Adrian
A smile curved my lips as the call disconnected.
I could still hear it in her voice. The sharp edge of anger. The tremor beneath it. Emily was furious, and she didn't even realize how much that pleased me.
Anger meant she cared.
Anger meant she was affected.
If she had been indifferent, I would have worried.
But she wasn't.
I leaned back in my chair, fingers steepled, staring at nothing as the echo of her voice lingered in my mind. I had waited too long for this moment. Too long watching her exist just beyond my reach, bound by obligations that never suited her.
Bound by a boy who didn't deserve her.
Only I knew how long I had waited.
Waited for her to belong to me.
The memory of the engagement dinner rose unbidden, sharp and vivid. I had watched her the entire night, my attention never straying. Every time she laughed politely, every time her fingers tightened around her glass, every time her gaze flickered away from Nathan—it all told me the same thing.
She didn't want this.
She didn't want that engagement.
So why wasn't she saying it?
I remembered pulling her aside, my voice low, careful, controlled. I hadn't demanded. I hadn't ordered. I had offered.
Help.
An exit.
A way out of a future she clearly didn't want.
She'd refused.
Not angrily. Not firmly.
Just… quietly.
And for the first time in years, I had felt something dangerously close to heartbreak.
Did she actually love him?
The thought had nearly driven me mad.
Nathan. Foolish, soft, oblivious Nathan. A boy playing at adulthood, unaware of the woman he was being handed. He didn't see her the way I did. Didn't understand her silences, her restraint, the way she endured instead of resisted.
I had seen her first.
Long before that ring. Long before arrangements and polite smiles.
She had always belonged to me.
The memory darkened as the night wore on.
I saw her drink—glass after glass of wine. Saw the tension loosen in her shoulders, the careful control she wore begin to slip. I watched her grow tipsy, watched the warmth rise in her cheeks, the way she laughed a little too freely.
And then she went upstairs.
My jaw tightened even now at the thought.
Was she really going to spend the night with my nephew?
The idea made something violent stir in my chest. My hands curled into fists at the memory. I had wanted to hit something. Someone.
I had moved toward Nathan then, clapping him on the shoulder, congratulating him with a smile I didn't feel. My intention had been simple—delay him. Distract him. Buy time.
But his mother had been faster.
I saw it in her eyes before she even spoke. The calculation.
She leaned in, whispered something into his ear.
And he nodded.
Just like that.
I watched him head for the stairs, my control fraying by the second. Jealousy, envy, fury—they tangled together until my vision narrowed.
I could have stopped him.
Called him back. Ordered him. I was his uncle. His superior in every way that mattered. I could have prevented it.
But I didn't.
Emily had rejected my help. Had avoided me for the rest of the evening. She probably thought I was meddling.
She probably disliked me.
So I let him go.
I excused myself shortly after, my mood dark, my chest tight, my mind racing. I returned to my room needing distance, needing control.
And then—
She was there.
In my room.
For a moment, I had simply stood there, staring, unsure if I was imagining it. Relief crashed over me so suddenly it left me breathless. My pulse had thundered in my ears as I took in the sight of her—uncertain, slightly unsteady, utterly vulnerable.
When I took her hands and she didn't pull away, something in me snapped.
When I asked her—asked for her consent, gave her every chance to walk away—and she said yes…
I came undone.
I still didn't know how I had managed to restrain myself that night. How I had stayed gentle when every instinct in me screamed to claim, to mark, to bind her to me completely.
Her reactions had been everything.
The way she clung to me. The sounds she made—soft, unguarded, real. The way her body responded like it had always known me.
The memory alone made me hard again.
I dragged a hand down my face and took a slow breath, forcing control back into place.
It was her first time.
With me.
That mattered more than anything else.
She belonged to me now.
Whether she understood it or not.
Whether she accepted it yet or not.
She could be angry. She could deny it. She could pretend this was a mistake, a lapse in judgment, something temporary.
But I knew better.
And deep down… so did she.
She just hadn't come to terms with it yet.
The call ended, but Emily's voice lingered like smoke in the room—sharp, heated, trembling just beneath the surface.
Anger suited her.
I rose from my chair and crossed the length of my study, the polished marble floor cold beneath my bare feet. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city glowed in its usual arrogance, lights burning against the dark like it had something to prove. I barely noticed it. My reflection in the glass stared back at me instead—calm, composed, controlled.
A liar.
I replayed the conversation again, slower this time, savoring every crack in her restraint. The way her breathing hitched when she accused me. The way she hadn't hung up immediately, even though she wanted to. The way she had listened when I spoke.
Emily never listened to people she didn't care about.
I poured myself a drink I didn't need and let it sit untouched in my hand. I had waited years for her anger to be directed at me. Years for her to finally stop pretending I was nothing more than a distant, inconvenient presence in her life.
Indifference would have been unbearable.
This—this was proof.
She was unraveling.
