Chapter 292
Chapter 292:
Then he turned and followed June out through the doors.
Cole stood frozen in the center of the dining room. The humiliation was a physical weight crushing his chest. He looked down at Alycia’s hand still gripping his sleeve.
He ripped his arm away.
“Who the hell told you to come here?” Cole snarled, his voice a demonic whisper.
Alycia shrank back, genuine fear flashing in her eyes. Cole turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the room while every pair of eyes in it watched her in silence.
The private dining room of the Boston Century Club was suffocatingly tense.
The long mahogany table was set with heavy crystal and polished silver. On one side sat the senior executives of the Compton Group. On the other sat the leadership of the Love Group. Cole occupied the head of the table on the left; Crawford occupied the head on the right. They looked like two rival warlords enduring a forced ceasefire. The air between them was thick enough to choke on.
Waiters moved silently, placing plates of seared scallops and truffle risotto before the executives. The business discussion regarding the European media merger had paused temporarily for the meal.
Crawford picked up his heavy linen napkin, dabbed the corner of his mouth with elegant, unhurried precision, and set it back down on the table.
Then he looked directly at Cole.
“Mr. Compton,” Crawford said, his voice cutting cleanly through the quiet clinking of silverware. “I had the displeasure of running into your… guest, Ms. Beasley, in the hotel lobby this morning.” He placed a slow, deliberate weight on the word guest.
ѕ𝗵а𝗿𝗲 у𝘰u𝗿 𝘵𝘩о𝘶𝗀h𝗍𝘀 o𝘯 𝗴𝗮𝗹𝘯о𝗏е𝗅s.сo𝘮
The Compton executives froze. Forks stopped halfway to mouths. Every man at the table knew exactly who Alycia was, and every man understood this was extraordinarily dangerous ground.
Cole’s jaw locked. The muscles in his neck strained against his collar.
“What is your point, Love?” Cole demanded, his voice dropping to a dangerous rumble.
Crawford leaned back in his leather chair and crossed his legs. He let his gaze drift along the row of tense faces lining the table.
“My point is a matter of corporate culture,” Crawford said, his tone shifting into a measured, public cadence. “I am simply curious when the Compton family discipline became so remarkably weak p>
He paused, allowing the insult to settle over the room like a fine dust.
“You allow a mistress to publicly harass and insult your legal wife in the middle of a crowded dining room,” Crawford continued, each word precise and lethal. “If word of this pathetic lack of control reaches Wall Street, I wonder how the analysts will rate the internal stability of the Compton Group p>
The entire room stopped breathing.
Crawford had just weaponized a private domestic disaster and reframed it as a direct assault on Cole’s corporate leadership — publicly castrating him in front of his own men.
Cole’s hand closed around the stem of his crystal water goblet. He squeezed until his knuckles turned bone-white. The water inside trembled visibly.