EMMA'S POV

The first time I met Adrian Vale in person, he was reading my bank statements.

He sat across from me at the long glass table in Marcus Redding's office, thirty-two years old, dark suit, no tie, turning pages like he was checking a quarterly report. Which, in a way, he was. I was the quarterly report.

"Your studio's line of credit was guaranteed against your family home," he said without looking up.

"My father signed it before he died." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I didn't know until the bank called."

"And your biggest client filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago."

"Thank you. I was there."

That made him look up. Gray eyes, sharp and unbothered. Then the corner of his mouth moved, just barely.

Marcus Redding, the attorney administering our agreement, cleared his throat and slid a thick folder toward me. "Ms. Bell, let's go through the terms one more time."

I didn't need to. I'd read the contract four times on the train.

One year of marriage. Completely separate finances. Cooperation in public. No interference in each other's private lives. At the end of twelve months, a divorce with no conditions and no fight.

In exchange, Adrian would personally cover the bank's demand, and my mother would get to keep the house I grew up in.

Adrian's side was simpler and colder. His grandfather's trust required him to be legally married before the board's final vote. If he wasn't, his late mother's voting shares would pass temporarily to his uncle, and his uncle wanted to sell off the oldest Vale resorts to the highest bidder.

Neither of us needed love.

We just needed a marriage certificate.

I signed. Adrian signed right after me, his signature fast and slanted, like he'd done it ten thousand times.

Marcus then brought in a licensed officiant. We exchanged the required vows, signed the marriage paperwork, and left the filing to him. Five minutes later, I was legally Mrs. Vale.

"Great," I said, capping the pen. "So I go home, and you call me when there's a gala."

"Not exactly." He closed the folder. "The board's annual meeting starts tomorrow morning at Hollow Pines."

I knew the name. Everyone did. The oldest Vale property, a hot spring resort up in the mountains, the kind of place my clients posted about and never shut up about.

"Okay," I said slowly. "And?"

"And my wife is expected to be there." He stood and buttoned his jacket. "We check in tonight."

---

The front desk clerk at Hollow Pines had the warmest smile I'd ever seen. She typed something, glanced at her screen, and somehow smiled wider.

"Mr. and Mrs. Vale. Congratulations." She slid a small leather key pouch across the counter. "Your honeymoon villa is ready."

I looked at Adrian.

Adrian looked at the pouch.

That was when I started to feel uneasy.

The villa sat at the end of a stone path lit by paper lanterns, private and quiet, with steam curling up from somewhere behind it. Adrian unlocked the door and stepped aside so I could go first.

It got worse.

One living room with low wooden furniture. One bathroom. A glass door leading out to a private outdoor hot spring.

And one bed. A big, beautiful bed covered in white linen, with rose petals arranged into a heart in the center.

I stopped in the doorway and didn't move.

Adrian walked past me, scanned the room once, then turned back to me. "Problem?"

I almost laughed, and not because it was funny. "You signed the same contract I did."

He went still for a second. I watched him get it.

He didn't say, *We're married now.* He didn't make a joke about the rose petals. He just pulled out his phone and called the front desk.

"This is Adrian Vale. I need a second room tonight." A pause. "Any room. Standard is fine." Another pause. His jaw tightened. "The entire property? Understood. Thank you."

He hung up.

"Let me guess," I said.

"Fully booked. Board members, their assistants, half the investors' families." He opened the key pouch, took out one of the two brass keys, and walked over to me. He placed it in my palm. His fingers didn't touch mine.

"The bedroom locks from the inside."

I closed my hand around the key. "And you?"

He nodded toward the side room, a small tatami space behind sliding paper doors. "There's a daybed in there."

I looked at the daybed. Then at him. "You're six foot three."

"I've survived worse."

He shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over a chair, the same way he'd closed that folder in Marcus's office. Like this was a scheduling issue.

"Emma." It was the first time he'd said my name. "You don't need to worry. I won't touch you without your permission."

He said it plainly, no charm, no weight on it. Just a fact.

And for some reason, that was what finally made my shoulders drop.

"Okay," I said. "Thank you."

He nodded once and went to make calls on the porch.

---

An hour later, I'd almost convinced myself this was going to be fine.

The private spring had melted every knot in my back. The water smelled faintly of minerals and cedar, and the mountain air above it was cold enough to sting my cheeks. I wrapped myself in the hotel robe, which hit just at my knees, squeezed my hair with a towel, and slid open the glass door.

Adrian was standing in the middle of the living room, undoing his cuff links.

We both froze.