I had seen the unraveling begin long before she noticed it herself.
The engagement dinner came back to me in fragments at first—the crystal chandeliers, the polite laughter, the clink of glasses and hollow congratulations. A celebration built on obligation and tradition rather than desire. I remembered sitting at the head of the table, watching her from across the room while everyone else pretended not to see the tension etched into her posture.
She wore elegance like armor that night. A perfect dress. Perfect hair. Perfect smile that never reached her eyes.
Nathan, poor idiot, was radiant. Proud. Certain.
He didn't see it.
He never did.
Emily's fingers had curled too tightly around her wine glass, knuckles whitening. She nodded at the right moments, laughed when expected, leaned into Nathan when the cameras appeared. But every time she thought no one was looking, her gaze flickered—toward the exits, toward the windows, toward anywhere that wasn't him.
Toward me.
Not often. Not obviously.
But enough.
I noticed everything about her. Always had.
I excused myself midway through dinner, circling behind her chair as I passed. Close enough to smell her perfume—subtle, restrained, utterly hers. Her shoulders stiffened imperceptibly. She knew I was there.
That awareness between us had never faded, no matter how hard she tried to bury it.
I had asked her to speak with me privately later. Just for a moment. She'd hesitated, then nodded, eyes guarded.
Hope had been a dangerous thing.
When I finally had her alone, tucked away in a quiet sitting room far from the noise, I saw it clearly—her exhaustion. The way she sagged slightly once the performance ended.
"You don't have to do this," I'd said calmly, carefully. Not accusing. Not demanding.
She looked at me then, really looked, and for a second the mask slipped. Fear, confusion, something like longing flashed across her face before she shuttered it again.
"It's already decided," she replied.
A lie.
"Things can be undecided," I told her. "If you want them to be."
Her lips parted. Her hands clenched at her sides. I thought—truly thought—that she might say it. That she might finally admit she was trapped.
Instead, she shook her head.
"I'm fine," she said softly. Too softly.
Fine.
I had almost lost control then.
I let her go because I had to. Because forcing her would have destroyed everything. Because if she chose me, it had to be conscious—even if she hated herself for it later.
I returned to the dinner knowing I'd lost.
Or so I thought.
She drank more after that. I watched it happen from across the room, a slow unraveling disguised as celebration. One glass became two, then three. Her laughter grew looser, her movements less precise.
Nathan was too busy basking in attention to notice.
I noticed.
When she excused herself and headed upstairs, my chest tightened. The thought of her alone with him—vulnerable, unguarded—made something dark coil inside me.
I followed shortly after, only to intercept Nathan first.
I congratulated him. Smiled. Played the role perfectly.
I intended to delay him. Keep him talking. Buy time for Emily to regain her composure.
Then his mother appeared.
She leaned close, whispered something I couldn't hear, and just like that, he nodded and moved past me, heading for the stairs.
I watched him go, my jaw locked so tightly it ached.
That was the moment I could have intervened.
I could have stopped him. Ordered him. Broken the illusion cleanly and dealt with the consequences.
But Emily had refused my help.
So I let him go.
I told myself it was respect.
It wasn't.
It was bitterness.
I left shortly after, the weight of restraint pressing heavily on my chest. I needed distance—from the noise, from the hypocrisy, from the knowledge that I was losing her to a future she didn't want.
I reached my room and shut the door behind me, exhaling slowly.
And then she was there.
Standing just inside, as if she had always belonged in that space.
For a moment, I thought I was imagining her. Thought the stress and jealousy had finally fractured my mind.
She looked unsteady, eyes bright, cheeks flushed. Her voice was soft when she said my name.
Relief slammed into me so hard I had to brace myself.
I asked her why she was there. Gave her every opportunity to leave. To turn around and go back to the life she was choosing.
She didn't.
When I took her hands and she didn't pull away, the world narrowed to the space between us. I asked again. Slower. Clearer.
Consent mattered. It always would.
She said yes.
The memory of that night lived in my body as much as my mind. The way she reacted to my touch—hesitant at first, then instinctive. The way she clung to me like she'd been waiting for permission her entire life.
I had been careful. Painfully careful. Every movement measured, every breath restrained.
Because if I hadn't been, I would have destroyed her.
I had wanted to mark her. Claim her. Make sure she could never look at another man without remembering me.
Instead, I gave her tenderness.
And that, I suspected, would ruin her far more thoroughly.
She fell asleep in my arms afterward, trusting, unaware of the war she had just stepped into.
I stayed awake all night.
Watching her breathe.
Memorizing her.
Knowing everything had changed.
Now, standing alone in my study days later, I smiled to myself.
Emily could be angry. She could deny it. She could pretend it meant nothing.
But she had crossed a line that could never be erased.
And I would not let her forget it.
She belonged to me—not because I demanded it, but because she had chosen me when it mattered most.
Even if she wasn't ready to admit it yet.
And when she finally did…
I would be waiting.