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Chapter 662:

June sat in the passenger seat, her bag in her lap, her body angled toward the window. Behind her, folded into the space designed for luggage, Crawford Love was bent like a contortionist — knees drawn to his chest, head grazing the roof.

“Clements, I must commend you,” he said, his voice strained but conversational. “This vehicle has a genuinely spartan commitment to its purpose p>

Brogan’s hands were white on the wheel. He said nothing and guided the car into the evening traffic with mechanical precision.

“June.” Crawford’s arm extended between the seats, his hand closing around the water bottle in her cup holder. “May I p>

She turned. His fingers were already wrapped around it, his thumb resting precisely where her lips had been. The intimacy of the gesture — the deliberate, calculated nature of it — was unmistakable.

“That’s mine,” she said.

“Of course.” He didn’t release it. He twisted the cap and drank, his eyes finding hers in the rearview mirror, then handed it back.

June looked at the bottle. The act had been a claim, a violation dressed as casual courtesy, and her stomach turned with clear, cold revulsion.

“You’re disgusting,” she said.

“Thirsty,” Crawford corrected, settling back into his impossible position with a sigh of quiet satisfaction. “Terribly thirsty p>

𝗔𝖽𝗱𝗂c𝗍𝗶𝘃𝖾 𝗻ov𝘦𝘭ѕ 𝘰ո

“If you speak again,” Brogan said, his voice low and absolutely final, “I’m pulling over and you’re walking p>

Crawford subsided. His smile remained.

They drove in silence — vibrating, charged silence — through the glittering canyons of midtown, past the dark mass of Central Park, into the quieter streets of the Upper East Side. June kept her eyes on the city passing beyond the window, her fingers tight around the water bottle she had no intention of drinking from again.

At her building, she was out before Brogan could come around, her heels on the pavement, her key already in her hand.

“June.” Brogan’s voice, behind her. “Let me walk you up p>

“I’ve got it.” She didn’t turn. “Thank you for the evening. For everything p>

She pushed through the revolving doors. The elevator arrived immediately, empty and quiet. She stepped inside and pressed her floor, watching the doors draw closed on Brogan’s face — disappointed, confused, still kind in the way that genuinely good men were kind.

And beside him, Crawford’s face — patient, watchful, carrying the expression of a man who understood that doors could be opened, that buildings could be entered, that there was no arrangement she could make that he could not eventually find his way around.

The elevator rose. June leaned against the mirrored wall and watched her reflection multiply into infinity, and wondered at what precise moment she had become the prize in a war she had never agreed to fight.

The Aston Martin’s engine died with a final, resentful shudder.

Brogan sat behind the wheel, his hands still gripping the leather, his eyes fixed on the brass revolving doors where June had disappeared. Behind him, Crawford Love unfolded himself from the luggage compartment with the practiced ease of a man who had spent his life recovering from indignities that would have broken anyone else.

“Remarkable vehicle,” Crawford said, straightening to his full height, his spine audibly protesting the effort. “Remarkably uncomfortable, but remarkable p>