Chapter 355
He didn’t listen. He reached out — not to grab her, but to brace his hand against the seat back inches from her head, effectively caging her in. Then his large, hot hand cupped the side of her face, his thumb dragging roughly across her cheekbone.
“You are still my wife, Isolde,” he whispered. His eyes were dark and dilated, fixed entirely on her mouth. “On paper. You belong to me.”
A wave of pure, physical revulsion crashed over her. Her stomach heaved.
She brought her hand up and knocked his wrist away with a sharp crack. “Do not touch me,” she ordered, her voice trembling with rage.
Grayson’s face twisted. The rejection snapped the last thread of his control.
𝖡𝗲 𝘵𝗵𝘦 fir𝗌𝗍 t𝗈 rеad оn g𝘢𝘭ո𝗼𝘷𝖾𝘭s.𝗰𝗼𝘮
He lurched forward, closing the remaining space between them. He didn’t grab her — he used his body weight to pin her against the door, his face a breath from hers.
“Why are you so cold?” he shouted, his voice ricocheting off the walls of the small cabin, spittle flying from his lips. “I gave you everything! I gave you the world, and you treat me like dirt!” He dropped his head, his intent to kiss her a suffocating certainty. His breath was hot and sour against her skin.
Isolde was terrified — and the terror transmuted instantly into a violent, focused survival instinct.
She turned her face sharply to the side. His lips grazed her jaw. “Stop!” she screamed, her hands pushing frantically against his solid chest.
He was too heavy. He pressed harder.
She felt the claustrophobia close in, the air thinning, her body coiling for a fight she knew she couldn’t win by force. She was gathering herself to drive a knee upward when a sharp, metallic sound shattered everything.
Rap. Rap. Rap.
Someone was striking the tinted glass of the window beside Isolde’s head.
Grayson froze. His body went rigid. The violent spell broke.
He slowly lifted his head and looked toward the window. Isolde gasped for air, her chest heaving, and peered past his shoulder.
A New York City traffic cop stood on the curb, tapping a heavy flashlight against the glass.
Grayson pressed the button to lower the window a few inches.
“Move it along, buddy,” the cop said, his voice flat and muffled by the rain. “No standing in the loading zone. You’re blocking the lane.”
Grayson swallowed. He looked at the cop, then down at Isolde beneath him. Something shifted in his expression — a brief, drunken flicker of shame.
He pushed himself back to his side of the car.
Without a word, he slammed his fist against the privacy partition — a dull, muffled thud — then jabbed the intercom button.
“Drive,” he barked.
The Maybach pulled away from the curb, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence in its wake.
The Maybach glided through the slick, rain-swept streets of Manhattan and finally pulled to the curb in front of Isolde’s apartment building.
The car had not fully stopped before her hand was on the door handle.
.
.