The ride back from the Blake Estate was heavy with silence.
Elena sat pressed against the car door, staring out at the lights flickering across the city. Her mind was still tangled with Mrs. Blake's words, the sharp glances from the dinner guests, and Adrian's practiced answers that had left her feeling more like a prop than a person.
The diamond ring on her hand glimmered in the faint glow of the streetlamps, mocking her. Every sparkle was a reminder of the role she had just played in front of a table full of strangers.
"You should have warned me," she muttered finally, breaking the suffocating silence.
Adrian, seated across from her with his usual calm poise, didn't even look up from the glass of scotch in his hand. "Warned you about what?"
Elena turned sharply toward him. "About your mother. About that… interrogation."
His gaze flicked to her, cool and unbothered. "You handled yourself fine."
"Fine?" Her voice rose, the frustration she had bottled up all night finally spilling out. "Adrian, they were dissecting me with their eyes. Every word, every breath—I felt like I was on trial in that dining room."
Adrian swirled the amber liquid in his glass. "You passed."
The simplicity of his reply made her blood boil. "This isn't a test! I'm not one of your mergers or acquisitions that you can just slot into a portfolio and check off as successful!"
He raised an eyebrow, finally giving her his full attention. "Aren't you?"
The words hit her like a slap. Elena stared at him, her chest tight with fury. "You really see me as nothing more than that, don't you? A convenient box ticked on your corporate to-do list."
Adrian set down the glass with deliberate calm. "Convenient? No. Strategic? Yes. Don't mistake the difference."
Her laugh was bitter. "You sound exactly like them. Cold. Calculating. Like people's lives—like my life—are just pieces in some giant game of chess you're playing."
Adrian leaned forward slightly, his eyes flashing with something sharper than indifference. "That's exactly what it is, Elena. A game. And in my world, if you don't learn how to play, you're already dead."
The conviction in his voice startled her, silencing her anger for a heartbeat. He wasn't exaggerating—he meant it. This wasn't just rhetoric. It was survival to him.
But Elena wasn't about to back down. She crossed her arms, glaring. "So that's what marriage means to you? A survival tactic? A calculated move to keep your empire safe?"
"Yes." His answer came without hesitation. "Marriage is protection. A shield. Nothing more."
Her throat tightened. She thought of her father's wedding photo, her parents' laughter and warmth, the love that had filled their tiny apartment even when money hadn't. And then she looked at Adrian—this man who wore control like armor, who refused to believe in love at all.
"It must be lonely," she whispered before she could stop herself.
Something flickered in his expression—so fast, she almost thought she imagined it. A shadow. A crack in the ice.
He leaned back, voice quieter but sharper. "Lonely is better than betrayed."
The words landed heavy between them. Elena's anger softened into something she didn't want to name—curiosity, maybe, or pity.
"What happened to you?" she asked softly.
Adrian's jaw tightened. He turned his gaze to the window, the city lights reflected in his storm-gray eyes. For a moment, Elena thought he wouldn't answer.
Then, slowly, he said, "When you grow up in a family like mine, trust is currency. And it always runs out."
His voice was colder than ever, but Elena felt the heat of truth beneath it. She wanted to push, to ask about his past, about the wounds that had turned him into this man of steel. But something in his expression warned her off.
So instead, she said, "Not everyone betrays you, Adrian."
He gave a low laugh, humorless. "Everyone does. Eventually."
The car slowed to a stop outside her apartment. Adrian opened the door, his face once again the unreadable mask she had come to know.
"Get some rest, Elena. You'll need it."
She stared at him, frustration and confusion warring inside her. "For what?"
He paused, then looked back at her, his gaze piercing. "Because this is just the beginning. The real game hasn't even started."
---
Elena lay awake for hours after he left, her father's steady breathing from the other room the only sound breaking the silence.
She thought of Adrian's eyes when she'd said it must be lonely. For one fleeting second, she'd seen it—the crack in his armor, the man beneath the ice.
And it terrified her.
Because if she could see him, if she could start to understand him, then maybe she was already in deeper than she'd ever intended to go.
Maybe she wasn't just his pawn
anymore.
Maybe she was becoming something far more dangerous—his weakness.