Isabella's POV
The c***k of the slap still hung in the air when Ian moved.
No one saw him cross the room. One moment, he was twenty feet away, deep in conversation with the foundation's board chairman. The next, he was simply there—standing between me and the woman.
His hand clamped around her wrist before she could pull it back, before she could disguise the second strike she had already been drawing up. The force of his grip stopped her cold, freezing her in place as the room fell silent around us.
The room went completely silent not politely but in a way three hundred people stopped breathing at the same time.
Ian's fingers circled the woman's wrist… not harshly, yet not gently either. It was the measured, unyielding grip of a man who had already made a decision and saw no reason
