POV: Isabella
The hurt was a cold, sharp, surgical thing. It didn't blaze; it infiltrated. It slid between her ribs with the silent, efficient cruelty of a scalpel, finding the vulnerable place his moonlit confession had warmed and freezing it solid. The ice spread through her veins, a glacial anesthetic that numbed the shock, the humiliation, and the raw, screaming sense of betrayal.
His denial in the boardroom hadn't been a surprise. Intellectually, she had braced for it. He was Xavier Hale, protector of empires, a man who traded in assets and optics. A scandal—a personal scandal—with a junior employee was a catastrophic liability. Denial was the strategic move. The only move for a man like him.
That was the true devastation. The fact that it was logical made the emotional evisceratio
