Chapter 51 - 0051: You Hate That I Can Read You Like An Open Book

Chapter 51: Chapter 0051: You Hate That I Can Read You Like An Open Book

Elena’s Point of View

THE FOLLOWING NIGHT

I deliberately took my sweet, agonizing time.

The event was officially scheduled for 9:00 PM, but I didn’t even sit down in front of the vanity until 7:45. I spent fifteen long, agonizing minutes brushing out my hair, watching the dark waves catch the light, then another fifteen simply staring at my own reflection. Searching for the weak, weeping girl who had sobbed on the guest room floor last night.

She wasn’t there anymore.

I applied my foundation slowly, carefully... and then, with a bitter smirk playing on my lips, took a damp cotton pad and wiped it completely off, just to start the entire process over again. There was no rush. Why on earth should I be early to an event where no one cared whether I showed up or bled out in the driveway? Why rush to parade myself on cue before a pack of high-society vultures who already picked my dignity apart behind closed, mahogany doors?

I left the estate at 8:30 PM sharp.

By the time my heels clicked against the grand, polished entrance of the ballroom, the atmosphere inside was already thick with suffocating layers of expensive French perfume, bubbling champagne, and low, malicious whispers.

Massive golden chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceilings like frozen, glittering fireworks, casting a warm, deceptive glow over the crowd. Long, sleek tables were draped in deep emerald velvet and laden with lead crystal. Near the raised mahogany stage, a classical string quartet played a soft, melancholic melody that felt entirely too much like a funeral march.

Everyone was dressed to kill, but mostly, they were dressed to execute me.

I wore the exact gown Graham had commanded me to wear... an off-the-shoulder, liquid-silver silk dress that clung to every single curve of my body and shimmered like cold moonlight against my skin. I hated how breathtaking I looked in it. I hated that to any outsider, it might seem like I was still his property, carefully styled to reflect his immense wealth.

But I wore it anyway. Let the vultures stare. Let them try to figure out why the infertile wife wasn’t hiding in a hole.

I found a slightly veiled corner near the tall marble pillars where the deep velvet shadows swallowed most of my silhouette, and I sat down with a glass of champagne resting loosely in my fingers.

And I watched.

There he was. Graham Sinclair. Polished. Radiant. Smiling like the entire damn world was his private playground. His hand rested low on Lillian’s bare back with an easy, possessive familiarity that made my stomach turn into a tight, icy knot.

And Lillian... God, she looked insufferable. She wore a fitted blush-pink silk gown, her manicured fingers resting proudly on her flat stomach, caressing it repeatedly as if it were carved out of pure, solid gold.

Graham was parading her straight through his elite inner circle—the exact same businessmen, board members, and socialites who used to smile at me out of bitter obligation. The same people who were now looking at her with glowing eyes and soft, congratulatory smiles.

"She looks remarkably good on his arm, doesn’t she?" I overheard a woman whisper just a few feet away from my shadow, her diamond earrings catching the light as she leaned toward her companion.

"I know, right?" another woman giggled behind her black feather fan. "And just look at her skin... she’s positively glowing. Pregnancy really does suit a woman."

Then came a third voice... male, deep, and sickeningly smug. "Well, it’s about time, isn’t it? Finally, Sinclair is getting the heir he’s been begging for all these years. Poor Elena tried her best, I suppose, but the woman just couldn’t deliver the goods."

Couldn’t deliver the goods.

My fingers clenched around the fragile stem of my champagne glass so hard I thought the crystal would shatter in my palm. The liquid sloshed dangerously near the rim. A cold, toxic tide of dark fury rushed straight up my spine, completely burning away whatever faint trace of heartbreak remained.

I stood up slowly and deliberately.

I smoothed down the front of my silver silk gown, adjusted my shoulders, and walked straight toward them. My heels clicked against the marble like sharp, rhythmic gunshots echoing over the music. I stopped directly behind the three gossiping socialites, leaning in just close enough that my breath caught the edge of the woman’s lace shawl.

"Are you quite finished," I said coolly, my voice dangerously calm, smooth as silk and dripping with razor-sharp ice, "or do you three need a few more explicit topics to gossip about before the main course is served?"

All three of them froze instantly, as if I had dropped an anvil onto the floor.

They spun around in unison, their smug smiles instantly evaporating the second their eyes met mine. The color drained from the man’s face so fast it was almost comical.

"Mrs. Sinclair... I... oh, dear, we... we didn’t realize you were standing..." the woman in the lace shawl stammered, clutching her pearl necklace like a lifeline.

"Of course you didn’t," I said, slowly arching one perfectly manicured eyebrow, letting my dark eyes scan them up and down with absolute, soul-crushing disgust. "It’s so much easier to discuss a woman’s body when you think she’s not standing right behind you to slice your tongue out."

