Chapter 135
Chapter 135:
His executive assistant entered, tablet in hand, took one look at Cole’s face, and immediately dropped his gaze.
“Sir,” he said carefully. “Alycia Beasley caused a significant scene in the underground garage last night. She was inconsolable for several hours. The Beasley family has been calling continuously to express their distress over the torn dress and the public incident p>
Cole reached up, yanked his bow tie loose, ripped it from his neck, and dropped it on the floor.
The mere sound of Alycia’s name put a sour taste in his throat. But the suffocating weight of his dead brother’s memory still held him in place. He needed to silence the situation. He needed to clear the wreckage of last night so he could focus entirely on the catastrophic damage he had done to June.
“Draft a supply chain contract for the Beasley family’s construction firm,” Cole said, his voice a harsh, uneven rasp. “Five million dollars. Deliver it immediately. Tell them to take the money and say nothing p>
“Yes, sir.” The assistant typed quickly and left.
Cole was alone with the brooch.
He opened his top drawer and removed a heavy custom black velvet box. He placed the diamond orchid inside with deliberate, almost reverent care.
He uncapped his fountain pen and drew a sheet of thick stationery toward him — the kind stamped with the Compton family crest.
He stared at the blank page. His hand shook.
He wanted to write an apology — something vast enough to account for what he had done. But the word sorry sat in his chest like a stone he could not lift. To write it was to face in full what he was, to confirm that he might have pushed her somewhere from which she would never return. That terror — raw, paralyzing, and entirely new to him — short-circuited every circuit in his brain. Three years of absolute, unchallenged arrogance had calcified around his capacity for genuine vulnerability, and now, when he needed it most, he could not reach it. His ego built its wall and hid behind it, forcing his hand into its only available register.
а𝗱dic𝘵𝗶v𝘦 𝗇𝗼𝘷𝘦𝘭s o𝗻 𝗀𝘢𝗅ո𝘰𝘷𝗲𝘭𝗌.с𝗼𝗆
Cole’s jaw locked. He pressed the pen to the paper.
Return to owner.
Three words. Cold and rigid and utterly insufficient. He folded the note, placed it in the velvet box, and snapped the lid shut.
He pressed the intercom. “Send my security detail in. I need a package hand-delivered to my wife’s apartment immediately p>
Hours later, the midday sun struggled without success against the clouds.
June sat at her kitchen island in her Midtown apartment, the tail end of a grueling two-hour international video conference for Apex Bio finally behind her. She pressed her fingertips to her temples. Her head was pounding with a vicious migraine.
The intercom buzzed sharply.
She crossed to the wall monitor. Standing in the lobby was a large man in a black suit — the head of Cole’s personal security detail.
June’s brows pulled into a tight, hard line.