Chapter 103 Banished
The air in the hallway seemed to vibrate with the sheer force of Nate’s presence, a low-frequency hum of power that made the very marrow of my bones ache. I remained pinned against the marble wall, my heart thundering against my ribs like a frantic prisoner. Every breath I took felt shallow and strained, as if the oxygen in the penthouse had been consumed by the fire of the argument happening just a few feet away. I clutched the oversized cuffs of Nate’s shirt, the fabric a soft, white contrast to the cold stone at my back. I felt like a spectator at the edge of a cliff, watching a landslide I had inadvertently triggered.
"Twenty-four hours," Nate’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and clinical. It was the voice of a man signing a corporate execution warrant, devoid of the warmth that had characterized every interaction we’d ever had. "That is all you have. By this time tomorrow, I expect your formal withdrawal from Alverstone University to be processed. No explanations, no farewell tours, and certainly no staged press releases about 'personal leaves.' You are simply gone."
"Nate, you can't be serious," Scarlett gasped, her voice thick with the remnants of her tears and the sharp edges of her mounting panic. "You’re throwing away a decade of history for a girl you met a few months ago? Someone who doesn't even have a name in this city? My father—"
"Your father’s shipping empire is a house of cards held together by Salvatore logistics contracts and credit lines," Nate interrupted, his tone chillingly flat. The absolute lack of emotion was more terrifying than the shouting had been. "If you so much as breathe Mila’s name, if you look in her direction, if you even whisper a word of what happened last night to your little society friends, I will pull those cards. I will dismantle the Tate legacy brick by brick until there isn't enough left of your name to put on a park bench. I will make sure the word 'Tate' is synonymous with 'bankrupt' before the week is out."
A stifled sob escaped Scarlett, a jagged, ugly sound that broke the rhythm of her breathing. I heard the frantic, desperate sound of her gathering her things—the sharp clink of a designer bag being yanked from a table and the rustle of silk that sounded like a dying fire.
"I am not playing a game, Scarlett," Nate continued, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper that seemed to carry more weight than the loudest roar. "This isn't a social snub or a temporary cooling of tempers. This is a banishment. You are dead to this city. You are dead to me. Now, get out of my sight before I decide that twenty-four hours is too generous of a window for you to pack your life and vanish."
The sound of sharp heels clicking toward the door made me freeze. I couldn't move back toward the bedroom fast enough without making noise. I pressed myself into the deepest shadow of the corridor, my heart stopping entirely as I prayed the dim, indirect lighting of the morning would mask my presence.
The heavy mahogany doors swung open with a violent gust of air. Scarlett stumbled out, her face a ruined mask of smeared mascara and blotched, reddened skin. Her golden poise was gone, her hair disheveled and wild. She looked like a woman who had just seen the end of her world and was struggling to breathe in the wreckage.
But as she reached the turn in the hallway, she stopped. Her head snapped to the side, her eyes narrowing as they landed directly on me.
For a second, the world stood still. I stood there, pale and trembling, drowned in the white fabric of Nate’s shirt—a garment that screamed of intimacy, of a night spent in his care, and of a protection that she would never know. Scarlett’s gaze traveled slowly from my bare, shaky legs up to the oversized collar that smelled of Nate’s skin, and then finally to my eyes.
The grief and fear in her expression vanished, replaced instantly by a look of such concentrated, cold malice that it made my blood run cold. It wasn't the look of someone who had lost; it was the look of someone who was merely changing the rules of the war. Her lips didn't move, but the promise was there—a silent, jagged vow that this was far from over. She stared at me for one more agonizing heartbeat, committing the image of me in Nate’s clothes to memory with a venomous intensity, before she turned and fled toward the private elevator.
The sound of the elevator doors chiming and closing felt like a physical weight being lifted from my chest, yet the air in the penthouse remained heavy, charged with the lingering static of their confrontation. I stood in the hallway for what felt like an eternity, trying to steady my breathing and stop the shaking in my hands. The silence that followed her departure was deafening.
I forced my feet to move, my bare soles silent on the hardwood floor. I walked slowly toward the study, the door still standing slightly ajar, a sliver of golden morning light spilling out into the hall.
When I pushed it open, I saw Nate. He was standing with his back to me, his silhouette framed by the massive floor-to-ceiling window. The sprawling skyline of Manhattan was laid out before him, but he wasn't looking at the view. He looked like a titan surveying a city he had just conquered, yet his shoulders were tight, his hands clenched into fists at his sides so hard that his knuckles were white. He was staring out at the horizon, motionless, as if he were waiting for the world to stop spinning or for the echoes of his own rage to finally die down.
"Nate?" I whispered, the word barely more than a breath.
He didn't turn around immediately, but I saw his posture shift at the sound of my voice. He took a long, ragged breath, his head bowing slightly as if he were finally letting the weight of the night settle on him. The fury that had filled the room only moments ago seemed to drain away, replaced by a profound, heavy silence.
I took a tentative step into the room, my eyes fixed on his back, watching the man who had just burned down every bridge to his own world just to make sure I was standing on solid ground.