To Devour

/Valeri’s POV/

My heart pounds in the rib cage of my chest as I begin to pace back and forth, stomping my feet impatiently at each end of the room as I stare at the sealed envelope of my baby’s gender in my hand.

“This won’t work……” I mutter as I take out my phone to call my best friend Vivian who is like an extra brain that God has blessed me with to help me come up with solutions when my brain fails me.

“Hey Vivian,” I say as soon as the call connects.

“Hold up…….” Vivian stays, stopping me abruptly.

“Did something happen?” She inquires and I contemplate whether to tell her or not because in as much as she helps me think when I am stuck but she also has the bad habit of blowing things out of proportion.

“You know what….switch this FaceTime call to a video call so that I can see you because your suspense is killing me,” she says impatiently.

“Actually….nothing is happening,” I lie only for my phone to start beeping for me to accept the video call request from Vivian.

“So what is the problem?” She inquires as soon as I pick up the call.

“There is no problem….everything is fine,” I lie

“Everything is not fine…” she refuses to believe.

“If everything was really fine as you claimed, there is no way you would have called me Vivian a few minutes ago because that is not what you call me, so it is either you start talking now or I get on the next flight to Orion to see what’s up with you for myself,” she threatens.

“Chill out mama….it is not that deep,” I try to calm her down because agitating Vee is not the best bet for me at this point.

“Then start talking…” she urges

“I finally got the Baby’s gender today,” I start talking and my bestie’s face breaks into a cheerful smile.

“Did you open it?” She inquires wriggling her brows.

“No!” I answer her sharply.

“Why didn’t you tear the envelope open right there and then at the hospital?” She questions impatiently.

“That is because I am well aware of the fact that I am supposed to hand this over to my husband who will in turn hand it over to the team that he put in charge of the planning of our Baby’s gender reveal party, but I don’t know if that is the right to do at a time like this,” I answer her waving the sealed envelope in front of her.

“Why are you having second thoughts?” She questions.

“Well…Grey and I had a major argument this morning that kinda blew out of proportion before I stormed out of the house to attend my antenatal, but the doctor handing me my baby’s gender in a sealed envelope kind of dissolved every bit of anger that was in me, and right now the only thing that I want to do is to be at peace with the father of my baby but I don’t know if he is going to allow things slide easily because of how egoistic he is,” I answer her.

“Is it the pregnancy hormones that caused the whole thing to blow out of proportion?” She inquires sending me a suspicious look.

“I know pregnancy hormones have made me mad for the weirdest reasons, but this time around my pregnancy hormones are not to be blamed at all,” I answer defensively.

“Are you sure of that?” She inquires still eyeing me suspiciously.

“Imagine my husband snapping at me and telling me to my face that I am a pregnant woman, so instead of wanting to face off with him concerning the details of my family business, I should focus more on myself and my child,” I inform her about the cause of the argument and her jaw drops in shock.

“He told you that?” She questions after digesting the information that I just dumped on her.

“Well…you are well aware of the fact that Grey is an egoistic person who hates to be questioned under any circumstance,” she defends him.

“…I didn’t think questioning him about his unusual secrecy and non-disclosure concerning the details of my own family business and my own father's properties was going to cause such a hassle, but it did,” I justify my actions because I want my bestie to tell me that I am not the one overthinking things here. After all, lately, I tend to get the vibe that every reaction I have to things is just me being an irritated pregnant woman.

“So what do you have in mind?” She inquires.

“I don’t know if I should just go straight to his room to present the gender reveal slip, or I should save myself the stress of dealing with my obnoxious husband and just go ahead to hire a new event planner to plan my Baby’s gender reveal party,” I suggest

“Based on the kind of person that Grey Remington is, he is surely going to feel disrespected if you hire a new event planner which may cause our misunderstanding to blow out of proportion so I guess it is just better to try to patch things up with him before this gets worse,” my bestie suggests.

“But Grey and I share separate rooms, and his room is one of the places that he told me to never trespass unless he summons me,” I protest.

“Right now we don’t have the patience to wait for him to summon you, so I suggest that you just go in and hope that the news of our Baby’s gender will stop him from scolding me for being disobedient,” Vivian suggests and I smile because she is always calling my unborn child our baby and I find that very cute

“I think that is exactly what I will do….. I’d I perish I perish,” I decide.

“There is no way you are going to perish, my love,” she tries to gas me up.

“Okay, babes…. I will call you later to give you the full gist on how everything goes later okay,” I say before hanging up with my bestie.

I take a deep breath as I stare at the envelope in my hands before making my way to my Grey’s room because if I waste any more time, I can’t trust myself enough not to rip the envelope apart so that I can confirm if I will be having a baby girl or a baby boy.

Left to me, I would love to have a baby girl because I don’t think I am ready to deal with another Grey in this house, but whatever the result is, I will just have to accept it that way.

I have gone over how to break the news to Grey countless times in my head on my way from the hospital and I just couldn’t figure it out so what I will do is just tip-toe into his room and flash the envelope in front of his eyes because I can’t figure out a creative way to present the envelope to him.

I place my hand on the doorknob to open the door slightly to peep and see if my husband is in his room but it seems that there is a visitor that Grey is entertaining in his room which is quite strange.

“I have been married to Grey for a year now and I know how he forbids people from entering his room, so why on earth will he entertain a visitor in his room?” I stop to ask myself as the thought of marching straight into the room to see who this really ‘important’ visitor is crossing my mind, but I refrain from it.

I decide to wait outside to eavesdrop on their conversation a bit so that I can decide if Grey is having an important business negotiation that will require me to check back on him later or not.

“You used her enough, you got your revenge and more so, can we both go back to what our lives were before she got into the picture?” I hear a female’s voice in something that sounds like a heated conversation.

“A female voice in Grey’s room?” I mutter in complete shock and confusion