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Chapter 454
Chapter 454:
“Cole,” she breathed, her voice carefully calibrated to maximum vulnerability. “The guest bathroom is too dangerous. The marble is too slippery. For the safety of the baby — could I please move into the master bedroom p>
The master bedroom.
The one space in the penthouse that still held the faintest trace of June’s perfume. The last sanctuary.
Cole’s eyes went black. The temperature in the room dropped.
He reached out and knocked her hand away sharply. Alycia gasped, her arm striking the metal bedrail.
𝗥е𝘢𝗱 𝗳𝗋𝘦𝘦 𝘯о𝘷𝗲ls 𝗈n
“Stop playing these disgusting games,” Cole said, his voice a low, vibrating threat that raised the hair on her arms. “Do you think I am an idiot? Do you think I don’t know what theatrical blood looks like? Do you think I don’t have cameras covering every inch of that penthouse hallway p>
Alycia’s face turned chalk white. The air left her lungs entirely. Her flawless performance lay in pieces around her.
Cole leaned over the bed, bringing his face inches from hers.
“Listen to me carefully,” he whispered. “You are nothing but an incubator to me. You will stay in the guest room. If you ever attempt to set foot inside the master bedroom, I will have security remove you by force p>
He straightened up and turned his back on her trembling, weeping form.
He walked out of the hospital room. The sound of her desperate sobbing did not register in his brain at all.
Cole stood alone in the bright, sterile corridor. He leaned the back of his head against the cold wall and closed his eyes.
He had a pregnant woman in the room behind him and billions in his accounts. His chest was a hollow, agonizing void.
He had never missed June more than he did in this exact moment.
The afternoon sun filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Apex Bio headquarters.
June sat at her sleek, minimalist desk, blue-light blocking glasses on, rapidly scrolling through the complex clinical data sets for the Gen-2 drug trials. Her mind was a fortress of logic and science, entirely detached from the chaotic violence currently tearing through Manhattan’s elite.
Her phone vibrated on the desk.
It was a text from Crawford. “June, apologies. A sudden security issue requires my immediate attention. I cannot send my team to escort you today. I will arrange it later this week p>
June typed a quick reply — “No problem. Take care of your business.” — and set the phone down.
She had no idea that Crawford was currently sitting in an underground club with a busted lip and a bruised cheekbone, his ego the only thing standing between him and the truth of how he had spent his morning.
An hour later, her office phone rang. It was Sloane.
“June! Tell me you are free for dinner tonight,” Sloane’s bright, energetic voice came through the speaker. “As a thank you for surviving Alycia’s endless drama at the gallery, I booked a table at this incredible new Michelin-starred French place in Soho. You need to get out of that lab before you turn into a spreadsheet, and frankly, I need the company of someone sane p>