“If you’ve recovered, we’ll continue.” Zion Hawthorne ignored her emotional state.
His long fingers went to the buttons of his suit jacket.
Right in front of her, he unbuttoned it with one hand and tossed the jacket aside.
Rowan Keller instinctively shrank back, watching him with extreme vigilance.
“What are you trying to do?”
“A man and a woman on a bed.
What do you think could happen?” Zion Hawthorne loomed over her as he approached, his tall frame nearly engulfing hers.
Rowan could only try to run.
But Zion had locked the entire suite.
Even if she fled, there was nowhere to go.
“Don’t you have Serena Sterling now?” Rowan was forced from the bed into a corner, with no path of retreat left.
“Why won’t you let me go?”
“You’ve misunderstood something,” Zion ‘kindly’ reminded her.
Rage still burned in Rowan’s eyes.
“It’s not that I won’t let you go.
It’s that you’re always finding ways to get in front of me.” Zion closed in on her, step by step, his expression as unmoving as iron.
“Coming to a hotel to sell a ring, you should have known you’d face something like this.”
“If I had known you were here, I would have died before coming,” Rowan said, word by word.
The only reason she had agreed to meet Sidney Grant here was because she had come to this hotel with Zion before to discuss business.
It had been a simple business meeting, and they had eaten downstairs afterward.
Besides, the meeting location was supposed to be a conference room, not a hotel room.
A layer of frost seemed to settle over Zion’s face.
“Is that so?”
Rowan: “Yes!”
“Unfortunately, there are no ‘ifs’ in this world.” Zion grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“Today, the only person you’ll be facing is me.”
With that, his thin lips descended upon her red ones.
When she raised a hand to strike him, he seized both her wrists and pinned them above her head.
Rowan tried to kick him but was effortlessly subdued by Zion.
In just a few seconds, she was trapped against the wall, unable to move.
Rowan felt nothing but humiliation.
“Tears are the most useless thing in the world.” Seeing her glare at him with reddened eyes, Zion lectured her without a hint of emotion.
“If it were anyone else in here with you, it would be much worse.”
“I’d rather it be anyone else,” Rowan retorted angrily.
The color in Zion’s eyes chilled, bit by bit.
“Are you sure?”
The words on the tip of Rowan’s tongue died in her throat.
‘The Zion before me now isn’t the man who used to dote on me and indulge my every whim. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
What if he’s really depraved enough to call someone else in?
That would be true despair.’
Zion raised a hand to brush back a slightly messy strand of hair from her ear.
His fingertips traced the curve of her ear, sliding down to her small earlobe.
He gave it a gentle squeeze, and a shiver ran through Rowan’s entire body.
“Rowan Keller, you should know you have no way out.” His other hand rested on her waist, his deep, husky voice laced with more allure than usual.
“If I don’t give the word, no one will dare to buy your ring.
The only thing you can do is please me.”
“I would rather go beg on the streets than ask you for a thing.” There was no way Rowan would compromise with a person like him.
Zion felt her temper had grown too much.
“Is this your idea of survival?”
Rowan knew she couldn’t escape today.
Whether it was the difference in their size or the disparity in their strength, she was no match for Zion.
So, she decided to throw caution to the wind.
“After all this talk, don’t you just want to sleep with me?”
A dark haze clouded Zion’s jet-black eyes.
He hadn’t expected her to be so blunt.
“If you’re going to do it, do it quickly.
Don’t keep me from my business.” Rowan stopped struggling, her whole demeanor changing as if she’d become a different person.
Zion let her go.
As she watched in confusion, he took out his phone right in front of her and made a call.
“Don’t you like her?
She’s in the room.
She’s yours.”
“What are you doing?” A terrible premonition welled up in Rowan’s heart.
“Didn’t you say you’d rather it be anyone else but me?” Zion put his phone away.
When he looked at her again, his eyes had returned to their usual indifference, devoid of any passion.
“I’m granting your wish.”
Rowan’s heart instantly plummeted.
Seeing her fear return, the frost in Zion’s eyes finally began to thaw, just a little.
Rowan’s hands and feet went cold.
Her eyes darted around the room, desperately searching for something she could use to save herself.
But there was nothing she could use as a weapon, and nothing that could help her escape.
A moment later, footsteps sounded outside the suite.
The door opened from the outside, and in walked Sidney Grant, who had left and now returned.
“She’s yours.” Zion glanced at the pale-faced Rowan and spoke the cruelest of words. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“Don’t go easy on her on my account.
Just make sure she doesn’t die.”
Sidney Grant: “…”
‘You really know how to make things difficult.’
“You can really bear to part with her?” he could only play along with the heartless act.
“She’s just a disobedient cat that likes to bite.” Zion’s gaze was emotionless as he looked at Rowan, his callous words like arctic ice.
“Nothing to be reluctant about.”
“In that case, I’ll gladly accept.” Sidney Grant curled his lip into a smile.
Zion shot Rowan one last, cold glance, then turned and left without another word.
The sound of his leather shoes echoed as he walked away, the distance between him and Rowan growing with every step.
“Miss Keller, a moment of passion is precious.” Sidney recited the nauseating line, the urge to murder Zion growing stronger in his heart.
“Shall we begin?”
“Wait.” Seeing that Zion was dead set on leaving her here, Rowan forced herself to remain calm.
“I’d like to take a shower first.”
Zion’s back, now facing her, stiffened almost imperceptibly.
Sidney hadn’t expected that.
After a brief moment of surprise, he nodded instinctively.
“Alright.”
Rowan turned and walked toward the bathroom.
She remembered that from the 28th-floor bathroom window, the ledge led to the balcony of the next room.
If she was brave enough, she could walk across it and get away from here.
‘With Sidney and Zion in this room, they’ll never let me just walk out.’
‘But I have to go.’
She entered the bathroom, locked the door from the inside, and turned on the shower.
As the sound of running water filled the air, she began her escape.
It took all her might to climb onto the windowsill.
When she looked down from the twenty-eighth floor, her limbs couldn’t help but go weak.
‘It’s so high.’
Outside, the two men were still unaware.
Listening to the sound of the shower, Sidney gossiped in a low voice, “What’s the situation?”
Zion wanted to know the situation even more than he did.
Rowan didn’t have the guts for something like this; he was one hundred percent sure of it.
Suddenly, a thought struck him, and he strode toward the bathroom.
Hearing the steady sound of the water, he kicked the door open without hesitation.
When the door swung open, Rowan was nowhere to be seen.
A series of question marks popped into Sidney Grant’s mind.
‘A disappearing act?’
Zion’s first instinct was to look out the window.
He saw a hand slowly gripping the edge of the sill, moving along.
The aura around him instantly turned heavy, and his expression became dangerous in an instant.
He walked to the window and yanked her back up, his first words piercingly cold.
“If you don’t want to live, you can just say so.”
‘It’s so high up.’
‘Is she really not afraid of falling to her death?’