Chapter 140
CHAPTER 27
The party was a spectacle of glittering lights, flowing champagne, and the hum of conversation blending with soft, luxurious music. A perfect event, orchestrated with precision to flaunt the who's who of New York's elite. For everyone else, it was the pinnacle of revelry. For Graham, it was sheer torment.
Standing at the edge of the room, his sharp eyes fixed on one particular guest, he swirled his whisky in his glass with a deliberate calm that betrayed the storm inside him. Isla. His Isla—except tonight, she didn’t look like his. She looked like a goddess who had descended into this world to toy with mortal men, her presence impossible to ignore.
Her dress—or lack thereof—mocked him. A slip of white fabric clung to her curves, teasingly short and cut so daringly low that Graham could barely restrain himself from marching across the room to cover her up with his jacket. His jaw clenched at the thought of every man in the room feasting their eyes on her glowing, bare skin. Her shoulders, her back, the endless length of her legs—every inch of her was on display, as though she were a temptation designed to drive him insane.
The neckline of her dress plunged dangerously, skimming along the edge of indecency, and the hemline left little to the imagination. Every time she moved, every sway of her hips, Graham's blood burned hotter. It wasn't just the jealousy; it was the audacity. This wasn’t the Isla he had taken shopping earlier, shy and unsure. No, this was someone else—a woman who clearly knew the power she wielded tonight.
Graham downed his drink in one gulp, the whisky burning its way down his throat but doing little to cool the fire inside him. So, this is why I wasn’t allowed a glimpse of the dress earlier, he thought bitterly. Not a dress. A goddamn scandal is what she picked out.
He set the glass down on a nearby table with a little more force than necessary, earning a curious glance from a passing waiter. Graham ignored it. His focus was solely on Isla as she moved through the room, her laughter tinkling like a bell as she engaged in polite conversation. Polite? Hardly. Every smile, every flutter of her lashes, felt like a betrayal. She wasn’t flirting, not overtly, but to Graham, it didn’t matter. She was drawing attention like a moth to a flame, and every single pair of male eyes in the room followed her like she was the only source of light.
His grip tightened around the edge of the table. What the hell was she thinking? She was his—damn it, his. And yet here she was, parading herself around like a prize for the taking, oblivious to the effect she had on every man in the room. Or maybe not so oblivious. The thought struck him like a dagger. Maybe she wanted this. Maybe she wanted the attention, the power, the freedom to exist outside of him for once.
That realization only made his frustration deepen. Graham was not a man used to feeling out of control, and yet tonight, he felt like a puppet, yanked around by the strings of her allure. Every rational thought told him to calm down, to let her enjoy herself, to bask in her glow as everyone else did. But he wasn’t a rational man tonight. He was a man on the edge of snapping, and Isla was the match poised to ignite him.
He took another drink, slower this time, as if the liquid could somehow douse the fire raging in his chest. It didn’t work. His gaze never left her, his jaw ticking with every second that passed. He didn’t want to cause a scene, but God help him, if one more man looked at her like she was theirs to admire, Graham wasn’t sure he could be held accountable for his actions.
Finally, as she turned her head, her eyes met his from across the room. For a brief moment, everything around him faded—the noise, the crowd, the lights. It was just her. Her smile faltered slightly, and he saw a flicker of something in her expression—was it defiance? Guilt? He couldn’t tell. But it was enough to send him over the edge.
Graham pushed off the table, his decision made. If Isla thought she could play with fire tonight, she was about to find out just how hot it could burn.
“Wow!” A loud, raucous laugh boomed behind Graham, accompanied by a hearty slap to his back. “I never thought I’d live to see the day, but here we are. Graham Lancaster—pussy-whipped.”
The voice belonged to none other than Daneil Angelis, Graham’s oldest and most irritating friend. Daneil’s wolfish grin stretched wide as he leaned casually against the bar, his tailored suit barely masking the irreverence in his stance. Daneil, founder of the luxurious Jardin hotel chain and self-proclaimed playboy extraordinaire, thrived on poking at Graham’s tightly wound composure.
Graham didn’t bother turning fully toward him, his gaze still glued to the dance floor where Isla swayed in another man’s arms. His irritation flared as he muttered, “Shut up, Daneil. And tell me, who the hell invited you?”
“Oh, come on,” Daneil drawled, unbothered, as he signaled for a drink. “Do you really think I need an invitation? A Lancaster party is the hottest ticket in town. You know me—I’m like glitter at a rave. Impossible to keep out.”
Graham rolled his eyes, the quip barely registering as his attention was drawn back to Isla. Her delicate figure moved effortlessly with the music, and his blood boiled as he caught sight of her dance partner—a Hollywood pretty boy with a smile too perfect to be real. The actor’s hands grazed her bare thighs, and Graham’s grip on the edge of the bar tightened, his knuckles whitening. Fury bubbled up, his restraint hanging by a thread.
“Relax,” Daneil interrupted, dragging him back before Graham could launch himself across the room. “They’re just dancing, not eloping.”
Graham’s glare could have cut steel. “His hands are on her thighs, Daneil,” he ground out, the words barely audible over the thrum of the party.
Daneil smirked, sipping leisurely from his cocktail. “And you’ve been watching every second, haven’t you? Never seen you like this, man. What’s going on? You used to be the king of indifference. Women threw themselves at you, and you barely blinked.”
Graham didn’t respond, his silence sharper than any retort. It wasn’t indifference burning in his chest now—it was a volatile cocktail of possessiveness, jealousy, and a maddening desire he couldn’t shake.
Daneil studied his old friend, his expression shifting from amusement to something approaching genuine curiosity. “So it’s real, then,” he said, his tone quieter now. “The great Graham Lancaster, hit by the love bug. What happened to all that talk about never getting married? About how no woman would ever drag you to an altar?”
Graham tore his gaze from Isla long enough to shoot Daneil a look that could melt iron. But Daneil, undeterred, continued, his smirk returning as his eyes flicked to Isla. “And all it took was a young thing in a skimpy little dress?”
Graham’s jaw clenched so tightly that he could feel his molars grinding. The dress. That damned dress. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget the way it clung to her, the way it revealed just enough to leave every man in the room imagining the rest. He doubted there was a single hot-blooded male here who hadn’t undressed her in their minds already.
“Trust me,” Graham growled, his voice low and dangerous, “that skimpy little outfit is coming off the second I get her alone. And then it’s going straight into the fire.”
Daneil laughed, shaking his head. “Good to know. Good to know. You’re a possessive bastard, Lancaster.”
Graham didn’t reply, his mind too consumed with the image of Isla and her dance partner. Just as he was about to down another drink, Daneil chimed in again, his tone light and teasing. “Hey, just to clarify—you’re not banging that hot blonde secretary of yours, are you?”
The question hit Graham like a freight train. Mid-sip, he choked on his whisky, sputtering as the liquid burned down the wrong pipe. He coughed violently, barely able to breathe as Daneil roared with laughter beside him.
When Graham finally recovered, his glare was murderous. “What the hell is wrong with you?”