Chapter 534:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

She disentangled herself and went to the polished chrome bar cart in the corner. She selected a bottle of Macallan 25 and two crystal tumblers.

“Let’s have a drink,” she said, her voice soft and soothing. “To forget all of this. From now on, it’s you and me against the world.”

She poured two generous measures and handed one to him.

Finn hesitated, the glass cold in his hand. He knew he should say no, should call his mother, his lawyer. But the thought of those conversations, of the humiliation, was unbearable. The drink felt like an escape. He took it.

Cheyanne raised her glass, eyes locking with his over the rim. “To us.”

The crystal chimed.

She watched as he tossed back the expensive scotch. The faint curve that touched her lips was quick, almost invisible, but it was there. She had him.

𝖱e𝖺d 𝘄𝗶tho𝘶𝘁 𝘪𝗻𝘁еrr𝘶𝗽𝘵i𝗼𝘯𝘀 𝗈ո 𝘨a𝗹𝗇𝘰𝗏𝘦𝘭𝗌.𝗰𝗈m

She kept his glass full, listening patiently as the alcohol loosened his tongue. He ranted about his overbearing mother, the impossible shadow Adam cast over his life, the unfairness of it all.

She was the perfect audience, nodding in all the right places, murmuring sympathy and validation. She was no longer his deceitful fiancée. She was his confidante, his co-conspirator, the only person in the world who truly understood his pain.

Under the warm, numbing blanket of whiskey and false empathy, Finn’s last defenses melted away.

Allison couldn’t stay in the city. The news of Adam’s declaration had turned her into the most talked-about woman in New York. Her apartment was besieged by paparazzi. Her office was a fortress she couldn’t escape. After a single, unproductive day fending off calls and navigating the minefield of corporate politics, she drove back to the one place she felt safe.

She spent the next twenty-four hours waiting. She checked her phone every few minutes, but Adam’s only communication was a single, terse text: Almost done. Stay put.

The anxiety was a living thing coiled in her stomach. She paced the length of the glass-walled living room, watching the endless gray roll of the Atlantic, feeling as turbulent as the waves.

Late in the evening of the second day, she heard it: the low, rhythmic thumping of helicopter blades.

She rushed to the window just as a sleek black Sikorsky descended from the darkening sky, its landing lights cutting through the twilight. It settled onto the private helipad with a final gust of wind.

Her heart was in her throat.

The cabin door slid open. Two bodyguards stepped out first, eyes scanning the perimeter. Then Adam emerged.

He was dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit, his face even paler against the dark fabric. His left arm was in a discreet black sling, but he moved with weary, deliberate confidence. The king, returning from a brutal campaign.

Allison threw open the glass doors and ran across the lawn, cold damp air whipping at her hair.

He saw her coming and turned, his uninjured arm opening. She crashed into him, wrapping her arms around his waist, burying her face in the solid warmth of his chest.

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