In His World

Adrian POV

I walked into Marcus's bar at midnight because it was the only place in London where I could think without someone asking me questions I didn't want to answer, and Marcus looked up from wiping down the counter when I came through the door.

"You look like someone died," he said.

"Worse." I slid onto a stool. "My brother got engaged."

Marcus stopped wiping. "James? Your brother James who said commitment was for people who'd given up on life?"

"Apparently he found someone desperate enough to say yes." I signaled for a drink. "My father announced a new rule at dinner tonight, whichever son gets married first becomes CEO."

"That's insane even for Richard Blackwell." Marcus poured me whiskey. "How long do you have?"

"Seventy-two hours starting from when James announced his engagement three hours ago." I downed the drink. "So about sixty-nine hours now."

"And you need a wife in sixty-nine hours."

"I need a wife period, the timeline just makes it more interesting." I pushed the glass toward him. "Another."

Marcus refilled it. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet, that's why I'm here drinking instead of home panicking." I looked at the nearly empty bar. "Any suggestions?"

"Find someone who's as desperate as you are." Marcus sat down across from me. "Offer them something they can't refuse."

"Like what?"

"Money, security, a way out of whatever hole they're in." Marcus shrugged. "Rich men have been buying wives for centuries, you'd just be continuing a proud tradition."

I was about to respond when the door opened and cold air rushed in along with a woman who stumbled through like she'd forgotten how to walk properly.

She caught herself on a table and stood there swaying, and even from across the room I could see she'd been crying for hours because her face was blotchy and her mascara was smeared down her cheeks.

"Should you help her?" I asked Marcus.

"Probably." But he didn't move and neither did I, and we both watched her make her way to the bar like she was walking through water.

She collapsed onto a stool three down from mine and put her head on the counter. "Vodka, I need vodka, the whole bottle if you have it."

Marcus walked over. "I think you've had enough already."

"I haven't had nearly enough." She lifted her head and I could see her eyes were red and swollen. "My parents died two weeks ago in a car accident and today I found out all their debts are mine now."

"How much debt?" Marcus asked gently.

"Forty thousand pounds and the bank wants it in thirty days or they're taking my house." She laughed but it came out broken. "The house where I grew up, where my mother taught me to cook and my father read me stories before bed, they're taking all of it."

Something clicked in my brain, something cold and calculating that told me this was the opportunity I'd been looking for even though I knew I shouldn't take it.

I got up and moved to the stool next to hers. "Forty thousand pounds?"

She turned to look at me and her eyes tried to focus. "Are you offering to lend me money? Because I can't pay you back."

"I'm not lending anything." I signaled Marcus for another drink. "I'm offering to pay off your debt completely."

"Why would you do that?" She squinted at me. "I don't even know you."

"My name is Adrian Blackwell and I need something from you." I waited while Marcus poured her vodka. "You need money and I need a wife."

She stared at me and then started laughing, the kind of hysterical laughter that people do when they've gone past crying into something else. "You're joking, this has to be a joke."

"I'm completely serious." I pulled out the contract my lawyer had drawn up three days ago just in case. "Marry me tonight, stay married for eighteen months, and I'll clear your debt plus give you five thousand pounds a month."

"You're insane." But she was looking at the contract now. "Why would you need to pay someone to marry you?"

"Because I need a wife by Friday and you're here and desperate enough to say yes." I pushed the contract closer. "Read it."

She picked it up and tried to focus on the words but her eyes kept sliding off the page. "I can't read this, everything's blurry."

"Then I'll tell you the terms: eighteen months of marriage, you live with me and attend events with me and play the role of my wife in public, and when the eighteen months are up we divorce and you walk away with enough money to start over."

"And you'll pay my debt?"

"Tonight, as soon as you sign." I pulled out a pen. "Forty thousand pounds transferred to your account immediately."

She looked at the contract and then at me and then at Marcus who was watching us both like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "This is real?"

"Completely real." I held out the pen. "Sign and save your house or don't sign and lose everything."

She took the pen and her hand was shaking so badly she could barely hold it. "Where do I sign?"

I showed her and she signed without reading anything, just scrawled her name across the bottom line and pushed the contract back toward me.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Elena." She reached for her vodka. "Elena Hart."