His shirt was already open at the collar, two buttons down. I could see his collarbone and the edge of a tan line that had no business being on a man who lived in boardrooms. My hair was still dripping onto my shoulders. The robe suddenly felt very short.

The room was too quiet. I could hear the spring bubbling behind me.

Adrian looked away first.

"Bathroom's yours," he said, his voice lower than before.

"Right. Yeah."

I walked past him toward the bedroom, eyes straight ahead, chin up, like a grown woman who was not at all affected by a stranger's collarbone.

My bare foot, still wet from the spring, hit the polished wood floor and slid out from under me.

Adrian moved before I even made a sound.

One hand caught my waist. The other closed around my arm, steadying me against him. Through the thin cotton of the robe, I could feel how warm he was, the solid line of his chest right at my shoulder.

Neither of us breathed.

His hand was big enough to cover half my side. I felt his fingers flex once, like he was realizing what he was holding.

Then he let me go so fast I almost stumbled again.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's fine." It came out too high. "Floor's wet. My fault."

I didn't wait for him to answer. I went into the bedroom, shut the door, and turned the lock so hard it clicked like a gunshot.

I stood there with my back against the wood, heart pounding.

Ten seconds passed.

Then his voice came through the door, calm and close.

"For the record..."

I pressed my ear to the door before I could stop myself. "What?"

A pause.

"I'm still keeping my promise."

I didn't answer. I couldn't think of a single thing to say that wouldn't sound ridiculous.

I looked down at myself in the soft lamplight, trying to shake off the feeling of his hand.

And that was when I noticed it. The spot on my robe where his palm had pressed was right over the knot of my belt, the one thing holding the whole robe closed. It had loosened. One more tug, and it would have come undone.

He'd caught me there. And he'd let go the second he could.

I tightened the belt with shaking fingers and sat down on the edge of the bed, right in the middle of the rose petal heart.

For the first time since I'd signed that contract, I realized this year might be a lot harder than I'd thought.

EMMA'S POV

Breakfast was served in the main lodge, in a long cedar room with windows facing the mountains. By eight-thirty, it was already full of people who looked like they owned things.

Adrian stopped just inside the doorway and lowered his voice. "My uncle's at the far table. Gray suit. He'll come to us."

"How do you know?"

"Because he hates waiting for information."

He was right. We'd barely made it ten steps before a man in his late fifties stood up and spread his arms like a game show host.

"There he is. And this must be the mystery bride." Richard Vale had Adrian's height and none of his stillness. His handshake lasted a second too long. "Emma, is it? I have to say, the whole family was stunned. Adrian doesn't even tell us when he switches phones."

"It happened fast," I said.

"Clearly." He smiled. "Sit, sit."

Adrian pulled out a chair for me before I could reach for it. The legs scraped softly against the floor. He waited until I was seated, then took the chair beside mine, close enough that our shoulders were almost touching.

Richard didn't even let me unfold my napkin.

"So, where did you two meet?"

I'd prepared for this. Marcus had given me a one-page summary on the drive up. Charity event, mutual friend, six months of dating. I opened my mouth.

"When did you start seeing each other?" Richard went on. "And what is it about my nephew, exactly? Because I've known him thirty-two years, and charming isn't the word that comes to mind."

A couple of people at the table laughed. A woman across from me leaned in, interested.

None of this was in the contract.

"Well," I started, "we actually met at a—"

"She hates answering personal questions before coffee," Adrian said.

He said it lightly, already signaling the server. A cup appeared in front of me thirty seconds later.

I stared at it.

Last night, before I'd locked myself in the bedroom, I'd come out once for water. He'd been on the porch with his laptop, and I'd muttered something about how Marcus had emailed me twelve questions at six in the morning and nobody should be interrogated before caffeine. I hadn't even been talking to him. I'd been talking to the fridge.

He'd remembered.

Richard chuckled, but his eyes stayed sharp. "Protective. That's new."

"I've always been protective," Adrian said. "You just never had anything I wanted to protect."

The table went quiet for half a second. Then someone laughed again, and the conversation moved on.

I wrapped both hands around the cup and drank, mostly so I'd have something to do with my face.

---

After that, it didn't stop.

A cousin came over to say hello, and Adrian shifted his arm slightly away from his body. Just an inch. Enough space. I understood and slid my hand into the crook of his elbow like I'd done it a hundred times. His arm was warm and solid under the wool of his jacket.

He didn't look at me, but I felt him relax.

When an older board member's wife insisted on a photo of "the newlyweds," Adrian turned toward me first.

"Okay?" he asked quietly.

One word. One second. Then his hand settled at the small of my back, light enough that I could have stepped away without effort.

