Chapter 205: The Devil Is Speechless

"I am not contraband you get to lock in a vault whenever you’re in a foul mood. My medical clearance was signed off, and Clara has three product launches scheduled before the end of the week. If you have an operational issue with my attendance, take it up with my department head."

?A collective, terrified gasp seemed to ripple through the open-plan cubicles behind them. A junior copywriter practically dove beneath her desk.

?Damian’s jaw clenched so violently the bone showed white through his skin, a thick vein pulsing at his temple. "You think this is about marketing decks, Anastasia? You’re playing with fire. The entire building is whispering, your body barely survived a chemical shock forty-eight hours ago, and you’re standing here defying me to prove a point?"

?"I’m not trying to prove anything," Ana retorted, stepping forward instead of retreating, closing the space between them until only inches remained.

?Her voice dropped low, a whisper only for him to hear, but the raw, stinging honesty in it cut far deeper than a shout.

?"You want to know why I left the penthouse, Damian? Because sitting alone in those empty rooms, wondering when you’re going to storm through the door with another contract or another scowl, was driving me insane. You talk about my health, but you are the one stressing me out. Your anger, your suffocating control, your inability to let me take a single breath without hovering like an executioner—that is what is making me sick."

?The words hit the air like a cluster of detonated glass.

?Behind Ana, Valerie clamped both hands over her mouth, her eyes bulging in pure, unadulterated horror.

?Damian went dead still.

?The cold, arrogant fury on his face fractured, replaced for a split second by a raw, stunned disbelief that left him completely speechless. Her accusation hung between them in the public corridor, witnessed by dozens of his own staff—she hadn’t just defied him; she had laid the blame for her deteriorating state squarely at his feet.

?His knuckles whitened as he shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets, his jaw working as he fought to swallow the bitter, humiliating bile rising in his throat.

The humming fluorescent lights of the thirty-fourth floor felt harsher than usual, but Anastasia didn’t let herself blink.

There was a manic, defensive intensity in the way she worked—cross-referencing logistics sheets, tearing through engagement metrics, and rebuilding marketing decks that weren’t even due until the following month.

?A few yards away, Clara stood by the communal printer, watching Ana with folded arms and a deeply worried crease between her brows.

?Marcus walked up beside Clara, holding a stack of laminated brand briefs. His eyes, dark and observant, drifted straight to Anastasia’s desk. He had harbored a quiet, unspoken crush on her—the kind kept carefully hidden behind polite work banter and shared coffee runs.

Even now, seeing the faint hollows under her eyes and the tight, rigid set of her shoulders, he could tell she was running on pure, toxic adrenaline.

?"Has she taken a single breath since eight this morning?" Marcus murmured under his breath.

?"Not one," Clara sighed quietly, shaking her head. "She refused lunch, ignored my coffee offer, and tore through the entire Q3 launch audit in two hours. She’s trying to work herself into exhaustion so her brain stops spinning."

?Marcus frowned, his gaze lingering on the fragile curve of Ana’s neck as she furiously highlighted a dataset. "It’s the rumors, isn’t it? The whispers about the clinic... and the top floor."

?"Of course it is," Clara muttered. "The whole building is looking at her like she’s either a ticking time bomb or the future mother of the Sterling dynasty, and she can’t correct them without opening a can of worms. Just... keep an eye on her during the pitch review."

?Thirty minutes later, the atmosphere in Conference Room B was thick and suffocating.

?A mid-level marketing associate was standing at the head of the long glass table, nervously clicking through a deck for the autumn cosmetics rollout. Anastasia sat three seats down, her tablet propped up, a pen tapping against the frosted glass in a sharp, impatient rhythm.

?"...so our primary influencer activation will rely on regional lifestyle figures," the presenter droned, sweating slightly under his collar. "We felt a softer, broad-spectrum approach would minimize ad spend while still capturing—"

?"It doesn’t capture anything."

?Anastasia’s voice sliced through the room like a cold scalpel.

?The presenter froze mid-sentence, the laser pointer shaking in his grip. Around the table, four other team members stiffened, darting nervous glances at each other.

?Ana didn’t look up from her tablet right away. She circled a metric with sharp, aggressive strokes of her stylus, then finally lifted her hazel eyes—cold, razor-sharp, and completely devoid of her usual warmth.

