David didn’t wait to hear the rest of her spiraling, pathetic breakdown. He aggressively tapped the red button, ending the call, and threw the burner phone onto the mattress as if it had burned him.
He turned and practically ran out of the suite.
He hit the elevator button repeatedly, pounding his fist against the silver metal, his jaw locked so tight his teeth ached. When the doors opened on the ground floor, he marched straight to the reception desk. The polished, charismatic lawyer was entirely gone, replaced by a frantic, sweating, wild-eyed man.
He slammed his palms down on the marble counter, making the startled night concierge jump. “My wife,” he barked. “Long dark hair, about five-foot-five. Have you seen her? Tell me she came through this lobby.”
The man’s eyes went wide. He shook his head slowly, apologizing profusely. “I’m sorry, sir. The lobby has been completely empty for the last hour.”
For the next twenty agonizing, torturous minutes, David scoured the hotel like a madman.
He paced through the state-of-the-art gym, the shadows of the heavy equipment mocking his desperation. He checked the empty, cavernous luxury cinema room, his chest heaving. He walked the perimeter of the indoor pool, the smell of chlorine burning his nose as he searched the deserted, dimly lit cabanas.
Every empty room, every silent hallway ratcheted the terror in his chest a notch higher.
His mind began to violently spiral, playing out a hundred horrifying, gut-wrenching scenarios.Are they together?he thought, his stomach churning with a dark, nauseating, possessive jealousy that made him want to vomit.Did Sean find her? Are they talking about us right now?He aggressively scrubbed a trembling hand over his face, marching back toward the elevator bank.No,he told himself firmly,desperate to cling to the fragile illusion of his reality.Rosália would never cheat. She couldn’t do that. She is obsessed with me. She’s too devoted, too pure. She wouldn’t even know how to begin.He stepped into the empty elevator car, slamming his fist against the button for the penthouse floor.
He stared at his pale, sweating, disheveled reflection in the mirrored doors as the car rapidly ascended. His heart was hammering a frantic, trapped rhythm against his ribs.She probably just couldn’t sleep. She got lost wandering the grounds. She’ll be back in the suite by now, waiting for me.
The elevator began to slow. The silver doors slid apart with a soft, chimingding.
David stepped forward, his body practically vibrating with the desperate, clawing need to get back to his room.
And then, his absolute worst nightmare became a living, breathing reality.
Standing directly in the hallway, just a few feet from the elevator, was Rosália. Her face was flushed, her lips were slightly parted, and her dark eyes were wide and practically glowing with a light he hadn’t seen in years.
And standing just ten feet behind her, framed perfectly in the open doorway of a dimly lit suite, was Sean.
The older man was watching David with an expression of absolute, terrifying, lethal calm. His dark slacks and heavy black sweater made him look massive in the dim corridor—an unshakeable wall of pure, intimidating masculine power.
But it wasn’t just the visual that broke David. It was the atmosphere. There was a heavy, static charge vibrating in the airbetween Sean and Rosália. An undeniable, thick intimacy that David instantly recognized because he had just shared it with Katherine twenty minutes ago.
David completely lost his mind.
The blood rushed violently to his face, a blinding, possessive rage obliterating every single rational thought in his head. He lunged out of the elevator car like a feral animal. His hand shot out, grabbing Rosália’s delicate arm with bruising, desperate force. He yanked her roughly behind his body, shielding her from Sean as if the billionaire were a physical threat he needed to violently neutralize.
“What the fuck,” David snarled. His chest heaved, his dark eyes burning with murderous, uncontrollable fury as he glared at Sean. “What were you doing in a hotel room with him?”
Sean didn’t flinch. He didn’t step back, and he didn’t look remotely intimidated by David’s pathetic, frantic display of territorial aggression. Instead, a slow, dark, deeply condescending smile curved the older man’s lips.
“Keep your voice down, David. You’re making a scene in the hallway,” Sean murmured. His deep voice was effortlessly smooth, dripping with an aristocratic disdain that made David feel microscopic.
Sean stepped casually out of the doorway, sliding his hands smoothly into his pockets. He looked completely unbothered.
“Your wife was having a minor panic attack,” Sean explained, his dark eyes locking onto David’s with a look of pure, unapologetic challenge. “She couldn’t sleep. She came out looking for the night staff to get some chamomile tea, but thefloor was entirely deserted. She looked as though she was going to faint in the corridor.”
David’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth audibly ground together. His grip tightened on Rosália’s arm. “So you brought her into a private suite?”
“I brought her a glass of water and allowed her to sit on the sofa until her heart rate settled,” Sean corrected smoothly, his voice a low, lethal purr. “I would expect any decent man to do the exact same for a woman clearly in distress. Unless, of course, you would have preferred I leave your wife hyperventilating alone on the carpet while you were... wherever it is you’ve been.”
The trap snapped shut with devastating precision.
David opened his mouth to bark a furious reply, but the words died a sudden, violent death in his throat. The undeniable, sharp truth of Sean’s pointed question hit him like a physical blow to the stomach.
Before David could recover, Rosália violently wrenched her arm out of his grip.
She stepped out from behind him, no longer needing or wanting his protection. Her dark eyes flashed with a cold, absolute, terrifying fury that David had never seen directed at him before.
