CHAPTER 23

ADRIAN

"You're whipped, dude."

I stared at Edward. He stared back with a stupid grin plastered on his face. I'd barely hung up with Elena, and somehow this idiot had already found a way to make the next ten minutes of my life miserable.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, you know."

"I absolutely do not."

He leaned back in his chair with the particular grin he reserved for moments he considered himself hilarious. Then he cleared his throat, straightened his posture, and delivered the worst impression of my own voice I'd ever had the misfortune of hearing.

"'You're my wife, Elena. You deserve everything I have to offer.'" He puckered his lips at the air. "Mwah, mwah. Anything for you, my darling...."

"Shut up."

That earned a full laugh, head tipped back and everything. "Why?"

"Because you're insufferable."

"I have free will."

"Unfortunately."

"I have every right to speak my mind whenever the mood strikes." He pointed at me. "The mood is currently striking."

"Save it." I reached for the file on my desk. "You didn't come here to torment me. You had an actual reason."

His grin vanished on cue. The idiot dropped away and the businessman replaced him almost instantly....a switch I'd watched him flip a hundred times and still found a little amazing.

"Right. I did." He opened the folder he'd brought. "Graham's Automobile is launching the new model next quarter."

"Go on."

"We're pushing the luxury line further into tech. New platform.... better performance, upgraded safety systems, a serious interior overhaul." He slid a stack of documents across my desk. "We want Blackwood Technologies on the software integration. Cuts our development time significantly, and pairing your systems with our manufacturing gets us to international release a lot faster."

I picked up the proposal and read while he talked me through it, and this was the part of Edward most people never got to see. He joked constantly, teased everyone within reach, made himself genuinely hard to take seriously most days. But the second the conversation turned to his company, something in him sharpened. He remembered figures without checking his own notes. He cared, visibly, about details most heirs wouldn't bother tracking themselves.

I'd known him since we were kids, watched him grow up surrounded by engines and blueprints and boardrooms he hadn't chosen but had somehow come to love anyway. That was the difference between inheriting something and actually wanting it.

Business had never been casual for me either. The difference was Edward knew how to turn it off. He could spend an hour negotiating eight figures and the next hour making inappropriate jokes without missing a beat.

I'd never quite learned that trick.

We spent close to an hour on the details. By the end, the deal was essentially settled. He closed the folder.

"So?"

"I'll have my legal team review it this week."

"Good." We shook on it. He stood, made it as far as the door, and I remembered something.

"So," I said. "When's the wedding?"

His whole body sagged. "Three months."

"No shit."

"Yes. I'm actually getting married." He said it like a diagnosis.

"To Chloe."

"Unfortunately."

"You're really going through with it."

"Don't exactly have a choice."

"You always have a choice."

"Not with my parents involved." He dropped back into the chair uninvited. "My mother's already planned half the wedding."

"Have you even met Chloe?"

He gave me a look. "Yes, duh!"

"Recently?"

"I've known her my entire life."

"And?"

"She's always been annoying."

"That's the whole case against her?"

"I hate her."

"Why?"

"Because she's Chloe."

I stared at him until he elaborated. "Bossy. Stubborn. Always has an opinion whether you asked for one or not. She used to drive me insane growing up."

"Used to?"

A pause. "Still does."

"Edward. Weren't you two close as kids?"

He frowned. "Our parents were close not us. We practically grew up in the same house."

"Which automatically makes you two close."

"No, it doesn't."

"Then she went to Paris."

"To study."

"And she's been gone how long?"

"Almost ten years."

"So you're building your entire opinion of an adult woman off a version of her you knew at twelve."

He blinked. "When you put it that way, I sound like an actual dick."

"Maybe you are one."

"Rude." He pointed at me. "I learned that from you, by the way."

"Don't blame your character flaws on me."

"I absolutely will."

I let the joke drop and got serious. "Talk to her."

His smile faded. "What?"

"Talk to her. Actually talk. The marriage, expectations, what you each want out of it. You don't have to be in love, Edward. But you're going to live with this woman. You're going to build an entire life around her whether you like it or not, unless you both decide to walk away from it eventually."

He went quiet, considering it longer than I expected.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I probably should."

"Good."

Then the grin came back, and I already knew I wasn't going to like whatever followed it.

"Actually...."

"No."

"I haven't said anything yet."

"Whatever it is, no."

"I'm coming to your house." He said it like he was announcing a merger. "Chloe's coming too."

"No."

"I'll finally meet the Elena you've been fawning over."

"I'm not fawning over anyone."

"You like her."

"I do not."

"Sure."

"I mean it, Edward."

He held both hands up, the picture of innocence. "I believe you."

He clearly did not believe me. Then he snapped his fingers like he'd just remembered something urgent, pulled out his phone, and started scrolling.

"I have the perfect quote for this."

"Please don't."

He cleared his throat anyway. "'What an elder sees sitting down, a child will never see standing up, even on the highest mountain.'"

Silence.

"What the hell was that."

He burst out laughing. "It popped up on my phone."

"You just found a random proverb and decided this was the moment."

"It felt profound."

"It felt insane."

"Still profound."

I rubbed my forehead. "You're a genuinely exhausting human being."

"And yet, somehow, still your best friend."

"Unfortunately." I sighed. "Fine. Saturday, 6pm. But I do not know how you're going to talk to her with other people around."

His whole face lit up. " Thank you so much, man."

"And by 6pm I mean, 6pm sharp."

"I'll be there." He was already at the door when he turned back. "Oh... and Adrian?"

"What?"

"Don't worry. I'll try not to embarrass you in front of your wife."

"Get out of my office."

His laughter followed him all the way down the hall. I shook my head and let myself go back to the file on my desk, except my eyes kept drifting to the phone sitting beside it.

Elena. The way her voice had cracked with excitement over the phone. The way she'd run straight at me without a second of hesitation when the acceptance email came through. The way she'd looked up at me afterward, like she'd surprised herself as much as she'd surprised me.

A smile started before I could stop it. I wiped it off immediately, the way you'd correct a typo.

Edward was wrong. I wasn't attracted to Elena. This was a contract, nothing more complicated than that.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself, and it kept sounding a little less convincing every time I did.