Chapter 154/A Dangerous Game of Secrets

Chapter 154: 154/A Dangerous Game of Secrets

Chapter 154

**Stephanie’s Point of View**

The clattering of metal forks and knives hitting the fine china plates blended with the faint classical music in the background, but in my ears, it sounded loud and sharp, like a war drum announcing an approaching catastrophe. Interspersing this noise from time to time was the sound of Alexander’s spontaneous, deep laughter as he and Dominic reminisced about shared teenage memories. I sat with a rigid back, faking calmness and indifference with every ounce of artificial stability and remaining strength within me.

I gripped the knife with tense fingers and chopped the small piece of vegetable on my plate into smaller and smaller pieces, repeating the movement hysterically without daring to lift my eyes a single inch from the boundaries of my plate.

Yet, despite my attempts to avoid looking at him, I could feel his gaze with absolute clarity. Vincente’s eyes pierced through my head like cold, heavy needles, scrutinizing me without mercy. Every time he raised his crystal glass to take a sip of wine, or passed his white napkin to wipe his injured lower lip with a provocative slowness, he deliberately slowed his movements to observe the finest details and their effect on the features of my pale face. The texture of his crime and violation inside the restroom still clung, burning, to my lips, making me feel a sharp nausea that caused my entire body to tremble beneath the table, while Alexander, sitting right beside me, remained completely unaware of the massive burning volcano that was about to explode between us at any second.

"Stephanie, darling... you’ve barely eaten anything from your plate."

I snapped out of the whirlpool of my terrifying thoughts at the sound of Alexander’s warm, worried tone, as he extended his large hand to place it over my trembling hand resting on the table. I looked at him with features I desperately tried to pull together, forcing my vocal cords not to fail me or tremble in front of his friend: "I... I’m fine, I just feel full rather quickly tonight, Alex. Besides, that slight dizziness I felt earlier hasn’t completely cleared from my head yet."

Vincente’s hawk-like eyes gleamed with a sharp, suspicious spark the moment he heard the word "dizziness." He leaned his tall frame forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table with suffocating coldness. Interlocking his long fingers in a calculated manner, he directed his gaze and speech toward me with a supreme gentleness that dripped with quiet venom: "Dizziness? I truly hope that the pressure of work and assignments at my office in the company isn’t the reason behind this fatigue and ailment, Mrs. Volkov... After all, by nature, I am highly dedicated to ensuring that no employee working under my direct supervision is harmed or overexerted."

I clenched my jaw with stormy force until my teeth nearly shattered in my mouth, looking directly into his eyes with blatant defiance for the first time since we sat together. His blue eyes held a filthy baseness and challenge, a hidden malice filling his pupils, as if he were enjoying a supreme level of sadism by seeing me trapped between my lie about shopping and his suffocating presence. I spoke with complete detachment and a sharp, harsh tone that I couldn’t entirely restrain in front of Alexander: "Of course not... Working under your supervision and the tasks at the company are absolutely not the cause of my fatigue, Mr. Vincente. But certain fleeting, sickening situations that we suddenly cross paths with are what cause genuine nausea to a human being."

He raised a single eyebrow slowly and deliberately, that dark, malicious smile widening on his lips as if he knew the words were directed at him, while Alexander laughed helplessly and innocently, patting my hand tenderly to soothe my sudden outburst. Turning to his friend, Alexander said: "Didn’t I tell you about her, Dominic? She is extremely stubborn and absolutely hates admitting to physical fatigue or exhaustion. Even during these days of her pregnancy, she stubbornly insists on—"

"Pregnant?"

The word cut abruptly and violently from Vincente’s mouth, like a sharp blade slicing through his entire thread of thoughts. That provocative, mocking smile vanished from his face entirely in a fraction of a second, and his tall frame stiffened over his wooden chair as if he had been electrocuted. His gaze, which moments ago had been filled with mockery and loathsome arrogance, suddenly transformed into a stormy bewilderment and genuine shock that completely froze his blue pupils.

He stared in disbelief down toward my stomach, then quickly snapped his gaze back to Alexander, looking as though he had just received a powerful physical slap to the face—one far stronger than the violent slap I had delivered to him in the restroom moments earlier.

A sudden, absolute, and incredibly heavy silence blanketed the table. It was a suffocating silence that made me breathe deeply for the first time, feeling a subtle thrill of victory as I watched his arrogant, confident mask completely crumble before this divine truth.

