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Chapter 526
Chapter 526:
His sharp eyes swept the living room in a single, practiced pass — the shoes by the door, the mugs on the counter, the absence of any masculine presence. He was looking specifically for signs of Easton Hahn. Finding none, a quiet surge of dark satisfaction moved through him.
June retrieved a clean, thick white towel from the hallway closet and held it out to him. “The guest bathroom is just down the hall p>
Crawford nodded and disappeared inside.
He removed the heavy, wet suit jacket. Then he unfastened a custom platinum cufflink from his left sleeve — a bespoke piece engraved with the Love family crest, distinctive and irreplaceable. He turned it over in his palm, studying it for a moment. The corners of his mouth curved into a slow, calculated smile. He closed his fist around it and walked back out.
June was in the kitchen, her back to the living room, boiling water for ginger tea.
O𝗿𝗀𝖺𝗻i𝘇e 𝘆o𝘶𝗿 𝗅𝗂𝗯𝗿𝘢𝗿y 𝗼𝘯
Crawford crossed the room silently. He moved to the large Italian leather sofa, brushed his hand along the edge of the thick wool rug as he sat, and let the cufflink slip from his fingers. It dropped and lodged itself discreetly beneath the heavy side table — mostly hidden, but certain to be found eventually.
He settled on the edge of the sofa, his posture impeccably composed.
June brought him a mug of hot ginger tea and sat across from him.
Thirty minutes later, his phone buzzed. The driver was waiting in the lobby.
Crawford rose and looked at June with an expression of genuine, unhurried gratitude — for the dinner, for the warmth, for the hospitality. He draped his damp jacket over his arm and walked to the front door with the easy, aristocratic grace of a man departing territory he already considered his own.
June opened the door. She watched him step into the elevator. The metal doors slid shut.
The apartment fell silent.
She let out a long, tired sigh and rubbed her temples. She crossed to the leather sofa and dropped down onto the cushions.
As she leaned forward to set her empty mug on the coffee table, her foot caught against something small and hard at the edge of the wool rug. She frowned, reached her hand down near the base of the side table, and closed her fingers around a cold, weighty object.
A platinum cufflink. The Love family crest was engraved into its face with fine, unmistakable detail, catching the warm light of the living room lamps.
June sighed. She picked up her phone and typed a brief message to Crawford, letting him know he had left it behind.
Downstairs, in the back of the warm Maybach, Crawford’s phone lit up on the seat beside him.
He looked at the screen. A message from June.
Crawford smiled — slowly, with absolute certainty. He had planted his token. He had secured an undeniable, mandatory reason for their next meeting.
The temperature inside the top-floor boardroom of the Compton Group headquarters felt arctic.
Cole sat at the head of the massive conference table, his face dark and stormy, staring at the mountain of legal documents related to the Beasley enterprise bankruptcy.