Married To The Cold Billionaire

The first slap didn’t hurt as much as the laughter that followed. “You should have known your place,” my boyfriend’s mother shouted at me, slowly lowering her hand as if she wanted me to feel every second of the humiliation. “A girl like you was never good enough for my son. I told him but he didn’t listen.”The restaurant had suddenly gone silent. Drop dead silence. Every pair of eyes were on me, the poor girl who dared to dream big.I couldn’t be humiliated, at least not this way and definitely not by her. I straightened my back.“I didn’t come here to be insulted,” I said calmly even though my body was shaking. “I came here because your son asked me to.”A chair scraped loudly against the floor.“Asked you to come here?” Daniel laughed as he stood, his arm already around the waist of the woman beside him.” “Don’t flatter yourself Lisa. I brought you here so you would understand.”Understand. That the past five years I spent with him meant nothing.That love was conditional.That

The headline went live at exactly nine a.m. WESTWOOD CEO SECRETLY MARRIED. I stared at the screen of Adrian’s tablet as it refreshed again and again, the same photo splashed across every business outlet. A blurred shot of us entering his penthouse the night before. His hand at the small of my back. My chin lifted. Defiant. They didn’t know it yet, but that detail mattered. “You could have warned me,” I said coolly. “I did,” Adrian replied, adjusting his cufflinks in the mirror. “I said we’d go public.” “There’s a difference between public and ambush.” His reflection met mine. “You’re doing fine.” That almost sounded like approval. Almost. The stylist arrived an hour later. I endured curling irons, makeup brushes, and a woman who kept calling me sweetheart until I finally said, “if you touch my face one more time without asking, you’re fired.” The room went silent. Adrian looked up from his phone. “Ask,” he told her. She did. The charity gala was being held at the Westw

We didn’t talk about the call. Not right away. Adrian poured himself a drink. Whiskey. Neat. He didn’t offer me one, and I didn’t ask. The city hummed below us, indifferent to the war quietly forming in the penthouse. “You should change,” he said finally. “It’s late.” “So is paranoia,” I replied. “Should I change that too?” A corner of his mouth lifted. “If you figure out how, let me know.” I turned towards the hallway, then stopped. “Am I safe here?” He didn’t answer immediately. That told me more than words ever could. “You’re protected,” he said at last. “That’s not the same thing.” I nodded. Honesty, at least. I changed into something more comfortable and simple; soft cotton, bare feet, hair loose. When I came back out, Adrian was standing by the window again, phone to his ear. “Yes,” he was saying quietly. “I know… No. Not yet… Keep eyes on Vanessa and double the security downstairs.”He hung up and turned.His gaze flicked over me.Stayed.Something unreadable passed

The first rule of the contract was silence.Not spoken, not written, but understood.We did not explain ourselves to outsiders. We did not correct assumptions. We let people believe whatever made them most comfortable.Adrian was very good at that.The charity dinner was his idea. A controlled environment, he’d said. Familiar faces. Predictable conversations.“Appearances matter,” he told me as he adjusted his cufflinks. “Especially early on.”“Early on?” I echoed.“In arrangements like ours,” he replied calmly.I nodded, reminding myself that this marriage still lived on paper more than anywhere else.The venue shimmered with quiet wealth.Soft music. Low laughter. People who knew how to look interested without revealing too much.Adrian’s hand rested lightly at my back as we moved through the room, guiding but never pressing. He introduced me without flourish, voice steady, composed.“This is my wife.”Not contracted. Not temporary.Just wife.I didn’t know why the word settled so

Adrian didn’t speak during the drive home.Not because he was angry. Not because anything had gone wrong.But because he was thinking.I’d learned to recognize the difference.His focus narrowed when something mattered to him, the world shrinking until only the problem remained. Tonight, his grip on the steering wheel was steady, his gaze fixed ahead, jaw relaxed but unmoving.“You’re quiet,” I said finally.He glanced at me. “So are you.”I smiled faintly. “I didn’t think it was my turn to fill the silence.”He considered that, then nodded once. “Fair.”We drove the rest of the way without speaking, the city lights blurring past us like something distant and unimportant.Back at the house, Adrian loosened his tie and set his phone down on the console.“I spoke to my mother earlier,” he said casually.The way he said it, easy, unguarded, told me it wasn’t meant to alarm me.“Oh?” I replied.“Yes. She wanted an update.”“On your work?” I asked.“On everything,” he said. “She worries wh