IF ONLY YOU HAD LISTEN

Chapter 3: The Morning Everything Changed

Adrian POV

My head was pounding before I even opened my eyes, a dull, insistent throb behind my temples that felt worse than any hangover I remembered earning.

I lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the room to stop tilting slightly at the edges.

The last thing I remembered clearly was Marcus shoving another drink into my hand.

After that, fragments. The cold air outside the club. The elevator. The door beeping green under my key card.

Nothing else.

I sat up slowly, rubbing a hand down my face, and reached for my phone out of habit rather than urgency.

Two days until the wedding. I had a fitting at ten, a call from the caterer at noon, and somewhere in between, I needed to find twenty minutes to actually eat something.

I unlocked the screen.

The first notification made no sense. Then the second. Then the screen simply wouldn't stop, one alert stacking on another faster than I could read them, until the buzzing in my hand felt less like a phone and more like something alive.

Canceled.

I read the word four times before I could understand it.

BILLIONAIRE ADRIAN STERLING'S WEDDING CANCELED TWO DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING.

My thumb was already dialing before I'd finished processing what I'd read.

Straight to voicemail.

I tried again. Same result.

I sent a message. Then another. Each one sitting there, unread, the little checkmark refusing to turn blue no matter how many times I stared at it like that alone might force her to answer.

I called her assistant. No response. I called the wedding planner. Straight to voicemail, same as Isabella.

I tried calling everyone I could think of — Isabella, her assistant, the wedding planner — and got nothing but silence and voicemail beeps for my trouble.

Out of options, I called my mother. She picked up on the first ring.

"Adrian." Her voice was smooth, unhurried, nothing like the panic clawing through my chest. "I was wondering when you'd call."

"Mom, have you seen the headlines?" I paced the length of the hotel room, my free hand dragging through my hair. "Isabella called off the wedding."

"Yes, I have," she said, unbothered. “Any issue with that?”

“I don't understand,” I said in confusion. “What do you mean by any issue with that?”

“My baby boy. Isabella was never the woman for you,” she said. “Imagine, she called off the wedding. Just imagine the insult.”

"Oh mom, stop all this," my voice cracked with frustration. "Isabella is a good woman. But I just need to know what's happening.”

There was a pause in the line, brief, deliberate.

"Come to the house," Eleanor said finally. "We'll talk about this properly. Not over the phone."

She hung up.

I was in my car within minutes, still in yesterday's clothes, my shirt half-buttoned, driving through the streets.

By the time I walked through the front door, my mother was already in the sitting room, a cup of tea balanced delicately in her hand like the world hadn't just tilted sideways.

"Mom." I didn't bother sitting. "Did you say anything to Isabella? "

My mom chuckled, she set her cup down against its saucer with a soft, deliberate click, studying me for a long moment.

"I would never do such a thing," she said, "Maybe this is a blessing."

I stared at her.

"A blessing." The word tasted foreign in my mouth. "My wedding is canceled, and you're calling it a blessing?"

"A woman who truly loved you wouldn't abandon you two days before your wedding," she said. “She refused to pick your calls, refused to return them either. She didn't even inform you before calling off the wedding.”

She folded her hands in her lap, her expression maddeningly calm. "Doesn't that tell you something, Adrian?"

"Tell me what?" My jaw tightened.

"Adrian, I only want what's best for you." She reached for her tea again, unhurried, like she hadn't just detonated something inside my chest. "One day you'll thank me for seeing this clearly, when you couldn't.”

I walked away before I said something I'd regret.

But her words followed me down the hallway, settling somewhere I couldn't shake them loose from, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself she was wrong.

Isabella loves me. This doesn't make sense. Something is wrong.

A notification buzzed against my palm as I reached the front door, and I glanced down without thinking.

The photograph. Someone had reposted it, tagged a dozen accounts, added a caption dripping with false sympathy for the "heartbroken bride." My stomach turned looking at it, the image burned into my mind.

"Oh my God," I pressed the heel of my hand against my eyes. "This isn't real. None of this is real."

My phone rang before I'd made it to the car, and I answered without checking the screen, my pulse lurching toward something like hope.

"Isabella?"

"It's me," Vanessa's voice, careful, subdued. "I'm sorry, Adrian. I know you were hoping—"

"Have you spoken to her?" I gripped the phone tighter, my knuckles aching. "Vanessa, please. You're her best friend. If anyone knows where she is, that should be you."

"She's devastated." A pause stretched long enough to make my stomach twist. "You hurt her, Adrian. That photo isn't something she can unsee."

"It's not real." My voice cracked. "I don't even remember that night. I don't know the lady in that room with me. I would never cheat on her."

Silence.

"I believe you," Vanessa said finally, so quietly I almost missed it. "I don't think you'd ever hurt her on purpose."

Something in my chest loosened, just slightly, just enough to let me breathe.

"Then help me," I said. "Please. I need to see her. I need her to hear this from me, not from a headline."

"She won't see you right now. You know that."

"Vanessa, can I ask you for a favor?"

Another pause. Longer this time.

"Anything," she said.

"Can you come to my house tonight? Please. I know if you talk to her, she'll listen to you."

The silence on the other end lasted just a beat too long.

"Okay," she said finally, and something in her voice had shifted, something too smooth, too satisfied for the moment we were in. "I'll come tonight."

I didn't notice it then. I was too far gone in my own panic to hear anything except the promise of help.