The interior of the Maserati was a vacuum of high-end tension. The leather seats, hand-stitched and smelling of a blend of expensive citrus cologne and the cold ghost of the morning's confrontation, seemed to press in on Eloise. Outside, the world sped by in a blur of gray and green, but inside, the air was static.
Eloise sat rigidly in the passenger seat, her hands folded over her lap, the red diamond on her finger catching the rhythm of the passing sun like a strobe light. She had decided, with the stubbornness of a cornered animal, that the silent treatment was her only remaining weapon. She wouldn't look at him. She wouldn't acknowledge the way his hands—hands that had systematically dismantled her life and rebuilt it into a gilded cage—gripped the steering wheel with effortless precision.
