Chapter 51
Isabella clung to her last shred of sanity, biting her tongue, trying to use the pain to stay conscious. After stumbling through an apology to the executive, she immediately turned and headed toward the restroom outside the banquet hall.
She had to get out of here right now and make herself throw up in the bathroom!
But the drug was taking effect way too fast and too strongly!
Before she could reach the restroom.
"Ms. Tudor, had too much to drink? Why are you wobbling around all by yourself?" A sleazy, creepy voice suddenly rang out in the hallway.
A pot-bellied, balding man with a fat face full of flesh—a nouveau riche type—appeared out of nowhere and wrapped his arm around Isabella's slender waist.
The man's lecherous eyes stared straight at Isabella's beautiful face, which was starting to flush with an unnatural redness from the drug. He sniffed greedily at her intoxicating scent, practically drooling.
"Let go of me!" The instant he touched her, Isabella's skin crawled with goosebumps. She tried with all her strength to push away this disgusting man, swinging her hand back to slap him.
But her joint-locking technique, which normally could subdue anyone, now felt like soft cotton, landing weakly on the fat man's shoulder without causing any real damage.
"Ms. Tudor's got some spirit. But you're so weak you can barely stand now, so stop pretending."
The fat man leered, completely ignoring Isabella's furious glare, roughly half-carrying, half-dragging her toward the VIP elevator at the end of the hallway.
"I've already got the presidential suite ready upstairs. I guarantee Ms. Tudor will have an unforgettable celebration night."
Isabella's vision was getting blurrier and blurrier, the fire inside her burning away her last bit of reason.
She desperately bit her tongue until the taste of blood spread through her mouth, barely managing to regain a sliver of clarity.
No, absolutely not!
If this man really got her into that room, her life would be completely ruined! Sophia's vicious face flashed through her mind. Isabella's nails dug into her palms as she struggled to reach the pepper spray in her purse.
"You... if you dare touch me... I'll kill you!" Isabella's voice was extremely weak but still carried a bone-deep fierceness.
"Kill me? Once we're in bed, you'll be begging me instead!"
Blinded by lust, the fat man didn't take her threat seriously at all. His thick hand even started shamelessly groping Isabella's fair, slender thigh!
Just as the fat man was about to drag Isabella into the elevator and press the floor button.
The door of another executive elevator nearby suddenly opened.
A voice as cold as ancient ice, deep and commanding, thundered through the hallway! "Which hand touched her?"
The fat man's whole body shuddered as he turned around.
His previously lewd and arrogant expression froze into absolute terror and despair the moment he saw the man standing at the elevator entrance—as if he'd seen the Grim Reaper himself!
James wore an impeccably tailored black suit, like a bloodthirsty god of death emerging from the depths of hell.
In his unfathomable dark eyes churned rage and violence so intense they seemed to form icy blades in the air!
This was his woman! The priceless treasure he would tear open his chest and offer his heart to, even after being rejected a thousand, ten thousand times!
And now, some pig who didn't know any better had dared to touch her with his filthy hands?!
"Mr. Sinclair?!" The fat man clearly recognized this billionaire who held the power of life and death in the Amber District's business world. His legs went weak with fear, and he instinctively released the dazed Isabella.
Without support, Isabella's body fell uncontrollably toward the cold marble floor.
James moved like lightning!
He lunged forward in one stride, his long arm catching and carefully cradling the burning, nearly unconscious woman in his broad embrace.
Feeling the abnormal heat radiating from her body and seeing her lips bloody from biting them to stay conscious.
James slowly raised his blood-red, ice-cold eyes.
Looking at the fat man who had collapsed on the floor and wet himself in fear, his voice was so soft it seemed to come from another world.
"Take him away. Cripple both his hands, then make him disappear from this world. Completely."
Several black-suited bodyguards who had been waiting nearby immediately materialized like ghosts. One of them clamped his hand over the fat man's mouth, cutting off his final terrified scream, and dragged him like a dead dog into the darkness of the emergency stairwell.
The hallway returned to deathly silence, as if that repulsive man had never existed.
James tightened his strong arms, holding the burning, soft body even closer. Isabella's usually cold and aloof face now showed a strangely alluring crimson flush. Her eyes were tightly shut, her brow furrowed in pain, fine beads of cold sweat forming on her forehead.
"Hot..." Isabella murmured unconsciously, the drug having destroyed her rationality. Like a traveler dying of thirst in the desert, she instinctively pressed toward the only source of cool relief nearby.
Her fair, soft cheek rubbed unguarded against James's crisp suit fabric. Her nearly scalding body temperature burned through the expensive material straight into James's heart, making all the blood in his body flow backward in a frenzy!
James couldn't even wait for the elevator. Carrying Isabella, he kicked open the door to his private penthouse suite at the end of the hallway.
He carefully laid her on the soft, wide velvet bed. Just as James straightened up to get some cold water, a soft but burning hand suddenly grabbed his collar.
"So hot..." Isabella gasped heavily, her eyes—usually full of mockery and coldness—now hazy as if covered with a layer of mist.
The powerful hallucinogenic aphrodisiac had fully taken effect, burning through her entire body like wildfire.
She twisted her slender waist in extreme discomfort, her fingers frantically trying to tear off the elegant black velvet dress she was wearing.
Because her movements were too rushed, the neckline of the dress ripped open, exposing large expanses of snow-white, delicate skin under the dim, suggestive lighting.
"Isabella! Don't move!"