CHAPTER 11

Elena POV

Adrian was quiet for so long I thought he wasn't going to answer, thought he was just going to shut down again and walk away like he always did when things got too real, but then he spoke.

"You already know about my mother," he said and his voice was flat. "About how she left and my father told me love was weakness."

"Yes but that's not the only reason you changed, is it?" I watched his face carefully. "Something else happened, something you're not telling me."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because the timeline doesn't match, Sophia wrote that you changed six months into your marriage but your mother left when you were ten." I crossed my arms. "So what happened between then and Sophia that made you build your walls even higher?"

He was quiet again and I could see him deciding whether to tell me, whether to let me in just a little bit more or shut me out completely.

"There was someone before Sophia," he finally said. "A woman named Catherine."

"Who was she?" I asked curiously.

"Someone I met at university, we dated for two years and I thought I was in love with her, thought she was the person I'd spend my life with." He paced to the door and went back to the window and stared out at the city. "I was twenty and stupid and convinced that what we had was real."

"What happened?" I asked him.

"I was planning to propose, had the ring picked out and everything, was going to take her to this restaurant she loved and ask her to marry me." He stopped and his shoulders tensed. "But then my best friend called me drunk one night and confessed that he'd been sleeping with her for six months."

"Oh god." I exclaimed genuinely surprised.

"Yeah." Adrian laughed but there was no humor in it. "Turns out she'd been cheating the entire second year of our relationship and I was too in love to notice, too busy planning our future while she was in bed with someone I trusted."

"That's awful, Adrian, I'm so sorry." I consoled him genuinely.

"It gets worse, when I confronted her about it she didn't even deny it, just said she got bored with me and my friend was more exciting." His hands clenched into fists. "She told half our social circle about it before I could and suddenly everyone knew I'd been cheated on and made to look like an idiot."

"That's not your fault." I told him.

"Isn't it? I was the one who trusted her, who believed everything she said, who let myself be vulnerable enough to fall for her lies." He turned to face me. "My father said I told you so, reminded me that love makes you weak and Catherine was proof, said my mother had been right to leave before he could hurt her worse."

"Your father is wrong."

"Is he? Because I was weak, I let someone in and she destroyed me and humiliated me in front of everyone we knew." He crossed his arms. "So I built walls after that, made myself cold and distant and unbreakable, swore I'd never let anyone close enough to hurt me like that again."

"And then you met Sophia." I completed it for him.

"And then I met Sophia and for the first six months it was fine, we had our contract and our boundaries and everything was professional." His voice changed. "But then she started getting close, started making me laugh and smile, started breaking through those walls I'd built after Catherine."

"She fell in love with you."

"She told me she was falling in love with me and I panicked because I'd been down that road before, had let myself care about Catherine and look how that turned out." He looked at me and his eyes were dark. "That's another reason I shut down, Elena, not just because of my mother but because I'd already been destroyed once by loving someone and I couldn't let it happen again."

"So you pulled back from Sophia." I said, now understand things.

"So I pulled back and built the walls even higher, made sure she couldn't get close enough to hurt me the way Catherine did." His jaw tightened. "And now I know she was pregnant when she jumped and I didn't see it because I was too busy protecting myself."

I walked over to where he was standing and looked up at him. "I'm not Catherine."

"I know you're not." He replied me.

"And I'm not Sophia either, I'm not going to fall in love with you and expect you to love me back and jump off a balcony when you can't." I reached up and touched his face. "I need you to see me as Elena, not as some ghost or replacement or version of someone else."

"I do see you." He said.

"Do you? Because right now it feels like you're talking to every woman who's ever hurt you instead of talking to me." I kept my hand on his cheek. "I need you to be here with me, not stuck in the past with them."

Adrian's hand came up to cover mine and his eyes met mine and for the first time since I'd met him he looked actually present. "I see you, Elena."

"Then tell me what you see." I requested.

"I see someone who's terrified but trying not to show it, someone who's drowning in grief but still fighting to survive, someone who signed a contract with a stranger because she had no other choice but refuses to let it break her." His other hand came up to cup my face. "I see you and that's the problem."

"What problem?" I asked curiously.