I didn't step away.

The woman took four pictures. In every one, I was smiling like someone who'd been married for years.

That was the problem. He never grabbed. He never assumed. Every touch came with a pause, a small space where I could say no. And because of that space, I noticed every single one of them.

By the time the board meeting started at ten, I'd stopped counting.

---

The conference room had a view of the outdoor pools and a projector showing renovation plans. I'd assumed I'd sit in the back and look supportive. Instead, Adrian sat me at the table beside him.

Forty minutes in, Richard leaned back in his chair.

"Since we have a fresh perspective in the room," he said, "Emma, I'm curious. The younger market says our brand feels dated. What do you think we should do about it?"

Every head turned toward me.

I knew what he was doing. He'd decided I was the pretty wife Adrian had picked up for the vote. He wanted me to say something cute about Instagram so he could smile and move on.

Adrian didn't say a word. He didn't touch my hand or give me a look. He just waited.

I put down my pen.

"Honestly? The problem isn't that your properties are old," I said. "It's that every renovation is trying to make them look new."

Richard's smile faded slightly.

I nodded at the screen. "That lobby redesign. Gray stone, recessed lighting, the same lounge chairs I've seen in three airport hotels this year. It's clean. It's also completely forgettable. People don't drive four hours into the mountains for a lobby they could get downtown."

"Modernization is what guests expect," Richard said.

"Comfort is what guests expect. That's different." I turned to the board chair, a silver-haired woman named Margaret Osei who hadn't spoken all morning. "What you have here is privacy and history. Eighty-year-old cedar. Original bathhouses. That's what people pay for, and it's exactly what your renovations keep removing. You're paying a lot of money to erase the most valuable thing you own."

No one spoke.

Richard opened his mouth, then closed it.

Margaret looked at me for a long moment. Then she turned to her assistant. "Get her thoughts in writing. I want them in next quarter's proposal."

Under the table, Adrian's knee brushed mine. It might have been an accident.

I didn't think it was.

---

The hallway outside was empty when I finally caught up to him.

"You knew he'd ask me."

"No."

"Then why weren't you worried?" I stepped in front of him. "I could've said something stupid. He would've used it against you for the rest of the week."

Adrian looked down at me. His expression didn't change, but his voice did. It got quieter.

"Because you're not a wife I rented to nod along."

I didn't have an answer for that.

He held my gaze a second longer, then walked on toward the elevators. I stood there in the hallway, feeling something I hadn't agreed to in any contract.

---

When we got back to the villa that night, housekeeping had come and gone.

The rose petals were gone. The bed had been remade with fresh white linen, the pillows stacked neatly against the headboard.

Through the open paper doors of the side room, I could see the daybed.

It hadn't been touched by housekeeping. A thin blanket was folded at one end, but badly, like someone had given up halfway through. A pillow had been jammed against the wall at an angle that couldn't have been comfortable. One corner of the blanket hung all the way to the floor.

Six foot three. On that.

He'd been on calls since lunch and hadn't complained once.

Adrian dropped his keys on the counter and started loosening his cuff links, like last night. I kept looking at that blanket.

"You can sleep in the bedroom tonight," I said.

He looked up.

"The bed's huge," I added quickly. "We can each take a side. There's plenty of room. It's really not a big deal."

He didn't move. The cuff link sat half undone in his fingers.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

That was all. He didn't tease me or jump at the offer. He just asked, the way he had before the photo this morning, and left the space open for me to take it back.

And suddenly, standing between the bed and the daybed with my heart pounding, I wasn't sure at all.

EMMA'S POV

I took two pillows from the stack against the headboard and laid them lengthwise down the middle of the bed, end to end, until they formed a wall.

Then I smoothed the top one flat, like that made it more official.

Adrian came out of the bathroom in a gray T-shirt and sweatpants, his hair still damp. He stopped at the foot of the bed and looked at the pillows for a long moment.

"Subtle," he said.

"Effective."

"Is there a penalty for crossing it?"

"Death." I pulled the comforter up to my chin. "Or I tell Marcus. Whichever scares you more."

The corner of his mouth moved again, the same almost-smile from the lawyer's office. He turned off the lamp, lay down on his side of the wall, and didn't say another word.

I lay there in the dark, listening for something. A shift of weight. A sigh. A hand creeping across the sheets.

Nothing.

He slept on his back like a man in a coffin, perfectly still, perfectly on his side. After twenty minutes, I felt almost insulted. After forty, I fell asleep.

---

I woke up because I was warm.

That was the first wrong thing. The second was that my pillow was moving. Slowly, steadily, up and down.

