His Faked Infertility, My Sweet Revenge

Ainsley POV: The auditorium was packed. At the front, in the seat of honor, sat Damian. He looked confident, radiant, at the peak of his career. Beside him, dressed in a crisp white lab coat she had no right to wear, was Casey. She was playing the part of a devoted colleague, her head tilted towards him as they whispered intimately, their fingers intertwined. "You're the most brilliant man in this room, Damian," I could almost hear her murmuring, her voice dripping with saccharine admiration. A few rows behind them, I saw people shifting uncomfortably, catching glimpses of the inappropriate intimacy on display. They knew I was in the room. The air was thick with unspoken scandal. Damian didn' t care. He leaned in, his lips brushing her cheek, and then his eyes found mine in the dim light at the back of the hall. He gave me a look of pure, defiant triumph. A smirk that said, See? I have what you can never give me. I won. I smiled back, a slow, cold curve of my lips, and walked onto the stage. The moderator, surprised, moved to stop me, but I took the microphone from the stand before he could reach it. "Good afternoon, everyone," I said, my voice ringing out, clear and steady. "Before my husband, Dr. Damian Hicks, begins his speech, I' d like to share a short presentation celebrating his many… accomplishments." I saw the panic flash in Damian's eyes. But it was too late. I pressed the play button on the remote in my hand. The massive screen behind me lit up. It wasn't a PowerPoint of surgical achievements. It was a slideshow. It started with Casey's cosplay photos. Her, in a tiny French maid outfit, pouting seductively for the camera. Then, their private chat logs. Years of them. Flirtatious, explicit messages. Her constant, unsubtle references to being a "baby magnet." Then, the hotel records from the week before our wedding. Then, the bank transfers. A clear, undeniable financial trail of a long-term affair. The final image was a high-resolution photo taken just moments ago by one of Graham' s security team. It showed Damian and Casey in the front row, holding hands, his lips against her cheek. The perfect portrait of betrayal. Damian was frozen in his chair, his face a mask of waxy, corpselike pallor. Casey burst into tears, her makeup smearing down her face, but I could see a flicker of something else in her eyes. A cold, calculating satisfaction. This was what she wanted. A public severing. A final choice. The auditorium erupted. "Is that the au pair?" someone whispered loudly. "He's cheating on Ainsley Pierce with the help?" "Look at her, she looks so cheap. His taste is questionable." "He brought his mistress to a professional conference? The audacity!" I raised the microphone to my lips again, my voice cutting through the chaos. "I should also add," I said conversationally, "that Ms. Valdez here is a divorced mother of five boys. And my husband, Dr. Hicks, as some of you may know from the medical grapevine, suffers from azoospermia. He desperately wants a son." I paused, letting the implication sink in. "They really are a match made in heaven, aren't they?" A wave of cruel laughter swept through the room. Someone let out a wolf-whistle. "Five boys! He must be making up for lost time!" Casey' s face went from pale to mottled red. She bit her lip so hard I was surprised she didn't draw blood. Damian, however, still held her hand, a pathetic gesture of defiance. He shot to his feet, his eyes locking on mine. "What do you think you're doing?" he hissed, his voice trembling with fury. "Do you think this will make me come back to you? This just pushes me further away!" Did he really think this was about getting him back? The delusion was almost sad. There was a time I would have done anything for him. A time, even after discovering his texts, that I would have given him a chance to fix this. But that time was gone. I walked slowly towards him, my heels clicking on the stage, until I was standing over him, looking down at where he stood beside his chair. "Picking up trash from the gutter and treating it like treasure," I said, my voice soft but carrying in the now-silent room. "Why, Damian? Did my family's money make you feel so small that you had to find someone even lower than your own origins to feel like a man?" He flinched, but his arrogance was a stubborn thing. "You still want me," he said, a desperate conviction in his eyes. "You can't let me go." I let out a short, sharp laugh and turned back to the center of the stage. I faced the audience, the cameras, the live-stream that was broadcasting this humiliation to the entire medical world. "I have one final announcement," I said, my voice ringing with absolute authority. "As the majority shareholder and a member of the board of directors of this hospital, I am informing you all that as of this moment, Damian Hicks is fired." That did it. He completely lost control. With a roar of fury, he leaped onto the stage. His face was a mask of rage, his eyes bloodshot. "You can't do that!" he screamed at me. "The Chief of Surgery is an elected position! You don't have the authority!" I just shrugged, a picture of casual indifference. "You have brought this institution into disrepute. Your moral conduct is deplorable. The board will vote, and my brother holds the majority of the proxies. It's a formality." I leaned in closer, my voice dropping to a whisper meant only for him. "Did you really think you became Chief of Surgery because you were the best candidate? Without the Pierce family backing you, you're nothing, Damian. Absolutely nothing."