I pulled out my phone and transferred forty thousand pounds to the account number she'd written on a napkin, and her phone buzzed a second later.

She looked at the screen and started crying again. "It's real, you actually did it."

"I said I would." I folded the contract. "Now we need to make it legal."

"What?" She looked up. "We already signed."

"That's the contract, now we need the marriage ceremony." I looked at Marcus. "You're ordained aren't you?"

"I got ordained online five years ago to marry my sister." Marcus shook his head. "But I'm not marrying you two, this is insane."

"But you can legally perform a marriage?"

"Technically yes but-"

"Then do it." I looked at Elena who was drinking more vodka. "Unless you want to back out?"

"No." She downed another glass. "Let's get married, why not, I've already destroyed my life today anyway."

Marcus sighed and went to his office and came back with a laptop and a marriage certificate, and the old man who'd been sitting at the end of the bar turned around.

"I'll be your witness," he said. "This is better than television."

"Perfect." I stood up and pulled Elena to her feet and she swayed against me. "Can you stand?"

"Maybe." She was holding onto my arm. "Everything's spinning."

Marcus positioned us in front of the bar and started reading from his laptop about love and commitment and forever, and Elena's eyes kept closing like she was falling asleep standing up.

"Do you Adrian Blackwell take Elena Hart to be your lawfully wedded wife?" Marcus asked.

I looked at Elena who was barely conscious. "I do."

"And do you Elena Hart take Adrian Blackwell to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

Elena's eyes opened slightly. "What?"

"Do you take Adrian as your husband?" Marcus repeated.

"Sure." Her words were slurred. "Why not."

"I need you to say I do," Marcus said.

"I do." She was swaying worse now. "Can I sit down?"

"By the power vested in me I now pronounce you husband and wife." Marcus closed his laptop. "This is the worst thing I've ever been part of."

Elena's eyes rolled back and she collapsed and I caught her before she hit the floor, and she was completely unconscious in my arms.

I pulled out the ring I'd been carrying in my pocket for three days and looked at her left hand, and I slid the ring onto her finger while she was passed out and couldn't object.

"Did you just put a ring on your unconscious wife?" Marcus asked.

"She's my wife now." I looked down at Elena. "She should have a ring."

CHAPTER 2

Elena POV

I woke up with my head pounding like someone was hitting it with a hammer from the inside and my mouth tasted like something had died in it, and when I opened my eyes the room was too bright and nothing looked familiar.

This wasn't my bedroom.

I sat up too fast and the room spun and nausea rolled through me, and I pressed my hand to my mouth trying not to be sick.

Where was I?

The room was massive and expensive looking with furniture that probably cost more than my entire house, and there was sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows showing a view of London I'd never seen before.

I looked down at myself and realized I was still wearing yesterday's clothes, wrinkled and stained, and that's when I saw it.

A ring on my left hand.

Gold band, simple, sitting on my ring finger like it belonged there.

I stared at it and my heart started pounding because I didn't remember putting on a ring, didn't remember buying a ring, didn't remember anything after walking into that bar last night.

The bar.

The debt.

The man who'd offered me money.

Oh God.

I tried to pull the ring off but my hands were shaking too badly and it wouldn't come over my knuckle, and panic was rising in my chest making it hard to breathe.

The door opened and a man walked in carrying coffee and I recognized him immediately even through my hangover.

Adrian Blackwell.

The man from the bar.

"You're awake," he said. "How do you feel?"

"Where am I?" My voice came out rough. "What happened?"

"You're in a hotel, the Dorchester specifically, and what happened is you got married last night." He set the coffee on the bedside table. "To me."

"That's not funny." I looked at the ring again. "This isn't funny."

"It's not a joke." He pulled out a folded paper from his jacket. "This is our marriage certificate, legally filed as of midnight last night."

I took the paper with shaking hands and unfolded it and there it was in black and white: Adrian Blackwell and Elena Hart, married, witnessed by Marcus Chen and some man whose name I couldn't read.

"No." I shook my head. "No, I didn't get married, I would remember getting married."

"You were very drunk." Adrian sat down in a chair across from the bed. "You signed the contract and then we had the ceremony and then you passed out."

"I don't remember any of that." I looked at the certificate again. "I don't remember signing anything."

