Chapter 2: The Enemy's Embrace

The morning after my sham of a wedding dawned with golden sunlight streaming through diamond-paned windows. A soft knock echoed through the suite just as I zipped up my dress—a sleek emerald green number I hadn’t picked myself. Nothing in this new life was mine. Not the house. Not the clothes. And certainly not the man whose name now followed mine.

“Breakfast is served in the East Conservatory, ma’am,” a maid said with a curtsy. Her eyes avoided mine, trained to be obedient.

I nodded stiffly, brushing past her.

I found Adrian already seated at a long glass table, flipping through the New York Times like it was just another Tuesday. Not the morning after our wedding. Not the first day of our very public union.

He didn’t even look up.

“You’re late.”

“Good morning to you too,” I muttered, sliding into a chair at the opposite end.

A butler poured me coffee. I didn’t thank him. My stomach churned. The air between Adrian and me was thick with tension, and even the chirping of the birds in the conservatory couldn’t soften it.

“You’ll be attending the gala with me tonight,” Adrian said casually, still reading.

My brows arched. “You mean the one hosted by the Manhattan Business Alliance? The same group that tried to blacklist my father?”

Adrian’s eyes flicked up for the first time. “Perception is everything, Selina. This marriage was meant to fix that.”

I bit into a croissant, more to keep from screaming than anything else.

“You mean to fix your father’s reputation,” I said, voice flat.

His jaw tensed. “Mine, too.”

I stared at him, trying to understand the layers behind those cold grey eyes. There had to be more. There had to be something human beneath that billionaire mask. Something broken, maybe. Like me.

But I couldn’t afford to pity him.

Pity made people weak.

“You’ll need a dress. The press will be everywhere,” Adrian continued. “Use the card.”

So cold. So clinical.

“Right,” I said, rising. “Because nothing says ‘happy marriage’ like designer gowns and fake smiles.”

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

I froze. “Is that what you think? That I’m making this hard?”

Adrian finally put the newspaper down. “I think we’re both prisoners to a legacy we didn’t ask for. You want justice. I want control. Let’s not pretend either of us came into this clean.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. He was right. I hadn’t married him to save my mother’s life only. I’d married him to destroy his father’s empire from the inside.

And maybe a part of me—just a small, shameful part—had married him because I’d once loved the boy he used to be.

But that boy was gone.

“Then let’s give them a show,” I said finally.

Adrian nodded. “Good. I’ll have the car ready at seven.”

The gala was held in a marble-columned estate in the Upper East Side, crawling with old money and fake laughter. I wore a fitted gold dress that clung to my curves and made people stare. Adrian walked beside me in a navy suit that made him look like the cover of a Fortune magazine.

We were magnetic. We were poison.

Inside, I sipped champagne while people whispered. The whispers weren’t subtle. Not with my Nigerian last name and mocha skin standing out like a scar on the pristine white canvas of Manhattan high society.

“She must have something on him.”

“Maybe she’s pregnant.”

“Do you think Gregory approved of her?”

I ignored them. I was used to whispers. I’d grown up on the outside, and I knew how to survive the cold.

But then I saw him.

Gregory Bellington.

Adrian’s father. The man who bankrupted my father’s company, sent him to an early grave, and smiled while doing it. He stood near the fireplace, holding court like a king in exile.

His eyes met mine. No shame. No guilt. Just that same calculating gleam.

He smiled.

Adrian stepped closer, placing a hand on the small of my back. A warning.

“Don’t,” he whispered.

“I wasn’t going to start a war,” I said, though my nails dug into the champagne flute.

“Good. Because he will win.”

“Maybe not this time.”

Adrian’s hand tightened. “He’s still dangerous, Selina. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“I know exactly what he’s capable of. I lived it.”

The rest of the night blurred into polite conversations, practiced smiles, and icy glares. We danced for the cameras, our bodies close but our hearts galaxies apart.

When it was finally over, I ripped off my heels in the car and stared out the window.

“You were brilliant tonight,” Adrian said quietly.

“Thanks. I’m good at pretending.”

“Me too.”

We got home just past midnight. I walked into the suite without a word, unzipping my dress as I went. Adrian followed, tossing his jacket onto a chair.

“Do you hate me?” he asked suddenly.

I froze, dress half-off.

“What?”

“Do you hate me?” he repeated.

I turned slowly. “Every time I look at you, I remember what your father did. I remember how my mother cried herself to sleep. I remember how my father died thinking he’d failed us.”

Silence.

“But I don’t know if I hate you,” I whispered. “Not yet.”

Adrian’s eyes searched mine. “That’s fair.”

He turned and disappeared into the hallway.

I stared after him, heart pounding.

Because for one second—just one—he’d looked like he was bleeding too.

And I didn’t know what terrified me more:

The idea of hating him forever.

Or the possibility that I wouldn’t.