For one second, Adrian's fingers tightened in my hair.

Then he eased me back. It was gentle. His palm stayed flat against my collarbone, keeping a few inches of space between us.

His brows pulled together. "You're marrying my brother this Saturday."

"I know."

"Do you?" His thumb rested on the pulse in my throat. "Because you just kissed me like you forgot."

"I didn't forget anything." My voice shook, but I didn't look away. "I remember all of it. The elevator. The redhead. My father's hand."

"Elise—"

"I know exactly who I'm supposed to marry."

I hooked my arms around his neck and kissed him again.

This time he didn't stop me. He made a low sound in his chest, half warning and half surrender. His hand slid down my spine and pulled me across the seat into his lap.

The driver never turned around.

"Change of plans," Adrian said against my jaw. "The apartment on Clement."

---

His penthouse was dark and quiet. He didn't turn on a single light.

He peeled off my soaked dress slowly, like he was giving me time to change my mind. I didn't. He said my name over and over in the dark, rough and careful. I held on to him like he was the railing on that bridge.

By the time the sky went gray, every line I had ever drawn was gone.

---

Sunlight woke me.

It came through floor-to-ceiling glass and landed right on my face. I squinted, rolled over, and found the other side of the bed empty.

Adrian was sitting on the edge of the mattress with his back half turned to me. He had pulled on sweatpants. His shoulders were bare. There were four thin red marks near his shoulder blade.

I had done that.

Heat crawled up my neck.

He must have heard the sheets move. He didn't turn around right away.

"You're awake."

"Barely." I tugged the comforter up to my chin. "What time is it?"

"Almost eight."

"Oh."

Silence. A long one. I counted the seconds by the ticking of a clock somewhere in the hall.

Then he twisted to face me. His eyes went straight to my cheek, still sore from my father's slap, and stayed there a moment before they found mine.

"Why me?"

My stomach dropped.

"What?"

"Last night." His voice was quiet. Too quiet. "You could have called a friend. Gone to a hotel. Screamed at me in the car. Instead you kissed me. Twice." He leaned his forearms on his knees. "So I'm asking. Why me?"

I knew what the true answer was. Because you pulled me off the bridge. Because you asked who hurt me. Because nobody else had looked at me like I mattered in years.

But saying that out loud felt like jumping again.

So I shrugged. I even smiled.

"Nolan is sleeping with someone else." I made it sound light, like a joke at brunch. "I'm just returning the favor."

His face changed.

It wasn't a big change. His jaw locked. His mouth flattened. The warmth that had been in his eyes all night just switched off, like someone had flipped a breaker.

"Returning the favor," he repeated.

"Adrian, I—"

"So I'm what? Payback?" He stood. He was taller than I remembered, or maybe I was just smaller, curled up in his bed. "A way to hit Nolan where it hurts?"

"That's not—"

"Then what is it?" He didn't raise his voice. That was worse. "When you were touching me last night, Elise, who were you thinking about?"

My mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

"Was it him?" He took one step closer. "Every time you said my name, were you picturing his face? We look enough alike in the dark. Was that the point?"

"No."

"You don't sound sure."

"I'm—" My throat closed up. I swallowed hard. "You're twisting it."

"I'm repeating it." He laughed once, short and cold. It didn't sound like him at all. "You said it. Not me."

I stared at him. He stared back. I waited for him to soften, to say he didn't mean it.

He didn't.

My eyes burned. I would rather have died than cry in front of him right now.

"Fine," I said. "I'll go."

I shoved the comforter off and swung my legs out of bed. Then I remembered I had nothing on. My dress was a wet heap somewhere near the door, ruined.

Adrian turned his head toward the window. Giving me privacy, or just refusing to look at me. I couldn't tell which one hurt more.

A long navy robe hung on the closet door. His. I grabbed it and yanked it on. The sleeves fell past my fingers. The hem brushed my ankles. It smelled like cedar, like the coat he had thrown over my shoulders on the bridge.

I tied the belt so tight it pinched.

"I'll have it cleaned and sent back," I muttered.

"Keep it."

"I don't want anything from you."

"You wanted plenty last night."

I spun around. "Wow."

For half a second, something cracked in his expression. Regret, maybe. He opened his mouth.

I didn't wait to hear it. I scooped up my shoes and my phone from the floor and marched toward the bedroom door. My hand landed on the knob.

"Elise." His voice dropped. "Wait."

"For what? More questions?"

"You can't walk out of this building in my robe at eight in the morning. Half my staff lives on—"

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three hard raps on the front door of the penthouse.

We both froze.

Adrian's head snapped toward the hallway. I stopped breathing.

Then a voice came through the wood. Lazy. Familiar. The same voice that had told me Marlows do what they're told.

"Hey, Adrian. Open up." Another knock. "It's me. I need to talk to you."

Nolan.

My fingers went numb on the doorknob. The shoes slipped from my other hand and hit the floor with a soft thud.

Adrian's eyes met mine across the room.

"Come on," Nolan called. "I know you're home. Your car's downstairs."

The knob under my palm started to turn.

Not from my side.

He had a key.

The front door clicked open.

I didn't think. I ran.

