Chapter219 Something Shifts in Clifton
A cold smile flickered across Miranda's face and was gone in an instant. Her voice was calm, almost bored.
"I wasn't in there." She held Isabella's gaze without blinking. "So where exactly do you think I should have been?"
The high of almost winning had made Isabella careless. The words were out before she could stop them.
"No, this is wrong! You were supposed to be in there with Harrison, the two of you should have been"
"Enough."
Arthur's voice hit like a slap. He grabbed Isabella by the arm and yanked her back, cutting her off.
He didn't know the full story. He hadn't understood why she had dragged a crowd of people up here in the first place. But he understood now. Any idiot could see what had happened.
His sister had tried to set Miranda up. At a Martinez event. Under their own roof.
And Harrison had clearly been drugged. Someone had dosed a guest at their party.
The realization settled over Arthur like ice water. The temperature in the corridor seemed to drop.
Nobody spoke. The dozen or so onlookers held their breath, trading glances, sharp enough to piece it together but wise enough to keep their mouths shut.
Then came the sound of steady, purposeful footsteps from the stairwell.
Everyone turned.
Harrison's assistant was leading four or five uniformed officers up the corridor, all of them tight-faced and moving with intent.
Miranda had made that call. She felt nothing romantic toward Harrison anymore, but she wasn't the kind of person to leave someone in that state just because they shared a painful history. She had seen what was done to him, and she had done something about it.
When Isabella spotted the police, the color drained from her face. Her heart stuttered.
She steadied herself almost immediately. A few officers. Martinez could handle a few officers. Throw some money at it and it would disappear.
The assistant pushed through to Harrison and dropped to his knees beside him.
"Boss. Boss, can you hear me?"
The doctor who had come with the officers knelt beside Harrison, checked him over quickly, and administered a sedative. Within minutes, Harrison went still and silent, out cold.
"I expect a full explanation from the Martinez family."
The voice came from behind Miranda, low and even.
Clifton rolled forward in his wheelchair from the doorway of the lounge Miranda had just stepped out of. His gaze moved across the corridor in a slow, deliberate sweep, and everywhere it landed, the air seemed to crystallize.
He said nothing more to the crowd. When his eyes found Miranda, something in them shifted. The coldness melted away completely.
He reached out his hand.
Miranda placed hers in it. He closed his fingers around hers and held on, then turned and guided them both toward the stairs.
Isabella watched their joined hands, and something inside her ignited.
Why her. Why did she get to have this.
Jealousy burned through whatever was left of her self-control. She lurched forward.
"Clifton, stop! She played you! Miranda came here tonight to meet her ex-husband behind your back! She's nothing but a"
The slap came out of nowhere.
Clifton's wheelchair stopped.
He hadn't even turned around yet when the sound rang out through the corridor. Sharp and final, swallowing everything else.
Arthur's hand had moved before his brain caught up.
Isabella's head snapped to the side. A clear imprint of five fingers bloomed across her cheek. She stood there with her hand pressed to her face, staring at her brother like he had become a stranger.
"You hit me." Her voice came out small, fractured. "You actually hit me."
Arthur stared at his own hand. His palm was still tingling. Something in his chest clenched so hard it hurt.
He had never hit her. Not once in their entire lives. He had never even raised his voice at her, not really.
But what she had just said. The way she had said it, screaming it at Clifton's back, calling his wife that word.
Everyone knew what Clifton was like when it came to protecting the people he cared about. Taking him on directly was not stupidity. It was a death wish. And Isabella had just done it with an audience.
The rage had overridden everything. His hand had moved. And now it was done.
The regret hit him like a wave.
"You chose her over me!" Isabella's voice broke into a sob. She shoved Arthur hard with her free hand and ran.
"Isabella!"
He moved to go after her. Then stopped.
"Arthur."
Clifton's voice carried down the corridor without effort, without urgency. He still hadn't turned around.
"I'll be waiting for that explanation."
Then he and Miranda disappeared around the bend in the staircase.
The lead officer stepped up to Arthur, badge already out.
"Mr. Martinez. We received a report of a deliberate drugging on these premises. We're treating this as criminal assault. We'll need your cooperation."
Arthur cast one last look at the direction his sister had gone. Then he turned back, his voice stripped down to almost nothing.
"Of course. Whatever you need."
He waved a hand at the crowd still frozen behind him.
"You can all go."
They scattered quickly. But not quietly.
"That was Isabella's doing, wasn't it. I can't believe she went that far."
"Martinez is finished after this. And they just made an enemy of Clifton on top of it."
The whispers trailed down the hallway and burrowed into Arthur's skull like something he couldn't shake loose.
--
In the car, Clifton turned to look at Miranda. There was a tension in his voice he almost managed to hide.
"Are you hurt?"
Miranda shook her head. She met his eyes and felt something warm move through her.
"I'm fine. Promise."
She paused, then looked at him with a brightness that hadn't been there all evening.
"That trick you taught me, the bank card thing, it actually worked. I don't know what I would have done without it."
After the kidnapping incident involving Bai Qingge's father, Clifton had quietly made it his business to teach her things. Self-defense basics. Escape routes. Practical survival skills for situations exactly like tonight. The card trick had been one of them. She had thought it was overkill at the time.
She didn't think that anymore.
Clifton exhaled. Something that had been wound tight in him since the moment he got her signal finally let go.
She had kept her head. She had handled it.
Without thinking, he reached over and brushed the edge of his fingers along her temple, nudging a loose strand of hair back from her face.
Miranda felt the touch and looked up.
Those clear, unguarded eyes of hers found his with no warning at all.
Clifton's hand stopped. He pulled it back like he had touched something he shouldn't have.
Out of her sightline, his hand curled slowly into a fist at his side.
Because in that one unguarded moment, when she had tilted her face up toward his with complete trust and just a flicker of playfulness, something deep inside him had taken a hit. Clean. Direct. Impossible to dismiss.
He recognized it for what it was.
What he felt for Miranda had crossed a line somewhere along the way. It had stopped being the kind of thing a husband felt for a wife on paper.
Clifton turned to the window and said nothing. He locked everything back down, one layer at a time.