You Cheated on Me, So Why Are You Angry I Wore My Bodyguard's Shirt?

Around three in the morning, the silence in the loft became unbearable.

I slipped out from under the duvet, my throat parched and raw. The room was dark, illuminated only by the amber glow of the city through the high industrial windows. I reached blindly for the glass of water Cole had left on the nightstand.

My fingers clipped the rim.

The heavy tumbler overturned, dumping eight ounces of ice water straight across the front of my tailored silk blouse and wool trousers.

The cold shock made me gasp. I scrambled back, but the silk was already soaked through, clinging uncomfortably to my skin.

Down by the door, Cole was upright before the glass even stopped rolling against the hardwood.

"What happened?" His voice was gravelly, instantly alert.

"I knocked over the water," I whispered, holding the wet fabric away from my chest. "My clothes are drenched."

Cole stood up, hitting the switch for the low amber floor lamp. He looked at the puddle on the floor, then at my soaked shirt. Without a word, he opened the narrow wardrobe by the bathroom, pulled a clean, pressed white button-down from a hanger, and tossed it to me.

"Put that on," he said, turning his back toward the bathroom door. "Throw your clothes over the towel rack."

I took the shirt into the bathroom, stripped out of the sodden trousers and blouse, and pulled his shirt over my head.

The heavy cotton smelled like crisp cedar and laundry soap. The shoulders dropped several inches past mine, the sleeves swallowing my hands until I rolled the cuffs up to my elbows. The hem fell straight to mid-thigh, covering what needed to be covered, leaving my legs bare.

I didn't sleep the rest of the night.

When the first gray light of dawn cut through the loft, I walked out of the bedroom, my bare feet silent on the cold concrete floor.

Cole was standing at the kitchen island with a black coffee mug in hand, reviewing live security logs on a tablet. He wore a fresh black t-shirt, his dark hair damp from a quick morning shower.

At the sound of my footsteps, he looked up.

His gaze caught on the open collar of the shirt, tracked down to where the hem brushed against my bare thighs, and stopped.

For two full seconds, the room was completely motionless. Cole didn't blink. The tension between us thickened, sharp and electric.

Then his jaw tightened, and he looked back down at his screen.

"Marcus filed the paperwork at eight sharp," Cole said, his voice entirely flat. "Your credit freeze hit the Prescott Group's master account ten minutes ago."

Before I could answer, a sharp, buzzing tone cut through the loft.

The wall-mounted intercom panel by the private freight elevator flashed red. A security alert pinged on Cole’s console.

Cole touched the screen, bringing up the high-definition camera feed from the ground-floor loading bay.

Standing in front of the reinforced steel security door was Julian.

He looked unraveled. His bespoke navy suit was rumpled, his tie slightly crooked, and his hair lacked its usual immaculate polish. He had two private security guards lingering by the curb behind his black town car, but he was alone at the call box, punching the buzzer repeatedly.

"How did he find this address?" I asked, my pulse quickening.

"He went to your father's corporate headquarters," Cole replied, zooming in on the feed. "Arthur didn't give him the unit number, but Julian tracked the contractor vehicle registration my firm uses. He knows you're in the building."

The buzzer sounded again, long and aggressive.

"Tell him to leave," I said.

"He won't leave," Cole answered calmly. "He'll cause a scene in the alley, bring local patrol cars, and blow the perimeter security. We deal with it right now."

Cole walked over to the elevator controls and punched the access override.

The heavy metal gears groaned as the freight elevator descended, then rose again thirty seconds later. The brass gates slid back with a loud, mechanical clatter.

Julian stepped straight out into the loft.

"Sloane, you have lost your goddamn—"

The sentence died in his throat.

Julian froze three paces from the elevator. His eyes swept the open-concept loft, taking in the single master bed visible through the open doorway, before locking directly onto me.

I stood by the kitchen island, barefoot, wearing Cole’s crisp white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone.

Julian’s face turned an ugly, mottled red. The condescending composure he had carried yesterday shattered into raw fury.

"What is this?" Julian demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous, shaking register. "What the hell are you wearing?"

I didn't move. "You shouldn't be here, Julian."

"I shouldn't be here?" He took a violent step forward, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "I wake up to find five hundred million dollars in commercial credit frozen, two state fraud investigators calling my personal line, and my wife hiding out in an industrial warehouse looking like she just rolled out of another man's bed!"

He pointed a shaking finger at Cole, then back at me.

"How long?" Julian snarled, his lips curling into a vicious sneer. "How long have you been fucking him, Sloane? Is this why you walked out? You had this staged the entire time. The high-and-mighty act, the moral outrage over Vanessa—it was all just a cover for your own little side project."

The sheer audacity of the accusation hit the air like a slap.

I looked at the man I had spent six years supporting, the man whose career I had helped build, and felt nothing but cold, absolute disgust.

"Are you finished?" I asked quietly.

"No, I'm not finished!" Julian shouted, taking another aggressive step into the living room. "You destroyed our primary liquidity line over a tantrum! You think your father's name protects you from breach of contract? You're coming home with me right now. You're going to call the bank, you're going to cancel the divorce filing, and you're going to put an end to this pathetic little revenge fantasy."

I stepped around the counter, looking him dead in the eye.

"When you brought another woman into our home and stood behind her in our study," I said, my voice steady and razor-sharp, "did you earn the right to ask whose shirt I'm wearing?"

Julian flinched as if struck.

For a second, the guilt flashed across his eyes, only to be instantly replaced by venomous rage.

"You belong to me, Sloane," Julian hissed, closing the distance between us in two strides. He reached out with an open hand, aiming straight for my wrist to drag me toward the elevator. "You don't walk away from me."

Before his fingers could even graze my skin, Cole moved.

Cole stepped directly between us.

His broad, towering frame completely blocked Julian’s view of me. Julian’s hand lunged forward, but Cole caught him by the forearm in midair, his grip clamping down with the brutal, immovable force of an iron vise.

Julian gasped, the color draining instantly from his face as Cole torqued his wrist back a single inch, paralyzing his entire right arm.

Cole didn't raise his voice. He didn't look angry. He looked entirely hollow, lethal, and colder than stone.

"Don't touch her," Cole said.

Julian stared up into Cole's dark, unblinking eyes, his chest heaving. The arrogant real estate heir who spent his life barking orders in boardrooms suddenly realized the man in front of him wasn't an employee he could threaten or intimidate.

He was looking at someone who could break his neck in three seconds and not lose a single beat of his pulse.