?Chapter 1307:


    William moved before his brain caught up, lunging to grab her.


    Ste threw her wet, tear-streaked arms around his neck and burrowed into his crisp suit, face hot against the fabric. Like a lost puppy finally finding home, she rubbed against him, the brokenints tumbling out.


    “My head’s spinning. My stomach’s killing me. I’m freezing. Hold me. Don’t go, Marc…”


    William froze. Every muscle in his body went rigid as Ste clung to him, voice soft and blurred with alcohol.


    Marc?


    For a second, he thought he misheard. But no—she really said it. She was clinging to him, yet calling out another man’s name.


    A man who’d tossed her aside without hesitation.


    His jaw tightened, something dark and ugly rising in his chest. He pushed her off his chest, gripping her unsteadily by her shoulders.


    “Ste,” he said, voice low and dangerous, “say it again. Who am I?”


    She blinked up at him, eyes unfocused. Her stomach twisted, her head spinning. The man in front of her was just a blurry shape—voice familiar but floating in and out of her muddled thoughts. Why was he pushing her away? Her brows knitted and, like a lost child, she leaned right back into him. “Don’t… don’t push me away. I feel awful. I drank too much…”


    The soft plea punched straight through his anger. He should’ve snapped at her. Mocked her. Torn her down the way he’d nned—to force her to recognize exactly who she was holding. But the words wouldn’te. Not when her face was pale, eyebrows pinched in difort, breath shaky against his chest. Not when she looked like she was barely holding herself up.


    Something inside him stuttered. Her warmth seeped through his shirt. Her arms looped around his neck—not calcted, not seductive, just desperate. And it rattled him in a way he hadn’t expected. Her arms looped around his neck like they belonged there—soft, desperate, impossible to ignore. It felt less like she was holding onto him, and more like she was holding him together.


    William stayed still, paralyzed by the heat of her body and the flood of emotions he couldn’t make sense of.


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    The cold sharpness in his eyes faded, reced by something tangled and uncertain.


    For the first time in a long while, he wasn’t in control of how he felt. He didn’t want to be.


    The memories Arlo had nted—those rehearsed betrayals, the false bitterness—they all dissolved in this moment. Useless. Powerless.


    His instincts took over. Without thinking, he raised a hand and gently rested it against her back, trying to warm the chill from her trembling frame.


    In the bathroom’s tight silence, herbored breathing filled the space… along with his own heartbeat, loud and uneven in his chest.


    “I feel… so awful…” she murmured, tears slipping down and soaking into his expensive suit. She leaned harder into him, like he was thest thing keeping her upright.


    An unexpected wave of pity—no, something deeper—wrapped itself around him, irritating him just as much as it softened him.


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