Chapter 44 Conference

• The clock ticked relentlessly, each second a hammer blow against Isabelle's anxious heart. The sun had dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the luxurious living room of Liam Callahan's penthouse. The silence, usually a comforting blanket, felt suffocating tonight. She paced, her gaze flitting constantly to the door, yearning for his return. Liam, her fiancé, the man she was bound to by a contract, the man she was inexplicably falling for.
• She had been waiting for him since he left that morning, his sharp features etched with worry as he mumbled about a 'crisis.' A crisis, he called it, but she knew it was more than that. Liam was a titan of the business world, a man who rarely showed vulnerability, and seeing him like this, unsettled, had sent a tremor through her. She wanted to ask, to comfort him, to be more than just a contractual wife.
• Finally, the door creaked open. Liam entered, his shoulders slumped, his face a mask of exhaustion. The worry she had seen earlier was amplified, etching deep lines on his forehead.