POV: Isabella
The word followed him down the sterile hallway, into the elevator, and across the city. Learn. It echoed in the silence of his penthouse. Learn what? How to not love her? How to watch her walk away? He had spent a lifetime learning how to build, to acquire, and to defend. He had no curriculum for this.
He was in his office at dawn, having not slept, staring at the city as it lightened from black to gray. A cold, focused dread had replaced the hollow feeling. His father was in the city. That fact alone was a declaration of war. The old man didn’t visit; he descended. And if he were here, in the wake of the scandal, in the wake of Xavier’s very public humiliation and Isabella’s retreat, his target would be clear.
Xavier’s first call wasn’t to security. It was to David Chen.
