POV Adrian
The text hits my phone like a fucking lightning bolt.
Dinner. One hour. No fathers. No business.
I clear my evening without hesitation, which says something about either my priorities or my sanity. Two client meetings get rescheduled, a conference call gets dumped on Brittany—who hovers with some stack of papers like the world’s most persistent vulture—and I snap at her harder than necessary.
“Not now, Brittany. Handle it yourself.”
The impatience in my voice isn’t about the papers. It’s about the fact that my pulse hasn’t slowed since reading Emilia’s message, and I’m not entirely sure why that pisses me off more than it should.
At home, I move with the kind of deliberate precision that usually happens before hostile takeovers. Shower. Fresh shirt—the blue one that makes my eyes look less dead inside. Tailored jacket that cost more than most people’s rent but fits like it was designed by someone who actually gives a shit about proportions.
I check my reflection twice, smooth my tie like perfect symmetry could hide the fact that she’s thrown me completely off balance. Which is ridiculous.
I’ve negotiated billion-dollar deals without breaking a sweat, but one text from my former assistant—who’s also technically my arranged fiancée—and I’m acting like a teenager preparing for prom.
By the time I leave, I look exactly like the man who always has control. Even if tonight, I feel nothing like him.
The restaurant’s one of those understated places where rich people go to pretend they’re normal—dim lighting, exposed brick, servers who’ve perfected the art of being invisible until you need them. I arrive early because punctuality is control, and control is the only currency I understand anymore.
She walks in wearing jeans and a loose sweater.
No armor. No performance. No carefully constructed Isabella Asher disguise.
The absence of her professional mask hits harder than I expected. This is vulnerability, unpolished and uncalculated, and I’m genuinely not sure what to do with it.
In boardrooms, I can read people like quarterly reports. But this version of her—hair slightly messy from the wind, no makeup, just… human—is uncharted territory.
“You’re early,” she says, sliding into the seat across from me.
“So are you.”
“Touché.”
We order. She gets salmon; I get steak. The wine list gets more attention than it deserves because neither of us knows how to start this conversation.
“So,” I finally say, because someone has to break the ice and apparently it’s going to be me. “How’s your father?”
She gives me a look that could freeze hell. “That’s business.”
“His health is business?”
“When it’s strategic, yeah.”
Fair point. I try again. “Nice weather we’re having.”
“It’s December. In New York. It’s fucking freezing.”
This is going well.
The dinner arrives and we eat in the kind of stiff silence that makes expensive food taste like cardboard. Every bite is calculated, every glance loaded with months of professional interaction.
“Terms,” she says suddenly, setting down her fork with the precision of someone calling a board meeting to order. “One try. If either of us lies, manipulates, or brings up business, we’re done.”
I agree immediately, though something in her eyes says she doubts I’m capable of honesty without ulterior motives. Which, considering the last few months, is probably accurate.
“Tell me something real,” she says.
“Define real.”
“Something that wouldn’t appear in your Forbes profile.”
I think about it, swirling wine that could polish a conscience. “I hate charity galas.”
“Everyone hates charity galas. That’s not real, that’s universal.”
“I hate them because they’re performative bullshit where rich people buy indulgences for their conscience while accomplishing exactly nothing meaningful.” I lean back. “But I go anyway because the networking opportunities are worth pretending to care about endangered butterflies or whatever cause is trending.”
She blinks. “That’s… remarkably honest.”
“Your turn.”
“I used to practice conversations with you in the mirror.”
That stops me cold. “What?”
“Before big meetings. I’d rehearse how to present ideas without you dismissing them immediately.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, but there’s something raw in her voice. “You have this way of looking at people like they’re wasting your time before they’ve said a word.”
The accusation lands like a slap because it’s probably true. “I didn’t realize—”
“That’s the problem. You didn’t realize.”
We finish dinner navigating carefully around landmines of history and expectation. The conversation stays surface-level—college, favorite movies, places we’ve traveled—but the undercurrent is anything but safe.
Every exchange carries weight, loaded with the knowledge that we’re essentially strangers who’ve been intimate with each other’s professional lives for months.
When she stands to leave, I follow her to the door because that’s what you do, even when every instinct screams this is uncharted territory with no corporate handbook to guide you through.
She pauses at the entrance, glances over her shoulder with those eyes that have been cataloguing my weaknesses since day one.
“I didn’t hate working with you,” she says, voice flat but carrying something that sounds dangerously close to truth. “I hated not being seen.”
The words hit like a precision strike to whatever’s left of my ego. She takes two steps toward the street, then stops.
“Actually, fuck it. I have a proposition.”
I raise an eyebrow because propositions from Emilia Hart tend to involve psychological warfare disguised as business strategy.
“We’re both screwed by this arrangement, right? Your dad’s threatening your CEO position, mine’s guilt-tripping me from his deathbed.” She turns around fully, facing me with that calculating look I remember from quarterly reviews. “So let’s beat them at their own game.”
“I’m listening.”
“Fake engagement. We play the perfect corporate couple, give them exactly what they want on the surface level.” Her smile is sharp enough to cut glass. “But we do it on our terms. No real feelings, no actual commitment. Just strategic performance art until we figure out how to untangle this mess without destroying everything we’ve worked for.”
The proposal hangs between us like a challenge. It’s brilliant, actually. Ruthless and practical and exactly the kind of calculated risk that built empires.
“What’s in it for you?” I ask.
“Dad gets his fairy tale merger fantasy. I get breathing room to plan my actual future without him orchestrating every detail from his hospital bed.” She shrugs. “Plus, you’re not completely terrible to look at, so the photos won’t make me nauseous.”
“Thanks. Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.”
“Do we have a deal or not?”
I study her face, looking for tells, for hidden agendas, for whatever game she’s really playing. But all I see is someone who’s tired of being managed like corporate property, same as me.
“Six months,” I say. “Fake engagement, real boundaries. The second either of us wants out, we’re done.”
She extends her hand like we’re closing a business transaction. “Deal.”
I shake it, and for the first time since this whole arranged marriage nightmare started, I feel like I’m playing offense instead of defense.
“This is either brilliant or completely insane,” I tell her.
“Why not both?”