"I see you and I'm terrified." His thumb brushed across my cheekbone. "Because seeing you means I'm letting you in and letting you in means you can hurt me."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You will anyway, everyone does eventually, it's just a matter of time." His voice was barely a whisper. "But I can't seem to stop myself from wanting to let you in anyway."

"What are you saying?"

“I’m saying this.”

His voice was low, rough, already thick with want. He leaned in slowly, giving me every second to stop him, every heartbeat to run.

Then his mouth brushed mine.

Soft and hesitant. A question wrapped in heat.

For one fractured second I froze—because this wasn’t in the contract, this wasn’t part of the deal, this was going to ruin every careful wall I’d built.

But I opened for him, lips parting, tongue sliding against his in a slow deliberate drag that made him groan into my mouth.

The sound vibrated straight down my spine and settled hot and heavy between my thighs.

His hands found my waist, fingers digging in just hard enough to bruise, and he yanked me flush against him.

I felt every hard inch of him pressing into my stomach, thick and insistent, and a shameless pulse of wetness soaked through my panties.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, nails raking the back of his scalp, and kissed him like I was starving. Deeper and hungrier with my teeth catching his bottom lip until he hissed.

My back hit the wall with a dull thud. His mouth tore from mine and dragged down the column of my throat—open and wet, sucking hard enough to mark. I tipped my head back, exposing more skin, and a low, broken moan slipped out of me, one I didn’t even recognize as my own.

“Is this okay?” he rasped against my pulse, voice wrecked, teeth grazing.

“Yes.” The word came out trembling. “God, yes.”

His palms slid under my shirt, rough and hot against my ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. I shivered hard. He shoved the fabric up and I ripped it over my head, desperate.

His clothes followed a second later and his muscles became visible with his chest rising fast—and then we crashed back together.

Skin on skin.

Heat on heat.

I clawed at his belt, fingers clumsy and frantic. I undid his belt and let the trouser slid free. He growled low in his throat, scooped me up like I weighed nothing, and I locked my legs tight around his waist. His cock notched hard against my soaked core through our remaining clothes and I rolled my hips once—slow, deliberate—grinding down until we both gasped.

We stumbled toward the bed, our mouths never breaking apart.

He dropped me onto the mattress and came down over me, heavy and solid, pinning me exactly where I wanted to be. His lips were everywhere—my mouth, my jaw, the sensitive hollow of my throat, the sharp edge of my collarbone. He sucked a bruise just above my breast and I arched violently, nipples tight and aching, begging for his mouth.

I threaded my fingers through his hair and pulled. “More,” I breathed. “Please—fuck—more.”

He obeyed.

One hand shoved between us, palming me through my leggings. I was drenched. He cursed under his breath when he felt it, fingers pressing the damp fabric against my clit in slow, torturous circles. My hips bucked, chasing the pressure, thighs trembling.

His phone sound shattered the air.

Sharp and insistent.

We both froze, chests heaving, mouths swollen and wet.

“Ignore it,” I panted, voice hoarse.

“I should—”

“Ignore it.” I dragged him back down, kissing him filthy and deep with my tongue stroking his until he groaned again.

The phone kept screaming.

Finally Adrian tore himself away with a vicious curse, lunged for the nightstand, and snatched it up.

“What?” he snarled.

I watched the change happen in real time.

The flush drained from his face. His shoulders locked and his jaw clenched so hard I thought it might crack.

“When?” His voice cracked on the word. He sat up slowly, spine rigid. “How long?”

My stomach plummeted.

“I’ll be there in twenty.” He ended the call and looked at me with eyes that had gone hollow. “It’s the hospital. My father.”

“What happened?” My voice sounded very small.

“He’s… he doesn’t have long. They’re calling the family in.” He moved away from the bed reaching for his shirt and pulling it over his head, hiding all that beautiful skin I’d just had under my hands.

I scrambled up onto my knees. “I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t have to.” he said, still fixing his clothes.

“Yes I do.” I grabbed my own shirt from the floor, yanked it on. “I’m your wife.”

The words hung between us—heavy, real, raw.

He looked at me for one long, aching beat. Then he nodded once, sharp.

“Come on,” I said, voice shaking. “We need to go. Now.”