Vincente remained frozen, paralyzed in his seat for several consecutive seconds that felt like an endless eternity to us.

His blue eyes were pinned starkly on my stomach in a stormy, rigid disbelief, as if trying to process the massive word Alexander had just tossed casually into the center of the table. From the sheer tension in his fingers, the metal fork slipped lightly from his hand, striking the edge of the plate with a sharp, loud clang that broke the heavy, suspicious silence.

Alexander turned to him with complete spontaneity and bewilderment, knitting his brows at his intense and disproportionate reaction to the news: "Dominic? What’s wrong with you, man? Are you alright?"

Vincente reclaimed his balance and his mask with immense difficulty.

He shifted his stark gaze with a lethal, terrifying slowness away from my stomach to direct it straight into my eyes with heavy focus. That customary coldness and arrogance were absent from his features this time; instead, there was a mysterious, tempestuous spark, a burning cocktail of rage and suppressed realization that caused the muscles of his stern jaw to tighten violently, making his contours protrude. Deep in his eyes, I saw a sudden, massive realization that enabled him to cleverly thread all the past events together... linking my fear, my dizziness at the company, and my torn white pants to the reality of my pregnancy, rather than an attempt to seduce him as he had previously believed.

He swallowed his saliva with visible hardship that showed in his throat, clearing his raspy, faint voice as he adjusted his posture, trying by all means to recover his usual arrogant tone in front of his friend: "Nothing at all... just... I was deeply surprised by the matter. I never knew or expected that you two were already expecting a child this early in your marriage."

Alexander answered with a wide smile filling his face with happiness: "Yes, Dominic, we will have little twins filling the mansion soon." He then turned his entire body toward me, printing a tender, lingering kiss on the back of my dry, trembling hand, continuing in a loving tone: "I am very protective of her and her health. In fact, I didn’t want her to work outside given her condition, but I know her stubbornness and her desire to prove herself. So when she brought up the idea about working, I couldn’t refuse or say anything that would upset her."

Every warm word Alexander uttered with complete spontaneity was like a sharp knife slicing and wounding Vincente’s narcissistic pride and sick arrogance. Vincente took a deep, long breath, heavy with stifled malice and hidden resentment. He lifted his glass with fingers whose veins visibly bulged, the whiteness of his knuckles showing. Then, he cast a long, piercing look deep into my soul, dripping with a concealed, dangerous threat, and spoke in his raspiest, heaviest voice: "Congratulations to you both again from the bottom of my heart... It truly seems that your wife is exceptionally brilliant and highly skilled at concealing massive, dangerous secrets with absolute professionalism and calmness, without anyone ever suspecting a thing, Alexander."

I felt a lump as hot as embers freeze in my throat, strangling me. He was openly threatening my secret, in cold blood like a snake, right to my husband’s face without any restraint. I spoke in a strong voice, trying with all my pride to suppress the terror and turmoil inside it so it would come out sharp, stern, and defying his eyes: "It is not a matter of hiding secrets or manipulation, Mr. Vincente... It is simply a matter of important family privacy that concerns only me and my husband, and I see no business or right for any stranger or interloper to interfere in it or know it."

He raised his eyebrows with a dark mockery that gleamed in his pupils, which blazed with anger, as he quietly siched the remainder of his glass: "Of course... of course, you are right about that, Mrs. Volkov."

Alexander noticed the shifting atmosphere and the signs of my increasing exhaustion and the paleness of my face. He gestured with his hand to the responsible waiter to request the bill immediately: "Alright, Dominic, we will have to excuse ourselves and leave now. Stephanie badly needs to rest at home because of the dizziness."

Alexander rose lightly from his seat and gently, tenderly pulled back the chair for me. I stood on feet that shook violently, barely capable of holding me up due to the intense fear squeezing my insides near this monster. Vincente stood up as well, quickly rising to his full, towering height and massive frame, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets, his gaze never wavering from me.

He exchanged a quick goodbye handshake and embrace with Alexander, and then our eyes met for the final time in a look that carried every kind of threat and warning before our departure.

We left the dining hall with rapid strides, stepping out into the fresh air and getting into the car. I turned toward the steering wheel and said: "Alex... I don’t want to work anymore."