The head of Callaway Global Security, a six-foot-four veteran who had been standing twenty paces away when the nightmare unfolded, stepped forward instantly. “Sir.”
“Take my mother directly to the private trauma bay downstairs. Have Dr. Vance waiting with a full cardiac and neurological team. Nobody touches her without my express authorization.”
“Understood, Mr. Callaway.”
“And Victoria?” Marcus asked, casting a cold sideways glance at the bride.
“Victoria stays right where she is,” Nathaniel said. He slowly rose to his feet. He was over six feet two, with the lean, lethal build of a former collegiate rower, and the sheer presence of his wrath seemed to suck the oxygen out of the terrace. “The Sterling family does not leave this rooftop. Call the precinct commander. Tell him I want the homicide division here in ten minutes.”
“Homicide?” Victoria shrieked, taking a panicked step backward, her white lace train dragging through the spilled red wine. “Nobody died! Nathaniel, you can’t arrest me! I am your wife!”
“You are a suspect in an attempted murder,” Nathaniel said, his voice flat and dead. “And as of this second, you are nothing to me.”
Arthur Sterling lunged forward, pointing a manicured finger at Nathaniel’s chest. “You insolent pup! You think you can treat my daughter like a common criminal? Do you have any idea what my connections will do to your stock price by morning? We own the port authority! We own half the judiciary in this state!”
“Then you’d better start calling them,” Nathaniel said without blinking. “Because by dawn, I will liquidate every joint venture Callaway Enterprises holds with the Sterling Group. Every loan will be called. Every contract will be terminated. If your daughter pushed my mother, Arthur, I won’t just put her behind bars. I will dismantle your entire bloodline.”
He didn’t wait for Arthur’s response. He turned his back on the bride, the senator, and the eight hundred gawking guests.
Nathaniel walked across the blood-slick marble and stopped directly in front of Rose.
Rose looked up. Her face was smudged with soot from the outdoor heaters, her light brown hair spilling out of its sensible bun, framing wide, hazel eyes that were glassy with shock. She tried to scramble backward, suddenly terrified that she was in the way, that she was somehow going to be blamed for the catastrophe.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Rose whispered, her voice trembling so hard her teeth chattered. “The tray… I dropped the crystal. I’ll pay for it. I swear I’ll pay for it out of my check—”
“Be quiet,” Nathaniel said, his voice softening by a fraction.
Before Rose could comprehend what was happening, the most powerful bachelor in North America dropped to one knee in the spilled alcohol and blood. He didn’t care about his thousand-dollar trousers. He didn’t care about the cameras flashing behind him.
He reached out and gently, almost reverently, took Rose by her wrists, keeping her bleeding palms elevated.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured.
“It… it hurts,” she admitted, a single tear cutting a clean path through the dust on her cheek. “The dress… it was so heavy. I thought she was going to pull me over. I thought we were both going to die.”
“You didn’t let go,” Nathaniel said. His dark eyes locked onto hers with an intensity that made the breath catch in her throat. “Why didn’t you let go?”
“Because she was someone’s mother,” Rose whispered simply. “How could I let her fall?”
Something shifted in Nathaniel’s eyes—a fracture in his legendary armor, an emotion so raw and uncharacteristic that the socialites watching from afar began murmuring in disbelief.
Nathaniel released her wrists, stood up, and slipped his arms under her shoulders and beneath her knees.
Rose gasped, her head spinning as she was effortlessly lifted into the air against his broad, solid chest. “Sir! What are you doing? I’m filthy—I’m bleeding on you!”
“Let it bleed,” Nathaniel said against her hair.
He turned toward the grand double doors leading into the penthouse. The crowd parted instantly, scurrying backward like terrified rats to clear a path for their monarch.
Behind them, Victoria screamed—a sound of pure, unadulterated humiliation and fury.
“Nathaniel! Put that servant down! Look at me! NATHANIEL!”
Nathaniel never once looked back.
He carried Rose into the private elevator, his jaw set, his heart hammering against her shoulder. As the heavy brass doors slid shut, cutting off the flashes, the screams, and the ruined wreckage of his wedding, Rose’s vision began to tunnel into blackness. The last thing she felt was the steady, overwhelming warmth of Nathaniel’s arms, holding her as though she were the only fragile thing in the world worth saving.
***
