One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 153: Chapter 153

The results came in the morning.
They arrived in an unassuming envelope—no louder than a whisper, but with the weight of a scream. Arielle found it on the counter beside a half-finished mug of coffee, a jam-smeared spoon, and the sticky residue of a house trying too hard to feel normal.
She stared at the envelope for nearly five minutes before touching it.
Inside, the words were brief, clinical, exact.
Paternity Confirmed: 99.97%
The floor seemed to tilt beneath her.
She placed the paper back in its envelope like it might bite her. Then she walked into the living room, where Damien sat with Emory on the floor, helping him fold paper into origami birds.
He looked up, caught the look in her eyes, and everything stopped.
Arielle didn’t speak. She turned, walked into the kitchen, and picked up a glass from the drying rack. She didn’t mean to hurl it. Didn’t plan to. But her hand moved before her heart could stop it, and suddenly the glass hit the wall with a sharp, brutal shatter.
Emory flinched. Damien shot to his feet.
“Arielle—”
“You lied to me!” Her voice tore through the house like a thunderclap.
“I didn’t lie,” Damien said quickly, eyes flicking to the hallway, where Emory was peeking around the corner. “I didn’t know. Please, come talk to me—just us.”
“I asked you. I begged you to tell me everything.”
“I didn’t know he was mine until today.”
“But you suspected. You said it yourself.”
He reached for her, and she backed away like he was fire.
“I can’t breathe around you right now,” she said, her voice shaking.
Damien pressed his hands to his chest. “I never wanted to hurt you. God, Arielle. I would cut off my own arm before I cheated on you.”
“But you still had a child with someone else.”
“I didn’t choose this.”
“And now I have to live with it.”
The silence stretched until it cracked.
Damien stepped forward, slowly, like approaching the edge of a cliff.
“You are everything to me,” he said, voice raw. “You and our kids, this family we built—I will do anything to protect it. Including take responsibility for my past.”
Tears blurred her vision.
“You don't understand. Every time I look at that boy, I see everything I wasn’t told. Everything I was shut out of. I see you, with someone else.”
“He's just a child.”
“I know. And that’s the worst part,” she choked. “Because he’s innocent. And I’m the one drowning in guilt for not being able to embrace him the way I want to.”
Damien stepped closer. “You don’t have to fake anything. We’ll work through this. You’re allowed to feel everything. All of it. Just don’t shut me out.”
Arielle’s shoulders slumped.
“I love you, Damien,” she whispered. “But right now... I don’t know how to be your wife. I barely know how to be me.”
Damien nodded slowly.
“I’ll wait,” he said. “However long it takes. I’ll wait for you to come back. To us.”
They stood there, inches apart, two hearts bruised but still beating.
And outside the broken kitchen window, the wind carried the soft call of seagulls. The sound of a world that kept moving, even when people shattered like glass.