The End of a Marriage (Colette and Matheo) novel Chapter 238

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.

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Chapter 238

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.

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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

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