Adrian's POV
The mansion feels different when it's just him and Mia.
Adrian leads her through the halls after the reception ends. The dress she's wearing trails behind her like she's a ghost floating through someone else's life. Her face is pale and closed off. She looks like someone walking toward her own execution.
"Your wing is here," Adrian says, stopping at a set of double doors. "It's completely separate from mine. You have your own entrance, your own bathroom, everything you need. There's a kitchen if you want something to eat."
Mia walks into the room and it swallows her whole. The bedroom is bigger than her entire apartment. There's a four-poster bed that looks like it came from a palace. Windows that overlook the city. A closet the size of her old living room already filled with clothes Adrian's team picked out.
She looks so small in all that space.
"Ground rules," Adrian continues because he needs to keep talking. Needs to keep this professional and distant and under control. "We maintain separate wings. I work late most nights. Don't wait up for me. When we're in public, we're the perfect couple. Hand holding. Smiling for cameras. Whatever sells the story. But in private, we're strangers who happen to live in the same house. Does that work for you?"
Mia nods. She doesn't speak. She just stands there looking at the massive room like she's trying to figure out how to survive it.
"I'll have someone bring your things from your apartment tomorrow," Adrian says. "You'll have everything you need here. My assistant will give you a schedule of public appearances. We have a charity gala next weekend. A board dinner the week after."
Mia still doesn't say anything.
Adrian feels something crack inside his chest. He wants to apologize for Clarissa. He wants to explain that she means nothing. He wants to tell Mia that he's not planning to go back to his ex-fiancée after the year ends. But he can't say any of that because it would be a lie and he's already told too many lies.
"Good night, Mia," Adrian says finally.
He leaves before he can see her face break.
Adrian goes to his own room in the opposite wing. It's far enough that he shouldn't be able to hear anything. Far enough that he should be able to pretend she doesn't exist in this mansion. But as he sits on his bed and loosens his tie, he can't stop thinking about how lost she looked. How small she seemed in that giant room. How afraid.
His phone rings. His mother. Of course.
"That was a disaster," Victoria says without greeting. "Everyone's talking about the contract leak. Everyone's talking about you paying that girl to marry you. The family is humiliated."
Adrian's patience snaps. "I don't care what people are talking about."
"You should care. Your reputation matters. The company matters. That girl is a liability."
"She's my wife."
"She's a nobody from foster care who manipulated your dying father. And now you're making her your responsibility. It's pathetic."
Adrian stands up. He walks to the window and looks out at Los Angeles glittering below him. "You're done. Stop talking to me about Mia. Stop talking about ending the marriage. Stop trying to control my life. We're finished, Victoria."
"Adrian, don't be dramatic—"
He hangs up on her. Actually hangs up the phone and doesn't answer when it rings again. Then he silences it and throws it on the bed.
He tells himself he doesn't care what his mother thinks. But the truth is her words burrowed under his skin. Her certainty that Mia is the problem. Her assumption that this will all blow over and Adrian will come to his senses.
Adrian sits in the dark and tries not to think about Clarissa touching his face at the reception. Tries not to think about Mia watching it happen. Tries not to think about the fact that he's already breaking his own ground rules by caring whether or not Mia is okay.
Around midnight, Adrian hears it.
Crying. Coming through the walls that are supposed to be soundproof. Coming from Mia's room. Soft at first then harder. Like her heart is breaking and she's trying to keep it quiet.
Adrian tells himself to ignore it. This is what he wanted. Separate lives. Separate rooms. Separate everything. He should not care that she's crying.
But his feet are already moving.
He walks to the door that connects their wings. He knocks softly so the staff doesn't hear.
"Mia?"
The crying stops immediately. Like someone flipped a switch.
"Go away," her voice comes. Thick with tears. Broken. "Please just go away."
Adrian should leave. He should respect the ground rules he just set. He should go back to his room and pretend he never heard her breaking apart.
He knocks again.
"Mia, open the door."
"No."
"Open the door."
"Adrian, I can't. I can't see you right now."
"Why not?"
There's a long silence. Then her voice comes again, quieter now. "Because if I see you, I'm going to ask you things I don't want to know the answers to. And you're going to lie and I'm going to believe you and we're both going to pretend this is something it's not."
Adrian leans against the door. His forehead touches the wood. "What things?"
"Do you still love her?" Mia asks. "Do you want to go back to her after this year is over? Do you regret marrying me?"
