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pitch of Adaline Hayes's sixty-million-dollar Croft merger-the career-defining deal w
gn investors, and press, the screen flickered, cutting straig
d, pants kicked to his ankles, relentlessly pounding into Kirk Capit
Fallon's breathless moans and the sickening, wet sl
into sharp gasps, horrified whisp
, already hoisting his phone to record. "Someone just
The air was violently
kin like acid. She had spent the last three months working until three in the morning, building every financia
rmark glowing in the corner o
t a techni
In thirty seconds, Adaline's keynote was butchered, the two thousand investors she needed were laughing at a sex
with unshed tears, but she dug her nails into her palms until she felt th
he master video power trunk plugged into the sta
n
nt scre
designer pumps were slowing her down; she kicked them off, abandoni
attered trust. Eight years. Eight years of ghostwriting his strategy decks, nursing him through hangovers, and cari
look at the lethal, icy fury in Adaline's b
dler's heavy double
A
. When he saw her standing barefoot in the doorway, there was no panic in his face-only
applying fresh scarlet lipstick in a gold compact mirror. On the floor beneath her heels
the compact shut. "Look who fina
adjusted his gold cufflinks, looking
pologetic. "Fallon's father is absorbing sixty million of my family's debt. Taking lead on your Croft merg
line like a lead
. He had let Fallon turn her pitch into a public execution. And now he was handing three
condition? I worked myself into the ground to secure this commission f
ed sigh, waving his hand as i
think my family would ever let me go through with marrying a liability?" He took a step forward, his eyes narrowing into cold calculation. "Ki
ire youth to support, was nothing more than a parasite wearing a bespoke suit. T
he said, her voice f
ard them in her five-inch heels, a ve
re say a single word about this to the board or the press, I'll make one phone call to Mount Sinai. By morning, Angus's charity care will be r
from Fallon's smug, cruel face ba
g sat heavy on her ring finger. She gripped the metal,
h, dragging a sharp line of fresh,
led the bloodied ring stra
ac
y red welt before bouncing against his pristi
posure cracking as he touched his cheek
he smear of blood from her knuckle against her black skirt. H
n her heel a
oulders rigid, chin held impossibly high, leaving faint tr
evator and hit the button
corridor. Then the heavy brushed-steel doors
doors sealed, h
She curled into a ball, pressing her trembling, bleeding hand against her
life. Torn to shred
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