Chapter 201: The Devil’s Disappointment

"You experienced an anaphylactoid reaction at the clinic, followed by high fever, severe nausea, and dizziness. Is that correct?"

"Yes," Ana said faintly.

"And your last menstrual cycle was over six weeks ago?"

Ana hesitated, her eyes darting toward Damian, who stood unmoving at the edge of the mattress, his obsidian gaze tracking every breath she took. "Yes," she whispered. "Six weeks."

Dr. Vance nodded, wrapping the cuff around Ana’s slender upper arm. She pumped the bulb, reading the gauge with a focused frown. "Blood pressure is low. 95 over 60. Temperature is down to 37.8°C—the fever is breaking, but your system is under tremendous physiological distress."

She gently pressed her fingertips into Ana’s lower abdomen, probing the pelvic area. Ana winced, exhaling a sharp gasp of discomfort as a dull, heavy cramp flared deep inside her pelvis.

"Tenderness in the lower abdomen?" Dr. Vance asked, her brow furrowing slightly. "Any spotting? Any unusual discharge?"

"No," Ana said, her voice shaking. "Just... nausea. And cramps. My breasts were sore last week, and the smell of the food made me sick instantly."

"Classic symptoms," Dr. Vance murmured, straightening up. "The urine strip test you took was positive, but given the severe hormonal flux and the antihistamine steroids administered, we cannot rely on over-the-counter assays. Pseudocyesis—or severe hormonal mimicry caused by acute psychological trauma and endocrine disruption—can occasionally produce early false markers, especially when the body believes itself under threat."

Damian stepped forward, his shadow engulfing the side of the bed. "Speak English, Doctor. Is she carrying my child or not?"

Dr. Vance didn’t shrink from his tone, but she reached for a vacuum tube and a sterile butterfly needle from her kit.

"I cannot tell you that until we measure the quantitative beta-hCG levels directly from her serum, Mr. Sterling," the doctor said evenly. "Her body is showing every classic presentation of an early pregnancy: the amenorrhea, the nausea, the uterine tenderness. But whether that is a viable gestational sac or her endocrine system collapsing under intense shock, only the centrifuge and the lab analysis will prove."

The doctor turned to Ana. "Arm out, please. Just a quick pinch."

Ana extended her arm, the skin pale and tracing blue veins against the white sheets. Damian watched without blinking as the needle slid into her vein, drawing two dark, crimson vials of blood.

The crimson fluid filled the vacuum tubes, rich and heavy with the answer that would either cement her imprisonment under the marriage contract or tear Damian’s world apart.

Dr. Vance snapped the tourniquet loose, pressed a cotton ball to Ana’s arm, and labeled the vials with steady hands before walking over to the portable centrifuge on the vanity. The machine whirred to life, a high-pitched, metallic hum vibrating through the room.

"I will run the preliminary serum separation here and send the courier straight to our emergency private lab," Dr. Vance said, packing away her supplies. "We will have the definitive numeric hCG count by midnight. If it is positive, we proceed with high-risk obstetric monitoring immediately. If it is negative... we will need to address the psychological and physical strain causing her body to mimic a phantom gestation."

She closed the steel case with a loud, final click.

"I will wait in the living quarters until the lab results transmit, Mr. Sterling."

Victoria nodded, gesturing toward the hall. "Thank you, Doctor. Follow me."

The double doors closed behind them, leaving only Damian and Anastasia in the room, drowning in the suffocating silence as the clock on the wall began its ruthless countdown toward midnight.

The grandfather clock in the corridor struck twelve, each deep, mechanical chime reverberating through the cavernous bedroom like a funeral bell.

A moment later, the double doors swung open.

Dr. Vance walked back inside, holding a tablet displaying the encrypted digital lab report from the courier’s emergency run. Victoria followed closely behind her, an unreadable, guarded tension carved into her posture.

Damian was seated in the heavy armchair near the bed. The moment the doctor stepped across the threshold, every muscle along his spine locked into rigid stone, but he didn’t rise. His dark eyes remained fixed on the physician, waiting for the verdict that would bind Anastasia’s life to his forever.

Dr. Vance adjusted her glasses, her voice breaking the heavy silence with flat, clinical clarity.

"The quantitative serum beta-hCG analysis is complete," Dr. Vance said, looking directly at Anastasia. "The count is under two milli-international units per milliliter. To be medically unambiguous: it is negative. You are not pregnant, Anastasia."

