The corridor remained thick with the suffocating silence of several shattered worldviews. Erik Martin stood rooted to the spot, his face fluctuating between a ghostly pale and a bruised purple. He had spent the last several minutes inflating his chest like a peacock, boasting of his "superiority" and his role as Christian Hobbs's protector, only to have the most elite bachelorette in Novus City—the "Ice Queen" herself—publicly claim his rival.
Erik’s eyes were dark with a toxic mix of humiliation and calculating malice. He took a long, ragged breath, trying to steady the tremor in his voice. "Miss Turner, surely you are joking. Liam Stone is holding court in the very suite across the hall at this very moment. If you continue to parade around arm-in-arm with Allen Morgan, do you have any i
