The first thing I noticed was the silence.
Not the comfortable kind—but the expensive kind.
The kind that belonged to rooms where decisions were made quietly, and lives were altered without raising a voice.
I sat across from Adrian Cross and tried not to fidget.
The office stretched behind him in glass and steel, the city framed like it belonged to him. He didn't smile. He didn't rush. He read the document in front of him as if my future wasn't stapled between those pages.
"You've read the terms," he said at last.
His voice was calm. Too calm.
The kind that never asked questions it didn't already know the answers to.
"Yes," I replied.
A lie.
I had read them—but I hadn't understood how something so simple could feel so heavy.
No public acknowledgment.
No emotional involvement.
Absolute discretion.
And one line I couldn't forget:
This agreement may be terminated at any time, without explanation.
Adrian finally looked up. His eyes were sharp, assessing—not unkind, but distant. Like he was already preparing to forget me.
"You understand what this arrangement requires," he said. "And what it doesn't."
"I do."
Another lie.
Because if I truly understood, my hands wouldn't be trembling under the table.
He slid the contract toward me. A pen followed.
"All you have to do," he continued, "is play your role convincingly. Nothing more."
My role.
Not partner.
Not lover.
Not even a person—just a function.
I glanced down at the paper. My name was printed neatly at the bottom, as if it had always belonged there.
"What happens," I asked quietly, "if someone finds out?"
Adrian leaned back in his chair.
"That won't happen."
The certainty in his tone should have reassured me.
Instead, it scared me more than any warning could have.
"And if it does?" I pressed.
For the first time, something flickered across his expression—so fast I almost missed it.
Then it was gone.
"Then," he said, "we both lose something we can't afford to."
The room felt smaller after that.
I picked up the pen.
This was supposed to be temporary.
Controlled.
Safe.
I told myself it was just ink on paper.
Just a contract.
But the moment I signed my name, Adrian's gaze dropped to my hand—and lingered.
Not professionally.
Not casually.
Something unreadable passed between us.
And for reasons I couldn't explain, a thought settled heavily in my chest:
This wasn't going to end the way either of us planned.