Married To My Fiance's Enemy

Chapter 16: The Shattered Contract

The silence in the room was a living thing, heavy and suffocating. Then, Adrian moved.

In his half-conscious state, he felt the warmth beside him and acted on instinct. His hand slid over a soft shoulder, his fingers tangling in long hair as he pulled the body closer, burying his face in a neck that smelled of cloying, expensive perfume, not the faint scent of jasmine he had memorized.

"Lila..." he murmured, his voice thick with sleep and a hunger that made Lila want to scream. "Don't go yet."

And then, she did scream.

It wasn't a dainty cry. It was a raw, visceral sound of agony that tore through the silk-draped sanctuary.

Adrian’s eyes snapped open. The fog of the spiked wine and the drugs Linda had slipped into his glass yesterday was still thick, but the sight of Lila standing by the door, her face a mask of absolute horror, acted like a bucket of ice water.

"Lila?" he croaked.

Then he felt the movement. He looked down. Linda was propped up on one elbow, her bare back glowing in the morning sun, a look of smug triumph on her face that made his stomach turn.

"Good morning, Adrian," Linda whispered, her voice loud enough to ensure it reached the door.

Adrian scrambled back, nearly falling off the high mattress, his face turning a ghostly, ash-white. "What the hell? Get out! Lila, wait.."

But Lila was already backing away, her hands clamped over her ears as if she could physically block the reality out of her head. "You used me!" she sobbed, the words coming out in broken, frantic gasps. "The text... the gala... you always wanted her! I was just the prop you needed to close the deal!"

"Lila, no! I didn't touch her! I don't even know how she got in here!" Adrian roared, lunging out of bed, but as he moved to chase her, Linda’s hand shot out.

Her nails dug into his bicep like talons. "Careful, Adrian," Linda hissed, her voice turning cold and sharp. "I wouldn't go running after her just yet. Not until you see the 'highlights' on my phone."

Linda held up the device. On the screen was a high-definition video of the two of them in bed. The angles were perfect—staged to make it look like a night of unbridled, mutual passion. To any outsider, it was a s*x tape. To the Al-Hamads, it was a death sentence for the merger.

"The Sheikh is so traditional, isn't he?" Linda mocked, her eyes flashing. "How do you think he’ll feel when he sees the groom was in the sister's bed before the ink on the trillion-dollar contract was even dry? The deal will be cancelled by noon. The Sterling name will be a joke."

Adrian looked from the phone to the empty doorway where Lila had vanished. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth threatened to shatter. He looked like a god who had just realized his throne was built on sand.

He didn't go after Lila.

**

The flight back to the States was a nightmare in a pressurized tube.

The Vanquish II was no longer a palace; it was a tomb. Lila sat in the very back of the cabin, her face pressed against the cold window, her eyes red and vacant. She refused to speak. She refused to eat. Every time Adrian’s shadow fell over her, she shrank away as if his presence were a physical assault.

In her mind, every touch from the night before was now a lie. Every "romantic" gesture in the desert was just Adrian making sure the bait stayed on the hook until the shark bit. She felt like a fool—a prop in a trillion-dollar game of sibling rivalry.

Adrian sat at the front of the cabin, a glass of scotch in his hand that he hadn't touched in hours. He looked like a man who had lost his soul, despite the signed contract sitting in his leather briefcase. He was trapped. He knew he hadn't touched Linda, but the video was a biometric-locked weapon. If he fought her, the video went viral. If he didn't, he lost the woman currently shivering in the back of his plane.

Linda sat across from him, sipping a mimosa, her eyes bright and predatory. She clutched her phone like a scepter. She was the one in control now. She had the scandal, she had the leverage, and she intended to use it to claw her way into the Sterling throne, regardless of who she stepped on.

"You should eat, Adrian," Linda said, her voice tinkling with fake affection. "We have a lot of press to handle when we land. We need to look like a team."

Adrian didn't look at her. He looked toward the back of the plane, where the woman he had actually started to love was disappearing into her own grief.

"If you think this ends with you in my bed, Linda," Adrian rasped, his voice low and terrifyingly calm, "you have no idea what I’m capable of."

"I know what you're capable of, Adrian," Linda smirked, patting her phone. "I also know what this video is worth. And right now, it’s worth more than your marriage."

The plane cut through the clouds, heading back to a city that was waiting for a scandal. The contract was signed, but the price was higher than any of them had imagined.

Lila closed her eyes, the image of them together playing on a loop. I am the bait, she thought, a cold, hard shell forming around her heart. And the trap has finally snapped shut.

What Linda didn't know, what she couldn't possibly fathom, was that Adrian Sterling was never more dangerous than when he appeared defeated.

As the jet engines hummed, Adrian’s mind drifted back to the final hour of the desert banquet. He had been nowhere near Linda. In fact, he had avoided her like a plague, keeping his distance to ensure the Al-Hamad family saw only his devotion to Lila. Yet, midway through a toast, the world had begun to tilt. He knew the sensation immediately: it wasn't the wine. He had been spiked.

Instead of reeling, Adrian had leaned into the Sheikh’s ear, his voice a low, lethal vibration. "You have snitches among your servants, Zayed. My drink has been tampered with. For the sake of our partnership, find the girl who poured the third bottle of vintage Krug."

By the time he had been "helped" to his room, his security had already cornered the trembling servant in the kitchen. Under the crushing pressure of Sterling’s elite securities, the girl had confessed to everything—how Linda had paid her, the exact vial of sedative used, and the plan to slip into the room once the drug took hold.

Adrian had a signed, notarized confession stored in a secure cloud server before Linda had even unzipped her dress. He had allowed the charade to happen. He had let her crawl into his bed and film her little "masterpiece," knowing that every second of that footage was being timestamped against the testimony of the very person she’d bribed.

He wasn't trapped. He was waiting.

He was letting Linda think she had the upper hand, letting her grow overconfident, until the moment they touched down on American soil. She thought she was holding a scepter; Adrian knew she was holding a live grenade with the pin already pulled.

The only variable he hadn't accounted for was the look in Lila's eyes when she walked in. That shattered, hollow gaze was the only thing he hadn't expected, the only part of his "controlled" environment that felt like it was actually slipping through his fingers. He had the evidence to crush Linda, but he didn't yet have the words to fix the woman in the back of the plane.

He gripped the armrest of his seat, his knuckles white. He would let Linda play queen for a few more hours. But the moment those wheels hit the tarmac, the game wouldn't just end, it would be a m******e.