Chapter 475

Chapter 475:

He slammed his body against the glass door, pushing with everything he had, his boots slipping on the polished floor. The door didn’t budge. The magnetic lock was sealed tight.

He pounded his fists against the glass.

“Isolde!” Grayson screamed.

Outside, Isolde slowly lifted her head. Her lips were turning a pale, dangerous shade of blue. Ice crystals clung to her eyelashes.

She saw Grayson on the other side of the glass. She saw the frantic, desperate look in his eyes. She saw him screaming her name.

It did not make her feel safe. It churned her stomach with a bitter, toxic irony. He was always too late.

Grayson spun around and grabbed a passing hotel manager by the lapels of his suit, nearly lifting the man off his feet.

р𝘰р𝗎𝗹а𝗋 𝘴𝗍𝗈𝗋𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝗈𝘯

“Open this door!” Grayson bellowed. “Open it right now p>

The terrified manager fumbled for his master override key. His hands shook as he jammed it into the manual slot at the base of the door.

A heavy click echoed.

Grayson shoved the door open. A brutal blast of freezing wind and snow exploded into the warm lobby.

Isolde stood in the doorway, shivering so hard her knees threatened to buckle, her skin ice-cold.

Grayson rushed forward. He held his heavy Armani coat open and stepped into the freezing wind to wrap it around her trembling shoulders.

“Isolde! Get inside!” Grayson yelled over the howling wind. “Are you insane? Why didn’t you go to the front entrance p>

His tone was laced with panic, but the words came out as an accusation. It was his default setting — blame her first.

Isolde’s breathing was shallow and ragged. She looked at the heavy wool coat being draped toward her.

The fabric was warm from his body. But as it came close to her face, the scent hit her. Expensive wool. Grayson’s cedarwood cologne. And beneath it, the heavy, suffocatingly sweet floral notes of Belle’s perfume. Belle had been leaning against this coat in the booth.

A wave of intense nausea rolled through Isolde’s stomach.

She took a sharp step backward — back into the biting blizzard — and completely dodged his hands.

The freezing wind howled, whipping Isolde’s hair across her pale face.

Grayson stood in the open doorway, arms still extended, holding the heavy Armani coat. The wind caught the expensive fabric and made it snap violently in the air.

“Put it on!” Grayson yelled, his voice cracking with desperation. “You are going into hypothermia p>

Isolde stared at the coat.

Five years ago, during a torrential downpour in New York, she had stood outside a locked pharmacy for an hour, waiting for him to pick her up. She had been freezing, pregnant, and terrified — praying for him to appear. He never came. He had been at a dinner party with Belle.

Now, he was holding the coat out to her.

Isolde slowly raised her right hand. Her fingers were stiff and red from the cold.

Grayson’s chest heaved. A flicker of desperate hope ignited in his dark eyes. He thought she was finally surrendering. He thought she was going to let him protect her.