Chapter 5 - The Husband
|
The man standing in the doorway was tall, broad-shouldered, and immaculately dressed in a bespoke midnight-blue tuxedo that cost more than my parents’ luxury cars.
He exuded an aura of absolute dominance. He was completely composed, his sharp jawline set in stone, and his dark eyes sweeping the room with a cold, calculating intensity that made grown men suddenly feel very small.
He was my husband.
The man I had married privately, in a quiet courthouse ceremony on a rainy Tuesday, exactly eleven months earlier.
As he stepped into the light of the chandeliers, my father stared at him. I watched in real-time as the color completely drained from my father’s arrogant face, leaving him looking like a sick, terrified ghost.
My father recognized him.
Almost everyone in that Boston ballroom did.
Whispers erupted across the room like a wildfire. “Is that...? No, it can’t be. What is he doing here?”
My husband completely ignored the murmurs. He crossed the massive ballroom with slow, deliberate steps, refusing to acknowledge the wealthy elites who usually begged for five minutes of his time. He walked straight past the head table, straight past my stunned sister, and stopped right in front of me.
Without a word, he unbuttoned his custom tuxedo jacket, slipped it off his broad shoulders, and placed it gently around my trembling, wine-soaked frame. It smelled like cedar and expensive cologne, immediately warming my cold skin.
He rested his large, warm hand on the back of my neck, kissing the top of my head.
May you like
Then, he turned around, placing himself between me and the entire ballroom. He looked directly at my father, his dark eyes narrowing with lethal intent.
“What happened to my wife?”
