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Chapter 547
Chapter 547:
She was trying to put distance between herself and every powerful, complicated man in this city. The last thing she needed was to climb into a car with the most influential media mogul in New York.
Crawford read the refusal forming in her eyes. He pushed his door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk without hurry, carrying himself with calm, unhurried confidence.
“I was just leaving a meeting nearby and happened to see you,” he said, his voice a low, easy baritone that cut through the noise of the street. “It’s no trouble at all. Think of it as repaying you for the tea the other night p>
It was a flawless explanation — reasonable, warm, and impossible to argue against. He kept a polite, unthreatening distance. And June simply couldn’t summon a hard enough reason to refuse the man who had nearly died pulling her out of harm’s way in Boston.
Crawford’s driver stepped out, lifted her Rimowa from her hand, and placed it in the trunk before she had finished deciding.
𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘯
June exhaled quietly and climbed into the spacious rear seat. Crawford settled in beside her. The subtle, expensive scent of cedarwood cologne filled the enclosed space.
The Maybach eased back into the flow of traffic, heading toward Queens.
Crawford was a precise and practiced conversationalist. He didn’t ask why she was leaving work in the middle of the afternoon. He didn’t mention Cole, the divorce, or the Beasleys. He simply leaned back and spoke in a measured, unhurried voice about the weather on the West Coast and the upcoming grape harvest in Napa Valley.
His composure worked on her like a sedative. The tight, defensive tension in June’s shoulders began to loosen by degrees. By the time they crossed the bridge, she had offered a small, genuine smile.
“California is beautiful this time of year,” Crawford remarked, his long fingers turning a heavy platinum lighter over slowly in his hand. “Where are you going to decompress? LA or San Francisco p>
June’s guard was entirely down.
“San Francisco,” she said softly. “Then I’m renting a car and driving down to Carmel-by-the-Sea. I just need somewhere quiet p>
A dark, predatory light moved through Crawford’s eyes, there and gone in less than a heartbeat.
“Carmel — that’s a wonderful choice,” he said, his voice smooth and warm. “What time is your flight p>
“Four-thirty. United Airlines,” June replied, with no awareness that she had just handed him the precise coordinates of her escape.
Thirty minutes later, the Maybach pulled to the curb outside the first-class terminal at JFK. Crawford stepped out and played the perfect gentleman, standing beside the car and watching June walk through the sliding glass doors toward the security checkpoint.
The moment her figure disappeared into the crowd, the warmth left his face completely.
What replaced it was something cold and absolute.
He got back into the Maybach and dialed his chief of staff on an encrypted phone.