Chapter Six: The Unravelling Threads
773 Words
Rain tapped steadily against the high-rise windows of Adrian’s penthouse, a soft rhythm that echoed the turmoil brewing beneath Elena’s carefully controlled expression. The evening had started with an elegant charity gala—one of those events where the champagne flowed like water and shallow conversations sparkled brighter than the diamond necklaces draped around the city’s elite. It was supposed to be routine. Appear. Smile. Play the role.
Only tonight, the illusion had fractured.
“I didn’t think you’d embarrass me like that,” Adrian’s voice was cold, each syllable clipped, sharp.
Elena turned from the window, her silver gown rustling slightly. “Embarrass you? For not letting your ex-girlfriend kiss your cheek in front of the cameras?”
“She was trying to be polite,” he said, jaw tight. “It wouldn’t have hurt to smile.”
“Oh, I smiled,” Elena snapped. “I smiled the entire time while she wrapped herself around you like she still owned you.”
Adrian’s eyes darkened. “You knew what this was from the beginning. This arrangement isn’t about jealousy.”
“Then maybe you should remind your exes. Or are they part of the contract too?” she shot back, folding her arms.
Silence fell between them—tense, heavy. Outside, lightning split the sky, briefly casting Adrian’s face in stark relief. For a moment, Elena saw something else behind his carefully composed mask. Not anger. Not frustration.
Hurt.
The realization knocked the wind from her chest.
She hadn’t meant to get under his skin. Not really. But these past weeks—dinners, public events, whispered rehearsals of their ‘how we met’ story—had drawn invisible lines between pretense and reality. And now, those lines were blurring. dangerously.
Adrian stepped toward her, his voice quieter now. “This isn’t easy for me either.”
Elena’s breath caught. “You think it’s easy pretending to be in love with someone you barely know?”
His gaze held hers. “Is that all it is to you? Pretending?”
The question lodged in her chest like a thorn. She wanted to say yes. She needed to. But the words stuck, because lately, the truth had started feeling more like fiction, and fiction—especially the kind where Adrian touched the small of her back or looked at her like she was his entire universe—felt dangerously close to truth.
“I don’t know anymore,” she whispered.
Adrian ran a hand through his hair, frustration flaring again. “Look, we made a deal. We knew the risks.”
“Yes,” Elena said, voice trembling. “But I didn’t expect the risks to include my sanity.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “You think you’re the only one affected? You’re not the only one this is messing with, Elena.”
She blinked. “What are you saying?”
Adrian opened his mouth, then closed it again. For a moment, it looked like he might actually tell her something real. Something raw.
But the moment passed.
“We should cool off,” he said instead. “Take some space. We can talk tomorrow.”
“No,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “We talk now. Or this ends.”
Adrian froze. “Don’t threaten me.”
“I’m not,” she said softly. “I’m just tired of pretending we’re fine when we’re falling apart.”
He looked at her then, really looked at her. Not as his fake fiancée. Not as a means to an end. But as a woman standing in the storm of his world, drenched but refusing to drown.
“I’ll fix it,” he said quietly. “I don’t know how, but I will.”
Elena swallowed the lump in her throat. “Okay.”
He stepped forward, tentative, as though the space between them had turned fragile. And it had. One wrong move, and everything would shatter.
“I’ll cancel tomorrow’s meeting with the investors. We don’t have to play the couple tomorrow. We just… breathe.”
Elena gave a small nod. “Breathing sounds good.”
The tension eased, if only slightly. Adrian moved past her to pour a drink, his hands visibly steadier than before. Elena watched him, realizing something that scared her more than the arrangement itself.
She didn’t want to hurt him.
And somewhere in the blur of staged kisses and orchestrated interviews, she had started to care.
Not the kind of care that came from gratitude or obligation—but the deep, soul-wrenching ache that came from wanting something impossible.
Him.
The man she could never truly have.
- Writer
