Chapter 6: Find her

Adrian’s POV

I walked through the grand entrance of the mansion expecting to find Nadine waiting to take my coat and briefcase as she always did, but I was met with the head butler standing alone in the foyer instead.

I gave him a sharp, suspicious look. "Where is Nadine?"

"S-She is not home, sir," he stammered, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the polished marble floor.

My mind instantly flashed to the signed divorce decree sitting on my office desk downtown, but I brushed the thought aside. The paperwork still had to clear the legal team before anything was finalized. Nadine wouldn't actually leave with nothing, despite what she had claimed in the agreement. No one walked away from the Kingsley name with empty hands.

"Find her. Tell her we need to talk," I instructed coldly, passing him without another word as I headed up the stairs to my study.

The moment I opened the heavy double doors, my eyes landed on the desk where the gold wedding band I had bought her a year ago sat.

I walked over and picked it up. The metal was cold against my palm. I stared at the simple band, a strange, uninvited tightness gripping my chest.

A quiet knock rattled the doorframe, and the butler stepped inside, looking visibly tense. "Sir... the security team at the front gate reported that Madam left the estate very early this morning. She hasn't returned."

"Did you check her quarters?"

He nodded quickly. "Everything has been left untouched, sir. She took a single overnight bag and left in plain clothes."

My brow furrowed. I stared down at the ring in my hand, my jaw tightening. "Did she really leave?" I muttered, more to myself than to him. I slipped the ring into my trousers pocket and sat down behind my desk.

"She is just pulling a stunt," I asserted, leaning back in my chair. "She’s upset about the incident at the gala. Give her a day or two, and her pride will break. She’ll come back."

"I apologize, sir, but Mrs. Kingsley has never stayed out past dusk. Instead, she always—"

"Well, she is running late tonight," I cut him off sharply, refusing to entertain the notion that she had genuinely walked away. "Don't you have work to attend to?"

"Yes, sir. Of course," he bowed hastily and exited the room, closing the door softly behind him.

I worked straight through the night, my eyes scanning financial reports while my ears remained hyper-attuned to the quiet hallways outside, listening for the sound of her footsteps. None came.

By a quarter past eleven, an uncomfortable knot of anger and restlessness had settled deep in my gut.

I pulled out my phone, intending to call her personal line to demand her location, but I stopped myself. She brought this on herself. She was a traitor who had leaked confidential bidding files to my competitors. I had no reason to care where she slept.

Yet, as the hours dragged on, sleep proved impossible.

It was not until early the next morning, that a security update reached my phone indicating that a woman matching her description had collapsed at a bus terminal and had been transported to a local clinic, that my pride finally fractured.

I dialed her number. The line didn't even ring—it went straight to an automated message.

Frustrated, I called Nadira instead. "Have you seen her?"

"Seen who?" Nadira asked over the receiver, her voice light.

"Nadine. I can’t reach her line."

A heavy silence stretched over the phone for a few seconds before Nadira spoke again. "I'm coming over to the estate."

Twenty minutes later, the front door opened, and Nadira walked into my study. The moment she entered, I stepped forward, gripping her arm perhaps a bit too tightly. "Do you know where she is? Tell me."

"Calm down, Adrian," Nadira purred, paying no mind to my urgency. She stepped closer, her manicured fingers tracing a slow path up the lapel of my jacket. "We both know this is what you’ve wanted all along.

My brows pulled together. "What are you talking about?"

Nadira rolled her eyes with a soft laugh. "Don’t play dense with me, Adrian. I’m the one you were supposed to marry before my sister manipulated the entire situation to trap you. The year is up. The deal is over. Now we can finally be together without her in the way."

She reached up to stroke my jawline. I pulled back slightly, an unsettling sensation creeping through me. She was right—Nadine had taken her place through deceit, usurping a marriage that belonged to Nadira. Yet as I looked at Nadira standing in front of me, I felt nothing. No spark, no pull, no trace of the desire I had convinced myself I held for her for the past year.

Nadira caught the shift in my expression, her playful tone instantly evaporating. Tears welled in her grey eyes. "Don't tell me... Adrian? Are you in love with my sister?"

"Love?" I snapped immediately, the word tasting bitter on my tongue. "No. Absolutely not. Nadine is a traitor who nearly compromised my firm."

Nadira's posture relaxed, a triumphant smile returning to her lips. "Good. Because Nadine told father you signed the divorce papers, and then she vanished. She has no use to our family anymore."

"She left the city?" I asked, my chest tightening again.

"She’s fine, Adrian. She always manages," Nadira dismissed with a casual wave of her hand, stepping closer and interlocking her fingers with mine. "If you need something to worry about, worry about how you're going to make up for all the time we lost."

She leaned up, pressing a soft kiss to my right cheek, then my left. "I missed you."

I swallowed down the cold guilt gnawing at my stomach and forced a stiff nod. "I missed you too, Nadira."

"Since the arrangement is officially over," Nadira continued, looking around the expansive study with an approving gaze, "when are you going to have me move in? I want the master wing Nadine was using. Have the staff clear her things out tomorrow."

"Whatever you want," I replied flatly.

I looked down at her face. Standing this close, the physical resemblance between the sisters was undeniable—the same delicate structure, the same rich hair. But where Nadira’s eyes were a pale, calculated grey, Nadine’s had always been a startling light blue, like the surface of deep water.

I shook my head, aggressively pushing the thought of Nadine out of my mind. She had betrayed me, damaged my company, and had the audacity to sign the papers and walk away as if she were the victim.

"Listen to me, Adrian," Nadira whispered, taking my chin between her fingers and forcing me to look at her. "My sister tried to ruin you. She’s manipulative and selfish. Unlike her, I actually care about your future. We belong together."

She pulled me down into a kiss.

I didn't pull away. I wrapped my arm around her waist, using the gesture to drown out the silence hanging over the quiet estate.

"You're right," I murmured against her lips, forcing the cold pride back over my heart like an armor. "Why settle for a substitute when I can have the real thing?"