MY LONELY BILLIONAIRE

The first time Adrian Cole learned that love had a price, he was nineteen and standing in the rain with a bouquet he could not afford. He still remembered the way the flowers had looked in his hands—cheap, half-wet, and embarrassingly small. He had stood outside Vanessa Hale’s apartment for almost an hour that night, waiting for her to come downstairs, rehearsing an apology for missing her birthday dinner because his shift at the garage had run late. Back then, he had believed effort could make up for poverty. He had believed loving someone enough would eventually make them stay. He was wrong. “You’re still here?” Vanessa’s voice had sliced through the rain before he even saw her. She stood beneath the apartment’s entrance light in a fitted red dress, her makeup flawless, her expression full of irritation rather than surprise. Beside her was the sleek black car of the man Adrian had spent the last three weeks pretending not to notice. Adrian swallowed and stepped forward, his shoes soaked through. “Vanessa, I know I’m late. I’m sorry. The manager refused to let me leave and—” “And you thought flowers would fix it?” She looked at the bouquet in his hand and laughed, a soft cruel sound that would stay with him for years. “Adrian, do you ever listen to yourself?” His grip tightened around the stems. “I told you tonight mattered.” Vanessa folded her arms over her chest, glancing at the old bike he had ridden through the rain to get there. “Do you know what it feels like watching all my friends show up with men who actually have a future while I keep defending you?” “Defending me?” he repeated quietly. “Yes. Defending you.” Her eyes hardened. “I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t bother me that my boyfriend is a broke mechanic with a dead-end life and a family that doesn’t even want his name attached to theirs.” Adrian went still. The rain slid down the back of his neck, but he barely felt it. Vanessa had said cruel things before—small, sharp comments dressed as jokes—but this was different. This was the first time she said the ugly truth out loud, without trying to soften it. She was ashamed of him. Ashamed of his empty pockets. Ashamed of his patched shirts. Ashamed of the fact that he was the illegitimate son of a wealthy man who had given him blood but never a place. “Vanessa…” His voice came out rough. “You know things are hard right now. I’m trying.” “That’s the problem, Adrian. Trying isn’t enough.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice like she was doing him a kindness. “You don’t have money. You don’t have status. You don’t even have a proper family. And maybe that would have been fine if you had ambition, but all you do is survive. You survive and survive and survive, and I am exhausted.” Her lips curled. “I can’t build a future with a man the world already decided doesn’t belong anywhere.” Every word landed like a slap. Adrian looked at her as if he had never seen her before. This was the woman he had skipped meals for. The woman he had worked double shifts to impress. The woman he had once imagined marrying in a small apartment with cheap curtains and secondhand furniture, because he had honestly believed love could make a place feel rich. But standing under the rain, staring at the disgust on her face, he realized something brutal. Vanessa had never loved the man he was. She had only loved the version of him she hoped he might become. And now that hope had expired. The man by the car stepped out with an umbrella, expensive watch gleaming under the lights. He was older, polished, the kind of man who never checked price tags before ordering dinner. Vanessa did not look guilty when she reached for his arm. “Take the flowers home, Adrian,” she said lightly. “Or better yet, give them to someone who thinks poverty is romantic.” He stared at her hand looped through another man’s arm and felt something inside him go cold. Not broken. Broken still implied pain. This was worse. This was the death of something. Without a word, Adrian looked down at the bouquet in his hand. The wrapping paper had already softened from the rain. One of the roses had snapped at the stem. Slowly, he dropped it into the puddle by his feet. Vanessa’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t care enough to read the expression. When he lifted his head again, his face was unreadable. “You’re right,” he said. His voice was calm enough to startle even him. “I don’t have money. I don’t have status. And I definitely don’t have the kind of family that opens doors for me.” He took one step back, rain dripping from his lashes. “But one day, Vanessa, you’ll look at me and realize you should have been more careful with the way you threw me away.” She laughed, dismissive and pretty and cruel. “Is that a threat?” “No.” Adrian’s mouth curved, but there was no warmth in it. “It’s a promise.” Then he turned and walked into the rain without looking back. Twelve years later, Adrian Cole signed a merger worth eighty million dollars before noon and fired a senior executive before lunch. The boardroom on the thirty-seventh floor of Cole Holdings was silent except for the ticking of the antique clock on the wall. No one moved. No one breathed too loudly. Even the city skyline beyond the glass windows seemed to pause around him. Adrian closed the file in front of him and slid it across the polished black table. “If Mr. Lawson thinks lying to my face is a negotiable offense,” he said, his voice even, “he can test that theory with security on his way out.” No one spoke. At the far end of the table, the silver-haired executive who had spent the last ten minutes trying to explain away missing figures looked as though he might collapse. “Adrian—” one of the directors began carefully. He raised his eyes. The director immediately shut up. That was the thing about Adrian now. He no longer needed to shout to make a room fear him. Power sat on him too naturally for that. It lived in the cut of his charcoal suit, in the expensive watch resting against his wrist, in the absolute stillness of his expression whenever someone else started to panic. Twelve years ago, he had stood in the rain with flowers he couldn’t afford. Now men twice his age lost their jobs because he lifted a finger. “Meeting adjourned,” he said. Chairs scraped back at once. Files were gathered. Apologies were muttered. People left quickly, carefully, like they were escaping a room that might explode if they stayed too long. Adrian remained seated until the boardroom emptied. Only then did he lean back in his chair and loosen his tie. The silence rushed in around him, cold and immediate. He should have felt something after a win like this. Satisfaction, maybe. Pride. At the very least, relief. Instead, he felt exactly what he always felt. Nothing. His phone buzzed against the table. Beatrice calling. Adrian stared at the screen for three seconds before answering. “What is it?” “You say hello to everyone else more politely than you speak to your own family,” Beatrice said dryly. “You’re not calling for a social chat.” “No, I’m calling because the house is too quiet, you barely sleep, you haven’t attended a single family dinner in months, and Mrs. Dalia told me you’re surviving on black coffee and anger again.” Adrian pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you called to monitor my diet, I’m hanging up.” “I called to tell you someone will be arriving at the house this evening.” His hand stilled. “No.” “You haven’t even heard the rest.” “I don’t need to.” Adrian stood, collecting his phone and keys. “Whatever arrangement you’ve made, cancel it.” “Her name is Ariel Hart,” Beatrice continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “She’s twenty-four, recently graduated, desperately in need of work, and far too qualified to be taking this kind of position, which is exactly why I hired her before someone else could. She’ll help around the house and make sure you behave like a human being at least twice a day.” Adrian stepped into the private elevator, jaw tightening. “You hired a stranger to supervise me?” “I hired someone because you live in a mansion that feels like a mausoleum and glare at anyone who tries to care whether you’re alive.” The elevator doors slid shut. Adrian’s reflection stared back at him from the mirrored wall—dark suit, controlled face, eyes that had forgotten softness years ago. “I don’t need help,” he said. “That,” Beatrice replied gently, “is exactly why you do.” The line went dead. Adrian looked at the phone in his hand and let out a humorless laugh. A stranger in his house. A girl he didn’t know. Another person Beatrice expected him to tolerate for the sake of his nonexistent emotional well-being. Fine. If Ariel Hart wanted the job, she could keep it. But by the end of the week, she would regret ever stepping through his front door. And Adrian would make sure of it.