Chapter 49
Chapter 49:
Cole’s face went white. He looked at June as though she had completely lost her mind.
“What in God’s name are you doing?!” Cole demanded, his voice cutting through the silent room with icy authority.
He had not seen what came before. He assumed she was staging a scene — deliberately destroying his sponsored event to humiliate him.
“Apologize to him,” Cole ordered, pointing at the floor, his tone allowing for absolutely no argument. “Right now. This is a vulgar display. You do not physically strike someone in a setting like this. It is a disgrace p>
He was choosing them. Again. Even when she was the one who had been grabbed, even when the fist had been raised against her face, he stood beside the Beasleys to honor his own twisted sense of duty.
June looked at the man she had loved for four years.
Then she laughed.
It was not a happy sound. It was hollow and bone-chilling — the sound of something final collapsing into silence. It carried no warmth, no hope, and no remnant of the woman who had once loved him without reservation. The laugh echoed through the still ballroom, and in it was the absolute, unmistakable death of their marriage.
June’s hollow laugh faded slowly, leaving a chilling silence in its wake.
у𝘰𝘶𝗿 ոе𝘹t 𝖿𝘢𝘷𝗼𝗋𝗶𝘵e 𝗿e𝗮𝗱 і𝗌 o𝘯.с𝘰𝗺
She straightened her spine. She stood tall in her black velvet dress — like a dark rose blooming in a blizzard, fragile in appearance and impossible to break.
She looked Cole dead in the eye.
“I would rather apologize to a rabid dog,” June said, pronouncing every syllable with lethal precision, “than apologize to these parasites p>
Cole’s vision tinted red. His authority was being publicly dismantled.
He took a heavy step forward and reached out, fully intending to take June by the arm and remove her from the ballroom himself.
Just as his fingertips brushed the velvet of her sleeve, a large hand shot out from the crowd. Long, elegant fingers closed around Cole’s wrist like a steel vice, stopping him completely.
The crowd parted. Brogan Clements stepped into the light.
The pharmaceutical magnate stood half a head taller than Cole. He wore a midnight-blue bespoke suit, and his presence radiated a quiet, unhurried authority that matched Cole’s without effort.
Brogan twisted his grip slightly and pushed Cole’s hand away with an expression of undisguised contempt.
“Mr. Compton,” Brogan said, his voice smooth and edged with frost. “Don’t you think your behavior toward a woman — particularly a woman of such extraordinary talent — is somewhat beneath the occasion p>
Cole’s eyes narrowed. The veins in his neck rose. The sight of another man’s hand on his wife ignited something savage in him, burning through what remained of his composure.
He wrenched his wrist free and stepped forward aggressively, dropping every trace of polish.
“This is my wife, and this is a family matter, Clements,” Cole snarled, his voice dropping to a low, vibrating threat. “Take your hands off her and back away before I make sure you regret it p>