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Chapter 443
Chapter 443:
The icy rain soaked through his expensive three-piece suit instantly, pasting the fabric to his skin. The cold water ran over his right hand, stinging the deep cuts on his palm where he had crushed the crystal tumbler hours earlier. He had wrapped the hand in a simple white gauze, but blood was already seeping through, turning the wet fabric a pale, sickly pink.
He stood perfectly still in the freezing rain, his gray eyes fixed on the illuminated awning of her building.
Ten minutes later, the headlights of a dark blue Bentley pierced through the storm. The car pulled smoothly beneath the warm glow of the canopy.
Crawford’s lungs stopped working.
The driver’s side door opened. Brogan stepped out, opened a large black umbrella, and walked around the hood to the passenger side. He pulled the door open.
T𝗿𝘦𝗇d𝘪ո𝘨 𝘯𝗈𝘷𝖾𝘭ѕ 𝗈𝘯 ѕ.𝖼о𝗺
June stepped out onto the pavement. Crawford’s jaw clenched until his teeth ground together. She was wearing Brogan’s tailored suit jacket draped over her shoulders against the midnight chill.
They stood beneath the awning. June looked up at Brogan and said a few words. Brogan smiled and maintained a perfectly polite, gentlemanly distance — he did not reach for her, did not cross any physical boundary.
But in Crawford’s jealousy-poisoned mind, the scene was entirely distorted. He saw the heavy sapphire brooch pinning her to the Clements empire. He saw a newly claimed woman sharing a quiet, intimate farewell in the middle of the night.
June turned and walked through the glass doors of the lobby. Brogan stood by his car, watching the elevator numbers light up until she was safely inside. Only then did he get back into the Bentley and pull away.
Crawford did not move. He stood in the relentless rain for three solid hours, watching the lights in June’s apartment turn on, and eventually, go dark.
Only when the window went completely black did he turn around, climb back into the Maybach, and drag the freezing cold and his absolute despair into the leather interior.
The next morning, the storm broke. Sunlight cut through the gray clouds, and the loud, restless rhythm of Manhattan resumed.
June walked into the boutique coffee shop on the ground floor of her building, dressed in a sharp tailored pantsuit, her hair pulled back into a sleek knot.
She ordered a black Americano. The barista handed her the hot paper cup.
She turned away from the counter, momentarily distracted by a notification on her phone, and walked directly into a tall, broad chest.
She stepped back instinctively, protecting her coffee, and looked up.
She froze.
Crawford stood in front of her. He wore a flawless dark gray suit, but his face was startlingly pale. His cheekbones looked sharper than usual. His gray eyes were heavily bloodshot, ringed with the dark shadows of a sleepless night. A faint healing cut marked his lower lip, and a bruise was darkening high on his cheekbone, barely concealed in the morning light.
June’s eyes dropped immediately to his right hand. The thick white gauze wrapped around his palm was impossible to miss.
Her professional composure slipped for a fraction of a second. “Crawford? Are you hurt p>
Crawford shifted his right hand behind his back. His voice came out rough. “It is nothing. A minor accident with some broken glass p>