Mr. Stale

Diana’s POV

We’ve been driving for thirty long minutes, wrapped in a silence so thick it feels intentional—like he’s using it to remind me who has the power here. I still remember the looks on the faces of his workers when he walked out of his house with me. Fear. Curiosity. Confusion. They stood straighter the moment they saw him, like his presence alone tightened invisible strings around their spines. And he didn’t say a single word to them. Just walked right through the middle like the world was obligated to part for him.

Cold, arrogant bastard.

The way they scattered, the way their eyes dropped—was that supposed to be my life now? Am I meant to shrink around him the way they do? Like some trembling little thing afraid to breathe too loud?

No.

He’s in for a very rude awakening if he thinks that’s going to be me.

But the silence is starting to chew at my brain. Every second stretches, snaps, stretches again. So before I lose my mind, I say, “You’re strange.”

He doesn’t even turn his head. “Mm. Is that so?”

His voice is bored. Detached. Like I’m a commercial he can’t be bothered to mute.

“You can at least look at me when I’m talking to you,” I scoff, turning to the window.

“Would you like me to crash the car so I can look at you properly,” he replies dryly, “or should I drive responsibly?”

I grit my teeth. Of course he’d twist it back at me. Everything with him feels like a power play—subtle, calculated, indifferent.

“Tell me then,” he says after a moment, still not looking at me. “How am I strange?”

I can’t tell if genuine curiosity sneaks into his voice or if it’s just another tactic to keep the upper hand. But anything is better than this suffocating silence.

“I told you we had a mutual friend and you didn’t even ask who.”

“If you wanted to tell me, you could have,” he says simply.

“Well, you didn’t exactly give me the chance to,” I snap. “You walked out of the office.”

Silence again. Cold and heavy. I swallow and look back out the window, watching houses blur. I try to distract myself—counting streetlights, tracing raindrops on the glass, breathing deeply—but no matter how far my mind drifts, it always snaps back to this suffocating reality.

I’m sitting in a car with a man I do not know.

A man I feel absolutely nothing for.

A man I strongly dislike—maybe even something deeper than dislike.

A stranger. The stranger I’m supposed to marry.

My chest tightens.

Then his voice cuts through my spiral. “See?” he says in that infuriatingly calm tone. “You just had the chance to tell me, and you didn’t.”

I sink deeper into my seat, suddenly exhausted. “You’re right,” I mutter. “I didn’t.”

And that’s the last thing I say. I keep my eyes glued to the window for the rest of the drive, letting the world smear past me.

“We’re

here.”