Page 208 of Their Arrangement
“You need a minute?”
I didn’t answer.
“Because you’re about to punch through glass, and that’s not a look that screams ‘I’ve got this handled.’”
I stopped walking.
Turned to him.
“He called her a liability.”
Royal nodded.
“He’s not wrong.”
I stared at him.
His expression didn’t waver.
“He’s also not the one who carried her out.”
That hit harder than I expected.
“You think I’m making a mistake?”
“I think you already made it.
Now you’re just trying to own the consequences.”
“And?”
“And I respect the hell out of that.
But if you burn down the family to protect her, just make sure she’s still standing when the smoke clears.”
I looked past him toward the far window. Cloe’s reflection still hovered in the glass. Not moving. Not blinking. Just watching.
“She’s the only one I’d burn for.”
The heat hadn’t left my chest. It curled behind my ribs like something alive. Like it was pacing while I held the door closed behind it.
I wasn’t shaking.
Not visibly.
But my palms itched from the tension.
My knuckles still ached from restraint.
Barron didn’t know how close I’d come. Not to hitting him. To walking away from all of it. From the company. From the family. From the weight of keeping all of us from destroying each other.
He said she was a weakness. And he wasn’t wrong. She was distraction. She was hunger. She was softness where I’d never allowed any. But she was also the only fucking thing in my life I didn’t want to break.
I walked past the elevator like I hadn’t heard the stunned silence behind me. Like I couldn’t feel the eyes tracking every inch of my retreat.
The glass wall felt colder than it should. Everything did. The conference room burned behind me, but I didn’t look back. Didn’t slow. Because if I stopped walking?
I wouldn’t have left that room without blood on my hands.
