The room fell into a heavy, oppressive quiet, broken only by the sound of their ragged breathing. Wrapped together in the tangled sheets, the raw, furious heat of the past few hours finally began to cool into something far more dangerous... a quiet, lingering stillness.
Damian’s large hand rested heavily over her waist, holding her flushed body flush against his chest.
"Why did you leave my office earlier, Anastasia?" Damian asked softly, his baritone low and deep in the dark room.
Ana’s heart skipped a beat. She bit her lower lip and slowly turned her head away, staring at the far wall, pretending to drift off to sleep just to avoid his gaze.
Damian didn’t allow it.
With effortless strength, his fingers slid up to her jaw, gripping it firmly and forcing her to turn back and look him straight in the eyes.
"Don’t ignore me," he purred dangerously. "Answer me."
Ana looked into his dark, searching eyes. Exhausted, sore, and completely stripped of her defenses, she didn’t have the energy to lie or hide behind clever words anymore.
"Because I was scared of you," Ana confessed honestly, her voice barely a whisper. Her dark eyes welled with quiet, bitter sorrow. "I was terrified... terrified that my presence is making everything worse for you. I felt like a curse."
A rare flick of surprise crossed Damian’s dark features. It was a response he hadn’t expected to hear.
Silence stretched between them before Damian leaned in, his face inches from hers.
"The world outside my protection is far scarier than I am, Anastasia," Damian spoke softly, his voice laced with a dark, absolute truth. "Vivian is still out there hiding. Your parents are waiting like vultures to claim you back, knowing that we are still divorced in papers... and Dante Sullivan." His jaw set tight, his eyes darkening into pure stone. "Never trust him, Anastasia. Ever."
Ana frowned, a quiet objection slipping past her swollen lips. "He seemed... harmless to me."
A short, humorless chuckle escaped Damian’s throat, cold and sharp in the quiet room.
"You dare say he’s harmless?" Damian purred, his dark gaze sweeping over her flushed face. "When you are lying next to me naked and exhausted, totally pleased by me?"
Ana’s frown deepened, her chest aching with a mix of frustration and confusion. "He cares for me... and my feelings. Not... not like you Damian."
Damian’s expression turned instantly dangerous. His eyes locked onto hers with a suffocating, lethal intensity that made her breath hitch.
"This is exactly why I kept you caged before," Damian growled low in his throat, his thumb pressing into her chin. "Because it is so incredibly easy for you to make a fool out of yourself."
Ana looked back at him, her dark eyes flashing with a sudden, faint spark of challenge. "Are you saying that I should trust you?"
Damian didn’t hesitate. His gaze remained unwavering, cold, and absolute.
"Do you have any other choice?" he asked softly.
The words hung heavy in the air.
Dante was ready to pay a hundred million dollars just to free me from you, Ana wanted to say. The secret burned on the tip of her tongue, but she forced herself to keep her mouth shut. Revealing Dante’s offer now would only spark an all-out bloodbath.
She fell completely silent, looking away.
Damian took her quiet surrender as submission. A faint, dark smirk touched the corner of his lips as he leaned down, pressing a firm, lingering kiss to her forehead before pulling her tight against his chest once again.
"Thought so, doll," Damian murmured against her hair, his arm locking around her waist like an unbreakable iron chain. "It’s only me you’ve got on your side now. So don’t ever leave my sight again."
________________________
By eight in the morning, Damian sat in the high-tech conference room of his estate, surrounded by large, wall-mounted displays showing the stern, anxious faces of Sterling Global’s major shareholders.
The emergency video conference had been running for over an hour, and the atmosphere was thick with tension.
"We understand that Harrison Stark and Mia were the ones who leaked the project files, Mr. Sterling," one senior board member spoke up, adjusting his glasses. "However, even if the main culprit has been disclosed... The root issue remains. And that issue is Anastasia Vance."
Damian sat back in his leather chair, his dark eyes fixed on the screen, his expression an unreadable mask of ice.
"Being your fiancée makes her an active, vulnerable target every single day," another shareholder chimed in firmly. "The company has taken a massive financial hit over the past forty-eight hours because her family exploited her position inside Sterling Global. It gets riskier by the day."
A chorus of agreeing nods appeared across the screens.
"We strongly suggest that Miss Vance be removed from the company entirely," a third member demanded. "Or, at the very least, stripped of any access to high-level marketing files so Sterling Global isn’t exposed to another catastrophic loss."
Damian slowly rested his elbows on the table, folding his hands together. When he spoke, his tone was low, calm, and terrifyingly absolute.
"A victim will not be punished for a culprit’s crimes," Damian stated coldly, his gaze cutting through the video feed. "Anastasia will remain in her current position as a marketing intern. I will personally oversee the implementation of strict security protocols so my fiancée is never targeted... or exploited... again."
The shareholders shifted uncomfortably, knowing better than to openly challenge Damian’s authority.
"Very well, Mr. Sterling," the board chairman sighed, shuffling a stack of financial reports. "Then how do you plan to recover the massive losses we took yesterday?"
"Once Mia is in custody and the full paper trail is secured," Damian replied smoothly, a dark, lethal edge touching his tone, "we will file a multi-billion dollar corporate espionage lawsuit directly against Vance Enterprises for stealing our intellectual property. We will bankrupt them completely."
A brief silence fell over the call before one of the oldest board members leaned forward into his camera, his eyes narrowing with sharp skepticism.
"A lawsuit against Vance Enterprises sounds promising, Damian," the old man said softly. "But for that lawsuit to hold up in court, your fiancée will have to testify under oath and go directly against her own family."
The shareholder leaned closer to the lens, delivering the final, echoing question... "Will she really agree to destroy her own bloodline for you?"
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