I found him standing near the center of the room. Malcolm was completely still, his dark eyes scanning the crowd with a frantic, lethal intensity that I had never seen from him before. He looked like a man who was seconds away from tearing the building apart with his bare hands.
"Malcolm," I said.
My voice was quiet, but he heard it. He turned his head, his eyes locking onto mine across the crowded room.
The sheer, overwhelming relief that crashed over his face was devastating.
He didn't care about the board. He didn't care about the company. He didn't care about the hundreds of people watching him.
He crossed the ballroom in long, rapid strides, ignoring the mayor, ignoring the photographers. He reached me, his hands gripping my shoulders with a bruising, desperate force, pulling me flush against his chest.
"Where were you?" he demanded, his voice a harsh, broken rasp against my ear.
"Simon," I whispered, wrapping my arms tightly around his waist, burying my face in the wool of his tuxedo jacket. "He paid the security team to lock me in a room."
I felt the exact moment Malcolm’s relief mutated into absolute, murderous rage. The muscles in his back turned to stone. He pulled back slightly, his dark eyes scanning my face, my bare shoulders, looking for any sign of injury.
"Did he touch you?" Malcolm asked, the words entirely devoid of humanity.
"No. He just begged me to leave you so you wouldn't destroy the company." I looked up at him, my heart breaking at the sheer scale of what he had done for me. "You resigned, Malcolm. You gave it all up."
"It was already gone," he murmured, his thumb brushing against my cheekbone. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine." I caught his hand, pressing my palm against his. "Take me home."
Malcolm looked over my shoulder. I didn't have to turn around to know he was looking at the double doors leading to the service hallway. He was calculating how long it would take to find Simon and end his life.
"Malcolm," I said, my voice firm. "We won. Let him rot in the mess he made. Take me home."
He looked back down at me. The violent, territorial instinct in his eyes warred with the desperate need to get me out of this house.
The need to protect me won.
"Grant," Malcolm said, not raising his voice.
Grant materialized from the crowd instantly, his expression grim. "Sir. I lost visual on her when the music changed. The contractors—"
"Deal with the contractors," Malcolm interrupted, his voice ice-cold. "We are leaving."
Malcolm didn't let go of my hand. He kept me anchored to his side as we walked out of the ballroom, through the foyer, and out the front doors of the Vance estate.
The paparazzi were still waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The flashes started immediately, blinding and chaotic.
We didn't stop. We didn't pose. Malcolm shielded my face with his body, guiding me into the back of the SUV.
The doors closed, shutting out the noise and the light. The car pulled away from the mansion, leaving the Vance family legacy burning in the rearview mirror.
I leaned my head back against the leather seat, turning to look at the man sitting next to me. He had lost his empire. He had lost his family.
But as he reached across the dark car and pulled me into his lap, burying his face in my neck, I knew he didn't regret a single second of it.
CHAPTER 23
AUDREY
The penthouse is completely silent when we walk through the front door.
Malcolm doesn't turn on the main lights in the living room. He leaves the foyer dim, the only illumination coming from the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. The city looks cold and distant from up here, completely detached from the chaos we just left behind at the Vance estate.