?"Your consumer demographic targets women aged twenty-two to thirty-five in Tier-1 metropolitan markets," Ana said, her tone crisp and ruthless. "Yet your top three proposed creators have an audience base primarily under eighteen, with an engagement drop-off of over forty percent in the second quarter. Furthermore, your projected ROI relies on conversion data from two years ago, completely ignoring the regulatory shifts in beauty endorsements."

?She tossed the stylus onto the table with a dull clack.

?"You didn’t build a strategy, Kevin. You copy-pasted last year’s failed holiday campaign, changed the color palette to terracotta, and hoped nobody in this room would bother checking the backend analytics. It’s sloppy, it’s lazy, and it’s a waste of seventy thousand dollars. Redo the entire demographic breakdown by four, or don’t bother pitching it to Clara at all."

?The silence in the room was absolute. Kevin looked entirely pale, stammering an incoherent apology as he frantically clicked out of the slide.

?Beside her, Marcus didn’t flinch. He watched the tight, defensive tremor in Ana’s fingers as she gathered her notes. He knew Kevin’s pitch was indeed subpar, but Ana’s sudden, biting edge wasn’t about advertising spend. It was the raw, prickly defensiveness of a woman who felt cornered by the entire world—lashing out at trivial mistakes before anyone could look close enough to see how deeply she was hurting.

?The meeting adjourned in an awkward rush. Anastasia was the last to leave the room, carrying her tablet with her jaw set, ready to march straight back to her desk and bury herself under another pile of work.

?"Hey. Vance."

?Ana stopped in the quiet side corridor near the emergency stairwell.

?Marcus stepped up beside her, his hands tucked casually into his slacks. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he produced a chilled, brightly colored can from behind his back and held it out to her. It was cold, condensation beading along the aluminum.

?A peach-mango fruit juice.

?Ana blinked, her guarded, frosty expression faltering for a fraction of a second. "Marcus, I don’t need—"

?"Take it before it warms up," Marcus insisted smoothly, gently tapping the cool can against the back of her hand. "Doctor’s orders. Well, not a real doctor, but Kevin looked like he was about to faint in there, and if you pass out from low blood sugar after murdering him in cold blood, I’ll be forced to write the incident report."

?A tiny, involuntary huff of laughter slipped past Ana’s lips before she could catch it. The rigid tension in her shoulders dropped by an inch.

?Reluctantly, she took the can, popping the tab. The sweet, tangy scent of peach and mango hit the air, instantly soothing the bitter taste of stress in her mouth. She took a slow sip, feeling the cold sugar ground her racing thoughts.

?"I wasn’t that harsh," Ana muttered defensively, though the faint flush of embarrassment on her cheeks betrayed her.

?"You told a grown man he copy-pasted his way through life and stole seventy grand," Marcus chuckled, leaning his shoulder against the painted drywall with an easy, warm grin. "He’s currently in the men’s room splashing cold water on his face and reconsidering his life choices. It was terrifying. And brilliant. But mostly terrifying."

?Ana took another sip, looking down at the colorful can in her hands. A genuine, soft smile finally broke through the gray exhaustion on her face. "He deserved it. The analytics were garbage."

?"They were," Marcus agreed readily, his smile softening into something gentle, kind, and steady. "Just... don’t carry the weight of the entire sixty-four floors on your back today, Ana. Whatever people are whispering in the elevators, none of it changes how good you are at what you do."

?Ana looked up, meeting his warm, easygoing gaze. Marcus was so simple to be around. He joked, he laughed, he handed out fruit juice when people were stressed, and he didn’t turn every conversation into a battlefield of control, leverage, or debts.

?A sudden, unexpected thought drifted unbidden into her mind, striking her with a quiet, bitter pang.

?If only Damian was also a little bit cheerful...

?The thought lingered in her chest like an ache. Damian was magnificent in his own dark, suffocating way—towering, impossibly handsome, commanding the room with a mere glance. But he was always stone, always iron, always an impending storm waiting to crush her under his absolute rule.

If he possessed even a fraction of this lighthearted warmth... if he could smile without malice, joke without a hidden blade, or simply offer comfort without demanding submission in return...

?He would be dangerous, she realized with a heavy swallow. He would be utterly irresistible.

?"Earth to Ana," Marcus teased lightly, waving a hand in front of her dazed eyes. "Did the mango short-circuit your brain?"

?Ana snapped out of the thought, quickly hiding the sudden flutter of emotion behind a small, polite smile. "No. Just... needed the sugar. Thanks, Marcus. Really."

?"Anytime," he said, turning back toward the bullpen with an easy wave. "Now go drink the rest before Clara catches you standing still."