Chapter 205:


    The voice came from a great distance. Someone was shaking her.


    She opened her eyes. The world was blurry and wet. Rain was hitting her face through the open car door.


    Grayson was leaning over her, soaked through, his hair stered to his forehead, his eyes wide with a frantic energy she hadn’t seen in years.


    “Isolde, wake up! Ralph called me. He said you copsed.”


    She tried to sit up, but her body felt like lead. “The books,” she mumbled, clutching the sketchbooks on herp.


    “Forget the books!” Grayson shouted. He scooped her up into his arms. “You’re burning up. Jesus, you’re on fire.”


    He carried her toward his Bentley, pulled up at the curb. “Open the door!” he called to Ralph.


    He ced her in the backseat. It was warm. Leather.


    “I’m taking you to the hospital,” Grayson said, climbing in beside her. “Driver — Mount Sinai. Now.”


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    For just a moment, a wave of relief moved through her. He was here. He was taking care of her. The old instinct — the one that had kept her in this marriage for five years — flickered to life.


    Then his phone rang.


    He froze. He looked at the screen.


    “Answer it,” she whispered, her voice a rasp. “It’s her, isn’t it?”


    He hesitated, then pressed the button. “Belle? I can’t talk right now, Isolde is —”


    “Gray!” Belle’s voice shrieked through the speaker. “Kaiden is hysterical! He’s shaking! He says she hit him! She came in here like a crazy woman and started smashing things! He says she threatened him, Gray! He’s terrified!”


    Grayson looked at her — at her pale face, her broken arm, her shivering body. Then he looked at the phone. His jaw tightened. It wasn’t a choice between love and duty. It was a choice between a medical emergency she was already in and a public rtions crisis Belle was manufacturing.


    He chose damage control.


    “Is he hurt?” Grayson asked, his voice clipped.


    “He’s traumatized!” Belle sobbed. “Pleasee back up! I can’t calm him down!”


    Grayson closed his eyes and let out a long breath.


    He looked at her — a flicker of something crossing his face, regret or frustration or both. “Isolde…”


    But she was already shaking her head. The fever had burned away thest of her illusions. She wasn’t his wife. She was a problem to be managed.


    “Get out,” she whispered. Weak, but absolute.


    “What? I’m taking you to the hospital.”


    “No,” she said, holding his gaze. “You’re going to go upstairs and soothe your mistress and her son. That’s your choice. So get out of my car.”


    He stared at her, stunned into silence. He opened his mouth to argue, but something in her expression stopped him.


    He reached for his suit jacket and moved to drape it over her.


    She raised her bandaged hand. “Don’t.”


    The rejection hung in the air, colder than the rain outside. He slowly drew the jacket back. He opened the door.


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