Chapter 116
Chapter 116:
She let out a piercing scream and swept her arm across the vanity. Dozens of glass bottles of skincare and perfume crashed onto the hardwood floor, shattering into hundreds of pieces. The heavy scent of floral perfume choked the air.
“Idiots!” she shrieked, her voice cracking. “My stupid, greedy parents p>
She paced the room, her bare feet crunching over broken glass. Her parents’ pathetic attempt to blackmail Eleanor had detonated in their faces and blown her carefully constructed innocent facade along with it.
She stopped. Her breathing was ragged.
She looked at her reflection.
One lifeline remained. She had to reach Cole before his guilt curdled completely into abandonment. She ran into the bathroom, turned on the cold water, and scrubbed the makeup from her face with rough, aggressive strokes. She rubbed her eyes until the whites turned bloodshot and swollen. She stripped off her silk robe and pulled on a plain white cotton dress — conservative, frail, defenseless. Then she grabbed her phone, ordered a rideshare, and ran out the door.
Thirty minutes later, the car pulled up to Cole’s penthouse in Tribeca.
Inside, the morning light was gray and flat. Cole sat on a leather stool at the kitchen island, exhausted. His grandmother’s ultimatum pressed on his chest like a physical weight. A half-empty glass of amber whiskey sat on the marble counter in front of him.
The private elevator chimed and slid open.
Alycia ran in barefoot, hair loose and disheveled, thick tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. She looked like a frightened animal.
Cole looked up. The disgust he felt over her parents’ blackmail attempt flared hot in his stomach.
а𝖽𝗱𝗂𝗰tіv𝖾 𝗌𝘁𝗼r𝘪𝘦s 𝗈𝘯
Before he could speak, Alycia threw herself forward and dropped heavily to her knees beside his stool. Her knees struck the hardwood floor with a loud thud. She seized the fabric of his suit trousers with both hands, her knuckles bone white.
“Cole, please!” she sobbed, tears falling onto the rug. “I didn’t know. I swear to God, I had no idea what my parents were doing p>
Cole looked down at her. His jaw tightened. “They tried to extort my grandmother, Alycia p>
“I know, and I am so ashamed!” She buried her face against his leg, shoulders shaking violently. “I don’t want the Compton money. I don’t care about the trust. Please — don’t throw me away because of their greed p>
Cole stared at her trembling shoulders.
A memory surfaced without warning. Caleb in a hospital bed, hooked up to a ventilator, his voice barely a thread of sound, begging Cole to take care of her.
The heavy chain of moral obligation tightened around Cole’s throat.
He let out a long, slow breath. The anger left him, replaced by something heavier and more corrosive — a toxic sense of duty he could not reason his way out of. He reached down, gripped Alycia’s arms, and lifted her from the floor.
She collapsed against his chest and buried her face in his shirt.
Where he could not see, her lips curved into a sharp, quiet smile.