Adrian doesn't answer right away. He can't. Because the truth is complicated and messy and he's not even sure what the truth is anymore.
"I don't love Clarissa," he finally says.
"But you were going to marry her."
"I was going to marry a version of her that I thought existed. I was wrong about who she was."
"And were you wrong about who I am?" Mia's voice is shaking. "Or were you right? Am I just a gold digger who trapped your father and is now playing house with you?"
"No."
"Then why does it feel like that? Why does it feel like I'm living someone else's life in someone else's body? Why does Clarissa get to waltz into our wedding and tell me that I'm temporary and you don't defend me?"
Adrian pushes away from the door. He wants to punch something. He wants to scream. He wants to make her understand that he's just as lost as she is. That he doesn't know who she is anymore either. That somewhere between the contract and the wedding and the moment he heard her voice breaking, everything changed.
"Open the door," Adrian says. His voice is quiet but firm.
"No."
"Mia, open the door."
"I can't be near you right now, Adrian. I can't be in the same room with you and pretend that this is okay. I can't pretend that I don't know what you're thinking about her."
"You don't know what I'm thinking."
"I know you're thinking about how it was easier when it was just business. How much simpler this would be if you didn't have to feel guilty about paying me to marry you. How much less complicated if I just stayed in my room and didn't cry where you could hear it."
Adrian's hand is on the doorknob. He could open it. He has keys to every room in this mansion. He could walk in there and make her look at him and make her understand that he's not the man she thinks he is.
But he doesn't.
He steps back from the door.
"I'm sorry," Adrian says quietly. "About tonight. About Clarissa. About all of it."
"Sorry doesn't fix anything," Mia says. "Sorry doesn't change the fact that I'm a placeholder. Sorry doesn't make me less terrified."
Adrian sits down on the floor outside her door. He leans his back against it. "I'm terrified too."
"Of what?"
"Of the fact that my father was right about something. Of the fact that I'm starting to care about you when I promised myself I wouldn't. Of the fact that you're in this mansion because I forced you to be here and I'm not going to let you leave even though you want to."
There's a sound on the other side of the door. Like she's moving closer.
"I don't want to leave," Mia says quietly. Her voice is right on the other side of the wood now. Like she's sitting on her side of the door while he sits on his. "But I'm scared that I'm going to fall in love with you and then you're going to leave."
Adrian's heart stops.
"You're not going to fall in love with me," he says.
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm not going to let you. Because I'm going to be cold when you need warmth. Because I'm going to protect you from everyone except myself. And because I don't deserve to be loved by someone like you."
Mia is quiet. Then the door opens.
She's standing there in an old t-shirt, no makeup, her eyes red and puffy from crying. She looks young and fragile and completely exhausted. She looks nothing like the composed Mrs. Adrian Westwood that walked down the aisle today.
She looks real.
Adrian gets to his feet. They're separated by maybe three feet but it feels like miles. Like crossing that distance would change everything.
"I'm going to ask you something and I need you to tell me the truth," Mia says. "Not the version you tell reporters. Not the version you tell your family. The actual truth."
"Okay."
"Do you hate me?"
Adrian walks across that distance. He stops in front of her and looks directly into her eyes. "No. I don't hate you."
"Do you feel anything for me besides obligation?"
Adrian reaches out and brushes tears from her cheek. His hand stays there for a moment, cupping her face gently. "Yeah. I feel something. I don't know what it is or what it means or where it's going. But I feel it."
Mia closes her eyes. "That's not enough."
"I know."
"I need more than obligation and confused feelings from you. I need someone who chooses me. Not because of a contract or because his father forced him to. Not because his ex-fiancée showed up and made him feel protective. Someone who chooses me because he actually wants to."
Adrian's hand drops. Because he can't give her that. Not yet. Not when he doesn't even know who he is to himself.
"Go to sleep," Adrian says. "Tomorrow things will be clearer."
"You're lying. Tomorrow will be exactly like today."
She closes the door softly in his face.
Adrian stands in the hallway for a long time. Then he goes back to his room and doesn't sleep. He sits in the dark thinking about what it means to fall into something you never planned to fall into.
Thinking about Mia on the other side of the mansion, probably not sleeping either.
Thinking about the fact that they're both trapped in this marriage and neither of them can escape.
Not because of the contract anymore.
But because somewhere between the lies and the scandal and the wedding day, they both started wanting things they can't have.