Burning in Madness Chapter 07
The heart of Manhattan. The penthouse floor of the Rothwell Holdings headquarters.
Ding.
The black–and–gold doors of the private elevator slid apart with a breathless whisper.
I hadn’t bothered with pants. I was wearing nothing but the oversized white button–down Arthur had left behind last night, a trench coat carelessly thrown over my shoulders. The sharp clack of my red–soled Louboutins against the marble floor violently slashed through the dead silence of this seat of power.
“Ma’am? You can’t just-”
The head secretary tried to intercept me, but her eyes darted to the dark, violent marks branding my collarbone. The rest of her sentence died in her throat in sheer panic.
I ignored everyone, marched straight to the end of the corridor, and kicked open the heavy doors to the CEO’s office.
Framed by the massive floor–to–ceiling windows, the old–money tyrant who usually had Wall Street eating out of the palm of his hand was slumped in his executive chair.
At the crash, Arthur’s head snapped up.
He hadn’t even put on a suit jacket. Wire–rimmed glasses rested exhaustedly on the bridge of his nose.
His handsome face was ghost–pale from severe sleep deprivation, heavy, dark shadows bruising his under–eyes. It looked as
though all the life had been drained out of him overnight.
Dead center on his pristine desk lay two documents: An Annulment Agreement, and an Irrevocable Trust Transfer of Assets.
“You came.” Arthur swallowed hard, his throat visibly dry.
The moment his gaze brushed against my disheveled shirt and the red marks on my neck, he flinched like he’d been burned. He violently wrenched his eyes away, locking onto the mahogany desktop, not daring to meet my gaze again.
Using his right hand–swathed in bandages with fresh blood faintly seeping through–he stiffly pushed the folders toward the edge of the desk.
“I’ve already signed them. The lawyers are on standby next door. His voice was brutally hoarse, every word sounding like he was dragging himself over broken glass.
“A third of the group’s equity. Four downtown properties. Two private jets. Just sign it…”
He clenched his jaw and drew a ragged breath, as if handing down his own death sentence.
“I promise, I will never appear in front of you again. I won’t make you sick anymore.”
I didn’t say a word. I just closed the distance to the desk, step by measured step.
Half of Manhattan sprawled beneath his feet outside that window, yet right now, he looked as pathetic as a convict awaiting execution.
I glanced at the multibillion–dollar transfer document and let out a chilling scoff.
“A third of the equity?” I picked up the stack of paper that could buy multiple private islands. “Arthur Rothwell, do you honestly think I need this spare change? Or is this just what you think last night’s performance is worth in severance?”
Blunt. Nasty. Crass.
Arthur went deathly pale. His fingers dug into the armrests so hard his knuckles turned a bloodless white.
“Chloe, don’t humiliate yourself like this. I lost control. I hurt you. I’m a monster. Take the money and leave. Go live the life you actually want… Marry someone norm-
“Shut up.”
I completely lost my patience for his self–sacrificing martyrdom.
I snatched up both documents and, right in front of the petrified secretary still lingering by the door, ripped them relentlessly in half.
With a flick of my wrists, I scattered them. The shredded paper rained down like snow, settling on his rigid shoulders.
Meeting his utterly stunned gaze, I did something that made everyone in the hallway gasp out loud.
I snapped a pen under my heel, kicked off my stilettos, and with dominating arrogance, climbed directly onto his desk.
I crawled toward him and violently grabbed him by his slightly wrinkled tie.
My trench coat slipped off. The oversized collar of my shirt fell wholly open, shoving the possessive marks he had burned into my skin right in his face.
“Listen to me very carefully, you irredeemable idiot,” I hissed, bearing down on him.
“Do you really think a sick, rabid dog like you could have pinned me to that bed if I didn’t want you to? If I wasn’t willing, do you think I would have ever tied your hands with this exact tie?!”
Arthur sat there staring. His breath caught completely.
“Ever since we locked eyes in Paris five years ago, I knew that useless playboy, Liam, wasn’t good enough for me!”
I ground my teeth, a fire blazing in my eyes that was even crazier than his was last night. “Fuck the accidental alliance. Fuck family duty! If you hadn’t stepped up to clean up that idiot‘ s mess back then, I would have pointed my finger and demanded you marry me right then and there!”
All the air was sucked out of the room.
In those usually dead black eyes, something violently detonated.
He stared at me in total disbelief, his voice trembling. “What… what did you just say?”
“I said, the one I’ve always wanted to marry was YOU, Arthur Rothwell!” I slammed the words straight into his fucking soul.” You have the sexiest brain in all of New York, and the only thing you use it for is to torture yourself with self–loathing?!”
Leaving him no room to react, I yanked his tie and smashed my lips against his cold, thin ones.
The kiss was purely vindictive.
I even split his lower lip. I just wanted to hammer every ounce of grievance, fury, and insane, feral love I’d kept bottled up for the past year right into his stubborn marrow.
Three seconds.
That was all it took. The brutal kiss and the nuclear–level confession obliterated Arthur’s nerves simultaneously. Something inside the broken tyrant violently snapped into place.
His hands, which had been trembling at his sides, clenched into fists. The gray depression he had repressed for twelve months was swallowed whole by a blood–red hurricane of ecstasy and raw possessiveness.
…So this was premeditated on your end, too?”
He tore his mouth away, panting. His voice was hoarse and dripping with a spine–tingling thrill.
He didn’t let me answer.
His bandaged hand grabbed the back of my head, while his
other arm locked around my waist like a steel vise. He wrenched me forward.
“Ah-”
I gasped as he flipped the dynamic with absolute dominance. I was yanked flush against his chest, and in a dizzying spin, I was slammed flat back against the desktop.
The surviving folders cascaded to the floor in a chaotic crash.
The horrified secretary outside practically leapt out of her skin,
frantically hit the button for the smart blinds, and locked the double doors on her way out.
“So…”
Arthur drove his knee aggressively between my thighs. He tore off his wire–rimmed glasses and pitched them across the room, the last shred of his restraint vanishing completely.
He loomed over me, his thumb swiping hard across my swollen lip, a dark, sickeningly obsessed smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“I’m not the only lunatic who’s been burning in this hell for five years?”