I opened my eyes.

The room was blue-black, lit only by the faint glow of the porch lantern through the paper screen. The temperature had dropped sometime in the night. I could feel cold air on my bare feet, and I knew why: I'd done what I always did when I got cold. I'd stolen the comforter. Most of it was wrapped around me like a burrito.

And I wasn't on my side of the bed anymore.

The pillow wall was somewhere behind me, crushed flat. My cheek was on Adrian's shoulder. One of my legs was hooked over his shin, and my hand was spread across the middle of his chest, right over his heartbeat.

I lifted my head an inch.

He was awake. His eyes were open, and he was looking at me.

For a second, neither of us moved. The clock on the nightstand said 3:07.

"Oh my God," I whispered, and jerked back.

Something tugged hard at my shoulder.

"Slowly," Adrian said, his voice rough with sleep.

I froze. "What?"

"Your strap."

I looked down. The thin strap of my camisole had slipped off my shoulder, and somehow it was caught on the clasp of his watch. His wrist was resting near my arm, and every time I pulled away, the strap pulled tighter, dragging the neckline of my top lower.

"Why are you wearing a watch to bed?" I hissed.

"Why are you on my side of the bed?"

That shut me up.

I tried to twist free. The strap dug into my skin, and the fabric slid down another inch. I grabbed the front of my camisole with my free hand, my face burning.

"Emma." Quieter now. "Stop pulling. You're making it worse."

"I'm aware."

He lifted his other hand and stopped with it hovering beside my shoulder, not touching me. In the dark, I could just make out the shape of his fingers.

"Can I?"

My throat had gone dry. I nodded.

His fingertips touched the bare skin at the side of my shoulder. They were warmer than I expected. He worked carefully, finding the place where the thin strap had looped around the clasp, easing it free one millimeter at a time.

It should have taken two seconds. It took much longer than that.

We were close enough that I could feel every breath he took. I felt the exact moment those breaths slowed, like he was making himself breathe evenly. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could feel it through my palm, which was still flat against his chest because I'd forgotten to move it.

The strap came loose. He slid it back up onto my shoulder, his knuckle grazing my collarbone on the way.

Then he didn't move.

His hand stayed where it was, resting lightly on my shoulder. His face was a few inches from mine. I could see the dark line of his lashes, the shadow along his jaw. His gaze dropped, just once, to my mouth.

I stopped breathing. I actually thought, *He's going to kiss me.*

And I wasn't going to stop him.

Adrian took his hand back.

He shifted away, rolled onto his back, and stared up at the ceiling.

"Go back to sleep," he said.

I lay there, stunned, with my heart still racing and the comforter tangled around my legs. Then I yanked half of it over to his side, harder than necessary, turned my back to him, and stared at the wall until the sky went gray.

---

At breakfast, I buttered my toast like it had wronged me.

Adrian poured my coffee before I asked. I said thank you to the server. He mentioned the weather was clearing up. I said, "Mm." He asked if I wanted to sit by the window. I said I was fine where I was.

He set his cup down.

"Did I do something?"

I looked at him. He looked genuinely confused, which somehow made it worse.

What was I supposed to say? *Yes. You didn't kiss me. You had your hand on me and your face right there, and you told me to go to sleep like I was a kid who'd had a nightmare.*

"No," I said.

He studied me for another second. Then he nodded slowly and went back to his coffee, and I hated how much I wanted him to push.

---

Back in the city, the Vale Foundation charity gala was held in a hotel ballroom full of chandeliers, champagne towers, and people who donated money mostly so they could be seen doing it.

According to section four of our agreement, the newlyweds had to open the dancing.

The band started a slow song. Adrian held out his hand, and three hundred people watched me take it.

He led me to the center of the floor. His right hand settled at my waist, warm through the thin silk of my dress. I knew that hand now. I knew what it felt like on my bare shoulder at three in the morning.

We started to move. He was a good dancer, of course. Steady, unhurried, never stepping on my feet.

I kept my smile on for the crowd.

"You're very good at pretending to be married," I said.

He turned me under his arm and drew me back in. "Are you?"

My heart stumbled. "Obviously."

Adrian lowered his head. The distance between us closed so fast I felt his breath against my cheek, and the ballroom seemed to fade around us.

"Then stop looking at my mouth," he said.

Heat rushed up my neck. I had been. I'd been doing it since the song started.

A sensible woman would have looked away, laughed, and blamed the champagne.

I didn't look away.

"What happens if I don't?" I asked.

His hand tightened at my waist, his fingers pressing into the silk, pulling me that last inch closer.

"Then we have a problem."