CHAPTER 8

ELENA 

I had just one thing to say, Adrian Blackwood was breathtaking.

I'd already registered how tall he was earlier, standing beside him in that office, shaking his hand while he wore a suit tailored to within an inch of his life. This was different. Shirtless, he looked twice his size.... broad through the shoulders, a chest built like it belonged to someone who worked with his hands rather than a boardroom, a waist narrow enough to make the rest of him look even more overwhelming. Nothing about him seemed exaggerated. He simply looked like a man who commanded a room without needing to try.

His hair was damp, dark strands falling over his forehead. He must have showered.

Then his eyes met mine....gray, sharp, unreadable in a way that made my throat go dry.

I understood, finally, exactly what Mrs. Carter was talking about. Adrian Blackwood was the kind of handsome that made a woman forget her own sentence halfway through saying it.

I appeared to be proving the theory myself, standing there with no idea what I'd walked in to say.

His eyebrow lifted. I blinked twice before he cleared his throat, and I looked away fast enough that my cheeks warmed.

"I didn't know you were here."

"Clearly."

"I'll leave."

I'd already turned when he asked, "Why?"

I stopped, because I genuinely didn't have an answer.

"I came down for water," I said instead, turning back. "I couldn't sleep, and then I got thirsty, and this house is enormous....I got lost twice trying to find the kitchen. Maybe three times. I've lost count of how many hallways there are, honestly, there's just door after door and...."

"Elena."

I stopped talking.

"Breathe."

I frowned, but did it anyway. In. Then out, at his prompting.

"There." He turned away and settled onto a stool at the island, already reaching for his phone.

Conversation over, apparently. I knew I should go back upstairs. I stayed anyway, took a glass of water and drew a stool a few feet from his without entirely deciding to sit there.

He didn't look up. I looked around instead.... spotless counters, everything gleaming in a way that felt less like a home and more like a showroom. My fingers found the countertop and started tapping without my permission, a habit that had always kept my mind from wandering somewhere I didn't want it to go. Daniel. The hospital. All what I'd lost.

"Can you stop that?"

I froze mid-tap. "Sorry."

"I'm trying to concentrate."

Silence settled back in, heavier than before. I studied the refrigerator, then the ceiling, anything that wasn't him, until the quiet became something I couldn't sit inside anymore.

"So," I said. "I'm your wife."

He glanced up, one eyebrow lifting slightly. "Yes."

"On paper."

"Yes."

"And you're my fake husband."

"Yes."

"Just so we're clear."

"We are."

The silence returned, and this time I let it stretch until curiosity got the better of my judgment.

"So about Elias's mother."

Adrian went still. There was a subtle tightening through his shoulders, his jaw setting, his fingers pausing against the phone screen.... but I caught every bit of it, and immediately wished I hadn't asked.

"You don't need to know anything about his mother." His voice had dropped several degrees.

"Okay." I looked down at the glass in my hands. "Sorry."

Neither of us said anything for a while. I considered going back to my room and might have followed through, if he hadn't sighed and set the phone down first.

"What is it, Elena?"

"Nothing."

"You're nervous."

"I'm not."

"You are."

I looked at my own hands instead of answering, because he was right and I didn't especially want to admit it.

"My life-planning skills are currently taking a massive hit," I muttered, staring down at my glass. "Yesterday my world was totally different. Tonight I'm sitting in what I'm sure is a multi-million-dollar kitchen playing the role of a 'fake' wife." A short, dry laugh escaped before I could stop it. "It sounds completely unhinged, saying it out loud."

He didn't say anything. I kept talking anyway.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to act around the house tomorrow. I don't know what Elias will think of me, or what happens if I can't help Elias like you think I can, or...."

"Elena."

I stopped.

"You don't have to solve all of it tonight."

"Then when?"

"Tomorrow."

"That's not very reassuring."

"It's not meant to be."

Something in me almost wanted to smile at that, despite everything. He picked his phone back up, and I found myself studying him instead.... the way he didn't rush to fill silence with noise, the way every word he offered seemed deliberate rather than automatic. Maybe that was calming, in its own strange way. Or maybe I was simply too tired to feel anything else.

I slid off the stool. "I should go to bed."

"One more thing."

I turned.

His expression had changed.

"Tomorrow morning, you're coming with me."

"Where?"

He stared at me for a moment.

"To meet my family."

My stomach dropped.

"Your family?"

"Yes."

He stepped closer.

"Because if you're my wife, Elena..."

His gray eyes held mine.

"...the world needs to believe you're really mine."