THE BILLONAIRE'S REPLACEMENT BRIDE

Marry Me

The car stopped, and Elena didn't know where she was.

Adrian got out and He reached for her hand.

She climbed out alone, her wedding dress dragging across gravel, the photograph from the car still curled in her fist. She followed him inside Elena turned on him the second the door closed.

"Why were you watching me?"

Adrian poured water. He set a glass near her and said, "Because I needed to know what kind of woman you were before I approached you."

"You don't get to do that." Her voice cracked. "You don't get to dig through my life like I'm a file on your desk...." Her throat closed. "You had no right."

"I know."

"And you're not sorry."

"No."

She laughed, but it came out wounded. "Of course not."

"If I hadn't watched you," Adrian said, "I wouldn't have known that when your father found you on those stairs, he wouldn't comfort you. He would tell you to fix your face. And I wouldn't have known that right now, at this moment, Richard is on the phone with his lawyers, drafting a statement that makes you the villain. A bride who panicked and ran."

Elena's breath stopped.

"He'll save the alliance," Adrian continued. "He'll save Nathan. He'll save Vivian. And you will be the broken thing they step over to do it."

She shook her head, but the denial wouldn't form because she could hear her father's voice on the staircase...the Vale name, Elena.

"You think the worst thing that happened to you today was Nathan," Adrian said. "But Nathan was only the beginning."

Elena's hand found the back of a chair. She needed something to hold her up. Her father was already building the story that would bury her. While she stood here in a stranger's house, her life was being rewritten without her consent.

"Sit down," Adrian said.

"I don't want to sit."

"Then stand. But look at this."

He opened a folder on the desk. Her eyes found the papers anyway...red numbers, downward slopes, her father's signature on loan documents she didn't recognize.

"The Vale Group is bleeding," Adrian said. "Has been for over a year. The Cross alliance wasn't a celebration of your future. It was a rescue mission. Nathan's family was buying into your father's company to keep it from collapsing."

Elena stared at the numbers. "Vivian marrying Nathan keeps the deal intact. The money flows. The empire stands." Adrian paused. "And Richard keeps his secrets."

Elena looked up from the page. Her mouth tasted like copper. "What secrets?"

"That he knew....That Nathan wanted her that he always wanted her." Adrian's voice didn't rise. "Your father has spent months in rooms with Nathan Cross. He saw how he looked at Vivian. He knew, Elena. And he was going to let you walk down that aisle anyway."

The air left her lungs.

"Why are you telling me this?" she whispered.

"Because you need to know what you're running from."

"I don't want anything from you." The words tore out of her. "I don't want your information. I don't want..."

"Then leave."

She turned toward the door.

"Your father's lawyers are already drafting the statement," Adrian said behind her. "By morning, everyone you know will believe you lost your mind in a wedding dress. Nathan will be the sympathetic ex. Vivian will be his comfort and you will have nowhere to go."

"What do you want?" she turned and asked.

Adrian stood by the desk. He slid a document across the surface toward her.

"Marriage," he said.

Elena blinked. She laughed, a broken, ugly sound. "You're joking."

"No."

"I met you three hours ago."

"You don't need to know me to marry me."

"Then why would you want a wife who doesn't love you? Who doesn't even know you?"

Adrian's eyes held hers. "Because love isn't part of the arrangement."

"What exactly are you offering?"

"Financial independence. Protection from your family and the Cross family. A guaranteed divorce after one year. Your own residence. No obligation to my bed. No obligation for children. Freedom to do what you want, be what you want, while the world believes you belong to me."

"But what do you get?" she asked.

Silence.

Adrian went still in a way that made the room feel smaller. Something moved behind his eyes...something sharpand then it was gone, locked away behind a wall she couldn't see past.

"A wife," he said.

"That's not the whole answer."

"No."

"Then tell me the rest."

"You don't need to know everything before you decide." His voice was quiet. Final. "You only need to know that I will not lie to you. I will not betray you and I will not force you."

"You have until midnight," he said.

Elena looked at the contract then She picked it up.

"I'm leaving," she said.

"Okay"

The driver waited outside. The night air was cold, and she didn't know where she would tell him to go. She didn't have a home anymore but as the gates closed behind her, she realized her hands were still clutching the contract.