They mumbled a series of pathetic, frantic apologies, their cheeks burning a deep, blotchy red, before scrambling away into the crowd like cowardly roaches fleeing a sudden light.

I let out a soft, sharp exhale, rolling my eyes as I watched them disappear. "Bunch of absolute idiots."

I turned my back on them, my heart beating with a dull, heavy thud against my ribs as my eyes involuntarily drifted back toward the grand hall. More guests were flowing in through the archway. More fake laughs echoing. More clinks of crystal glasses. More empty, condescending glances from people who thought my life was over.

I was just about to turn away completely and head toward the private balcony... when my gaze caught on a silhouette standing near the entrance.

No. Absolutely not. It couldn’t be.

That broad-shouldered frame... that effortless, predatory walk... that dark, imposing height that seemed to swallow the light around him... My throat dried out instantly, as if I had swallowed sand.

He stepped out of the archway’s shadow and directly into the amber light of the chandeliers. Sharp, chiseled jawline shadowed by dark stubble. Piercing, unreadable eyes scanning the room with absolute, effortless dominance.

Even in the dim, atmospheric lighting, even with the shadows clinging to him like a second skin, I would recognize that lazy, arrogant sprawl anywhere in the world.

He didn’t walk like the upper-class nobility in this room... men who walked with stiff spines and practiced etiquette. He walked like a predator strolling through an open field of sheep. He casually wandered over to a private high-top table in the back corner, sat down, and took a tumbler of dark liquor straight off the tray of a passing waiter without even looking at the boy.

He leaned back. Spreads his long legs wide. Draped one massive, suited arm over the back of the leather chair, while his other hand loosely held the tumbler of whiskey like he owned the entire building, the guests inside it, and the very air we were breathing.

Jaxx.

The absolute split second his dark, brooding eyes cut across the crowded ballroom and locked onto mine, my blood turned to pure, unadulterated fire.

He was here. Right now. At this black-tie gala. At my husband’s most prestigious corporate showcase.

An event like this required an exclusive, high-level invitation. You had to be a billionaire, a political figure, or connected to someone with terrifying levels of power to walk past the armed security at the front gates. And Jaxx... Jaxx didn’t do polite, high-society gatherings. He didn’t bow to etiquette. He didn’t smile for cameras. He didn’t mingle.

So why the absolute hell was he sitting in the corner of Graham Sinclair’s ballroom?

My stomach twisted into a knot so tight it made me dizzy. Jaxx brought the heavy glass to his lips, taking a slow, deliberate sip of the dark whiskey, those piercing, dark eyes never leaving mine for even a fraction of a second.

And then... the corner of his lips pulled back into a slow, wicked, sinful smirk.

God. That damn smirk.

My breath hitched violently in my chest. He looked right through me—dark, knowing, arrogant, utterly dangerous, and so devastatingly beautiful it made my head spin. He knew exactly what he was doing to me just by breathing the same air in this room.

Panicking, I turned fast, nearly spilling my champagne down the front of my silk dress. My heels practically carried me out of the main ballroom on instinct, the floor beneath me feeling like it was burning alive. My chest rose and fell in frantic, shallow hitches as I rushed down one of the long, dimly lit marble corridors leading toward the quiet wing of the estate, hoping... praying I could escape the suffocating heat of his gaze before he— "Running away already, Bambina?"

The voice cut through the quiet corridor like a velvet blade, stopping me dead in my tracks... low, deep and smooth. Absolute sin wrapped in a whiskey-laced growl.

I froze, my breath catching in my throat, my fingers digging into the clutch in my hand before I slowly turned around.

Jaxx was leaning casually against the cold marble wall behind me, his hands tucked loosely into the pockets of his tailored black trousers. The dim sconce lighting kissed the sharp, dangerous angles of his jawline. He looked almost criminally attractive in a pitch-black suit, his crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the top two pegs, exposing the tan skin of his throat. He looked like total, absolute trouble.

And right now, standing in the quiet dark, a deep, terrible part of me wanted to be completely ruined by him.

"You shouldn’t be here, Jaxx," I whispered, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to sound composed. "If Graham sees you...

"If Graham sees me, what?" Jaxx interrupted, pushing off the wall with a slow, feline grace and taking a step toward me. He shrugged his broad shoulders lazily, his dark eyes fixed entirely on my lips. "What’s your pathetic excuse of a husband going to do, Elena? File a complaint?"

I swallowed hard, stepping back as he advanced, but my heel hit the baseboard behind me. I was trapped.

"You knew," I breathed, staring up at his towering frame as he stopped just inches away from me. "You knew who he was last night. You knew who I was."