The words hung suspended in the chilled air of the room.

"What you experienced was pseudocyesis—a phantom gestation," Dr. Vance explained, her tone softening slightly with professional sympathy. "The immense psychological trauma, the chronic stress, and the severe endocrine shock your body underwent mimicked every hormonal marker. Your body convinced itself it was carrying, but there is no child."

A sharp, shuddering gasp tore from Ana’s chest.

She collapsed back against the mound of white pillows as if a pair of invisible iron shackles had just been violently sheared from her wrists. A wave of overwhelming, dizzying relief crashed over her so powerfully that hot, breathless tears spilled instantly down her cheeks.

She wasn’t trapped.

The nightmare was dismantled. The predatory clause in the contract—the legal trap designed to chain her to the Sterling family name until her dying breath—was null and void. She could breathe again. The air in her lungs felt clean for the first time in weeks.

She pulled the duvet to her chin, letting out a small, trembling sob of pure release.

Instinctively, she turned her head toward the armchair, needing to see the man who had held her captive, wanting to witness his defeat.

The words died in her throat.

Damian hadn’t stood up. He hadn’t lashed out, nor had he barked a cold order to re-run the tests.

He sat motionless in the deep leather chair, his broad shoulders hunched forward, his hands resting heavily between his knees. His gaze was anchored dead to his own lap, staring down at his empty, upturned palms with a face so hollow, so unreadable and bleak, it looked carved from gray slate.

There was no fury in his expression. Only an absolute, deadening emptiness—the look of a man who had silently built an entire future in the dark, only to watch it vanish into ash before his eyes.

A sudden, sharp pang pierced Ana’s ribs, catching her completely off guard.

Through the blur of her own weeping relief, a quiet, devastating realization settled over her chest:

He had wanted it.

Behind the cruel threats, the ironclad contracts, and the venom of his father’s past, Damian had genuinely wanted that child. He had wanted the tiny, impossible heartbeat between them. He had wanted a family—an anchor to pull him out of the cold, solitary hell he had lived in for ten years.

Seeing him sit there, utterly shattered beneath an unbreakable facade of stone, didn’t make her feel victorious. It ached. It twisted in her stomach like a dull, rusted knife, the quiet tragedy of his grief bleeding into the silence between them.

Dr. Vance offered a polite, clipped conclusion, handing the digital discharge papers to Victoria before excusing herself from the room. Victoria lingered for a heartbeat, her gaze shifting between her devastated, silent son and the weeping girl on the bed, before quietly pulling the heavy double doors shut.

The room plunged back into unbearable stillness.

Damian slowly raised his head.

The vulnerability that had briefly shadowed his face vanished in an instant, buried beneath a wall of impenetrable, obsidian frost. His jaw set so tight the tendon pulsed against his skin. He stood up from the armchair, his tall, imposing silhouette blocking out the soft light of the lamp as he walked deliberately to the edge of the bed.

He looked down at her—at her tear-stained cheeks, her shaking shoulders, her obvious, profound relief.

Damian said nothing.

Not a single word scraped past his locked throat.

Slowly, heavily, he rose from the armchair. He didn’t look at the bed. He didn’t look at her tear-streaked face or the relief written across her features. He simply turned his back on her, his silhouette tall, solitary, and impossibly burdened as he walked toward the door.

The latch clicked open. He stepped out into the shadowed hallway and pulled the heavy mahogany doors shut behind him, sealing the room in airtight, suffocating stillness.

Ana was left entirely alone.

The silence of the master suite grew louder with every passing minute, pressing against Ana’s chest until she could barely draw breath.

The phantom cramps had faded to a dull, distant ache, but the emptiness in the room felt physical, heavy as lead. She threw back the heavy down duvet, her bare feet hitting the cold hardwood floor with a faint slap. Her limbs were still weak, the residual haze of the fever and the hospital’s cocktail of drugs tugging at her senses, but the image of Damian staring dead-eyed into his empty lap drove her forward.

She pulled a long, charcoal wool cardigan over her sleep shirt, wrapping it tightly around her waist, and walked toward the door.

The penthouse corridors were bathed in low, amber nightlights. It was past two in the morning; the staff had retired, and the silence of the high-rise was absolute. She didn’t have to guess where he had gone. At the end of the long gallery, the door to the terrace stood slightly ajar, a sliver of freezing autumn air slicing into the heated interior.

Ana pushed the glass door wider and stepped out onto the vast stone terrace.