Adrian's knuckles whitened around the steering wheel as he gripped it tighter, the city's lights blurring in his peripheral vision.
His pulse was still pounding.
He hadn't been able to get the image out of his head—Nicholas Carter standing there like something out of a nightmare, like some living warning sign written in sharp suits and sharper words. Calm. Lethal. Unbothered by Adrian's very existence. It wasn't fury that had made Adrian's skin crawl.
It was that control.
That terrifying, casual ownership.
I'm her husband.
Those words still echoed in his ears, over and over, like a bell toll, mocking him, pressing against the fragile edges of his ego until it splintered.
Married.
Ella—his Ella—belonged to someone else.
Someone richer.
Someone better.
Someone who could say three words and make Adrian feel like a child pretending to play in a world far too big for him.