"No," he said, his voice dropping into a flat, deadly register that vibrated straight through the floorboards. "Last night, I just knew you were a gorgeous, broken woman drinking herself to death in my club. Now I know who owned the lease on your misery. And if I had known it was that arrogant asshole Graham Sinclair putting those dark circles under your eyes... I wouldn’t have waited until tonight to pull you into my bed."

My throat tightened, my pulse hammering violently against my collarbone. "There is no ’bed,’ Jaxx. Whatever happened between us last night... whatever crazy deal we made... it’s over. It was a mistake."

"Is that so?" He stepped even closer, his immense body heat radiating through the thin silk of my dress, completely surrounding me with his dark scent of cedarwood, leather, and expensive tobacco.

"I thought you wanted your husband to see you with another man," he murmured, his voice lowering into a silky, persuasive purr as his dark eyes narrowed down at me. "Isn’t that what you said? You wanted him to feel the exact same humiliation he forced down your throat?"

I pressed my back harder against the cold wall, trying to create space that simply didn’t exist. "Jaxx, please..."

"Is that really what you want, Elena?" he asked, his voice dropping another octave, becoming thick, heavy, and intensely intimate. "To go back to being his little ghost? To be ignored in your own home? Touched only when it’s convenient for him to pretend he’s a good husband? Do you really want to crawl back into that cold, empty guest bed again tonight and pretend it doesn’t break your fucking heart?"

"Jaxx..." I choked out, my eyes fluttering shut for a fraction of a second as his aura completely overwhelmed my senses.

He closed the remaining distance, pressing his body flush against mine until my back was pinned firmly between his chest and the solid stone wall. His head dipped down, his breath brushing hot and heavy against the sensitive skin of my neck, and I felt a sharp, electric shiver shoot straight down between my thighs.

"Tell me, Bambina..." he rasped, his lips hovering mere millimeters from my jawline, his deep voice sending a shockwave through my lower belly. "How long has it really been since anyone actually touched you? Not just touched you... but worshiped you?"

My breath caught in my throat, a quiet gasp escaping my lips.

His large, calloused hand slowly came up, resting against my bare hip before his warm fingers slid smoothly up the side of my silk gown, gathering the heavy fabric, pulling it higher and higher up my thigh. I knew I should have slapped his hand away. I knew I should have screamed, pushed him off, or ran back to the safety of the ballroom. But I was utterly paralyzed. My body betrayed me completely, melting into his heat, desperately craving the dark, possessive validation he offered.

"Tell me," he growled softly into my ear, his rough fingers teasingly tracing the bare skin of my inner thigh, migrating higher with agonizing slowness, "how long has it been since this sweet, pretty pussy was treated like the holy grail it is?"

A soft, shaky moan escaped my throat before I could stop it, humiliation and absolute pleasure clashing violently in my chest at how terrifyingly fast my body surrendered to him.

"You think he deserves a woman like you?" Jaxx whispered, his lips dragging softly across my burning cheek, his hand continuing its agonizing climb under the gathered silk, his hot palm pressing against my inner leg. "That idiot doesn’t even see you. He looks at you and sees a title. But I see you, Elena. I see the way this gorgeous, sweet little mouth trembles every time I say your name. I see the way your legs naturally part for me the second I get close. You’re practically dripping for me already, aren’t you, Bambina?"

"I hate you," I breathed out, my head falling back against the marble wall, my hands gripping the fabric of his dark suit jacket just to keep my knees from buckling completely.

Jaxx let out a low, dark chuckle that vibrated deep in his chest against mine. "No, baby. You don’t hate me. You hate that I can read you like an open book. You hate that I know exactly how starved you really are."

His thick, calloused fingers reached the lace edge of my silk panties. They were completely soaked through, warm and slick with my own body’s helpless reaction to him.

Jaxx’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle pulsed in his cheek, his dark eyes flashing with a possessive, predatory hunger that terrified me. "Fuck," he growled out, his voice thick and tight. "You’re fucking drenched for me... and I haven’t even put my mouth on you yet."

"Jaxx... stop, someone’s going to walk down this hall..."

Without giving me a single second to finish the sentence, he hooked two fingers under the damp lace of my panties, shoved the thin fabric aside, and slid one long, thick finger deeply between my swollen, dripping folds.

"Ah!" I gasped out loud, my eyes rolling back into my head, my fingers digging desperately into his broad shoulders as an unbearable, white-hot wave of pleasure crashed straight through my core.

"Fuck, Elena," he hissed against my lips, his finger sliding smoothly in and out, working my wetness, pumping into me with a slow, rhythmically agonizing pressure that made my toes curl inside my heels. "You feel like fucking heaven, Bambina. Hot, tight, wet, and so damn desperate for it. Now look me in the eyes... look at me and tell me again that this deal is over."