene.
“Damian, listen to her...” Sienna immediately squeezed out a few tears, leaning against Damian’s shoulder piteously. “She... she is cursing our baby...”
Damian did not even look at Evelyn. He just reached out and patted Sienna’s back, the gesture as gentle as comforting a treasure.
“Do not be afraid, I am here.” After speaking to Sienna, he finally turned his attention to Evelyn. “Things are as they are. Sienna is pregnant and her health is not good. You should be more tolerant of her from now on.”
Tolerant?
Evelyn felt like she had heard the funniest joke of the century. The sense of absurdity instantly broke the dams of her reason, and flames of fury shot to her head.
“Tolerant of her? Tolerant of a third party who intruded upon a marriage and stole another woman’s husband?” Evelyn’s volume unintentionally rose, drawing glances from neighboring tables.
She stepped forward, closing in on the dining table, her gaze sharp as a knife, aimed directly at Sienna’s pretentious face.
“Or tolerant of you?” Her gaze shifted to Damian. “Tolerant of you, this coward who cannot control his lower half? What did eight years of affection mean to you? A joke?”
“Enough!” Damian abruptly stood up, his chair scraping back with a grating noise. His face was terribly dark. Evelyn’s lack of control and the surrounding glances had mortified him.
“Have you made enough of a scene?” he warned. “I asked you to come here to solve a problem, not to throw a tantrum!”
“Solve a problem?” Evelyn’s tears finally spilled uncontrollably. “How do we solve it? By having me step aside for you and your mistress and then offering my blessings?”
She sharply turned to Sienna, who was now tearful, and slowly, clearly, articulated the sentence she had suppressed for so long:
“What do you think you are? A bitch who used every despicable means to climb to the top! You think you won? No, you will always just be a mistress hiding in the shadows!”