The closet was huge, the walk-in kind, lined with suits in neat rows of black and gray. I shoved myself between two coats and pulled my knees to my chest. The robe bunched around my ankles.

Adrian was right behind me. He grabbed the closet door and started to slide it shut.

He didn't make it.

Footsteps crossed the living room. Slow. Easy. The walk of a man who had never once been told no.

"Adrian?" Nolan's voice floated down the hall. Then a soft laugh. "Took you long enough. I knocked like four times."

The closet door stopped. A gap of light, maybe six inches wide, cut across my bare feet.

"Why so slow, big brother?" The footsteps came closer. "You got a girl in there?"

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt.

Adrian stood in that gap of light with his back to me. His shoulders were stiff. The red scratches I had left on his skin stood out like a confession.

Then he turned around.

He looked down at me, curled up between his coats, and something moved behind his eyes. I couldn't read it.

He reached in, caught my wrist, and pulled.

"What are you doing?" I mouthed.

He didn't answer. He hauled me to my feet and out of the closet. Two steps, and my back met the wall right beside the bedroom door. The door stood half open. Through the crack, I could see the end of the hallway. A shadow stretched across the floor.

Nolan's shadow.

Adrian braced one hand on the wall by my head. His other hand found my jaw and tipped my face up.

"Don't," I breathed.

He kissed me anyway.

It wasn't gentle like last night. It was slow and hard and quiet, and it stole every thought out of my head. My fingers dug into his forearm. I pressed my nails in so deep I felt his muscle jump under them.

He didn't pull away. If anything, he leaned in closer.

"Adrian." Nolan sounded closer now. Maybe ten feet. "Seriously. What are you doing in there?"

Adrian lifted his mouth from mine. Just an inch. His eyes stayed on me.

"Good morning kiss," he called back.

My stomach turned to ice.

Out in the hall, Nolan laughed. A real laugh, delighted, like his brother had just told him a dirty joke at a bar.

"No way. You? Mister I-don't-have-time-for-dating?" The shadow on the floor shifted. "Who is she? Anyone I know?"

"No one you'd care about."

"Try me."

"Why are you here, Nolan?"

There was a pause. I heard something clink. Keys, maybe, being tossed from hand to hand.

"Dad's freaking out," Nolan said. "Elise didn't go home last night. Her father called the house at two in the morning. Woke everybody up."

I squeezed my eyes shut.

"And?" Adrian's voice was flat.

"And I figured she's sulking somewhere. She saw something yesterday she wasn't supposed to see." Nolan said it like he was talking about a spilled drink. "She'll get over it. She always does."

Adrian's thumb pressed into the hinge of my jaw. Not hard. But it was there.

"What did she see?" he asked.

"Come on. You know what I'm like."

"Say it."

"God, you sound like Dad." Another clink of keys. "She caught me with Tessa at the Halston. Big deal. It's two days before the wedding, not two days after. I'm allowed one last party."

My nails sank deeper into Adrian's arm. He didn't even blink.

"She cried?" Adrian asked.

"Probably. She was holding the seating chart like she wanted to stab me with it." Nolan snorted. "Cute, honestly."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to burst through that door and rip his face off with my bare hands.

I stayed frozen against the wall instead. Adrian's body blocked mine. His heartbeat thudded steady against my chest. Mine was going twice as fast.

"So what do you want from me?" Adrian asked.

"Her phone's off. She's not answering anybody. But she likes you, for some weird reason. She always gets quiet when you're around." Nolan's voice dropped, almost friendly. "If she calls you, tell me. Okay? I need her at that altar on Saturday. Dad needs the Marlow deal closed."

Adrian looked at me for a long moment.

"She won't call me," he said.

"You don't know that."

"I know that."

I shifted my weight. Just a tiny bit. My foot was going numb and I needed to move it.

My elbow bumped the open closet door.

A metal hanger swung loose on the rail. It clanged against the one next to it. Then another. A bright, ringing clatter that bounced off every wall in the room.

I stopped breathing.

Out in the hall, everything went silent.

No keys. No footsteps. No laughing.

One second. Two. Three.

Adrian's hand stayed flat on the wall beside my head. He didn't move. He didn't even turn toward the door.

Then Nolan spoke again. Slowly. Each syllable set down on its own, like he was testing the floor before he stepped on it.

"E... li... se?"

My blood went cold.

Adrian lowered his eyes to mine.

He didn't cover my mouth. He didn't shake his head. He didn't answer for me.

He just waited.

His face was calm. Almost too calm. But his eyes were asking a question, loud and clear.

*Well? Are you going to answer him?*

I understood then. This was his test. Maybe his revenge for what I said this morning. *Returning the favor.* If I was only using him to hurt Nolan, here was my chance. One word, and Nolan would know everything.

And if I stayed silent, what did that make me? A coward, hiding in his brother's bedroom, wearing his brother's robe?

I didn't know which answer Adrian wanted.

I didn't know which one I wanted.

"Elise," Nolan said again. Softer now. Closer. "Is that you?"

I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood. I locked my lungs. I didn't make a sound.

Adrian's eyes searched my face. His jaw flexed once. Then it went still.

On the other side of the half-open door, something brushed the wood.

The shadow on the floor grew longer.

And the doorknob, just inches from my shoulder, began to turn.