"You did though, and your debt has been paid." He pulled out his phone and showed me a bank transfer. "Forty thousand pounds to your account at 12:23 AM."

I stared at the screen and the numbers were real and the transfer was real and apparently I'd sold myself to this stranger for money. "This can't be happening."

"It is happening and it's legally binding." He put his phone away. "You should read the full contract now that you're sober."

"Where is it?"

He pulled out another document, much longer than the marriage certificate, and handed it to me. "Take your time."

I started reading and the words made sense individually but together they painted a picture I didn't want to see: eighteen months of marriage, living together, attending events together, maintaining the appearance of a real relationship.

Five thousand pounds per month.

No dating other people.

Complete discretion.

I kept reading and got to Section 7 and my stomach dropped.

"Pregnancy clause?" I looked up at him. "What is this?"

"Exactly what it says." Adrian's voice was calm. "In the event of pregnancy during the marriage term, any resulting child becomes my legal responsibility and custody will be determined by me."

"You're saying if I get pregnant the baby belongs to you?" I was standing now even though my legs felt weak. "That's insane."

"It's a precaution." He didn't look bothered. "We're going to be living together, things happen, this protects both of us."

"It protects you, it doesn't protect me at all." I threw the contract at him. "This is slavery, you're buying me."

"I'm paying you for a service and you agreed to the terms." He picked up the contract. "Your signature is right here."

"I was drunk, that doesn't count."

"It counts legally and more importantly your debt is paid." He stood up. "Which means if you breach this contract now, you owe me eighty thousand pounds plus damages."

The number hit me like a slap. "What?"

"Section 12, termination clause, if you break the contract before the eighteen months are up you pay back double what I've given you plus any damages I incur." Adrian walked toward the door. "So you can leave right now if you want but you'll be leaving with even more debt than you started with."

"You can't do this." I was backing away from him. "You can't trap me like this."

"I already did and you signed the paperwork agreeing to it." He stopped at the door. "I'm not a monster, Elena, I'm just a man who needed a wife and found someone willing to be one."

"I wasn't willing, I was drunk and grieving and you took advantage of that." Tears were running down my face. "You know that's what you did."

"I know I offered you a way out of your debt and you took it." His voice got harder. "Now you can honor that agreement or you can run and make your situation worse, your choice."

I looked at the ring on my finger and the contract in his hands and the door he was blocking, and I realized I had no choice at all because eighty thousand pounds might as well have been eight million for all my ability to pay it.

"I hate you," I said.

"That's fine, you don't have to like me, you just have to play your part." Adrian's phone rang and he pulled it out. "I need to take this."

He answered and his whole posture changed, got stiffer somehow. "Father."

I watched him listen to whoever was on the other end and his jaw tightened.

"When?" he asked. Then after a pause: "How long?"

More listening and his hand gripped the phone harder.

"I understand." His eyes moved to me. "Yes, she's here, I'll bring her tonight."

He hung up and looked at me and something in his expression had shifted. "We have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" I wiped my face. "Bigger than you trapping me in a fake marriage?"

"My father has a brain tumor, he's dying, and he has two months to live." Adrian put his phone back in his pocket. "He wants to meet you tonight along with my brother James and his fiancée."

"Why?"

"Because he needs to believe our marriage is real or everything I did this for becomes worthless." Adrian walked back toward me. "He said if he's not convinced the marriage is genuine after two months, everything goes to James."

"So you need me to convince your dying father we're actually in love?" I laughed but it came out bitter. "That's impossible."

"It has to be possible because if we fail I lose everything and you're still trapped in this contract for eighteen months with nothing to show for it." Adrian stopped in front of me. "So we're going to dinner tonight and we're going to convince my father and my brother that we're happily married."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then you breach the contract and owe me eighty thousand pounds." His voice was flat. "Your choice."

I looked at him and hated that he was right, hated that I had no real choice, hated everything about this situation I'd drunkenly signed myself into.

"When's dinner?" I asked.

"Seven o'clock." He headed for the door again. "I'll have appropriate clothes sent up and a car will pick us up at six-thirty."

"Wait." I called after him. "Your father is dying and you need to prove our marriage is real in two months?"

"That's correct."

"And if we don't convince him?"

"Then everything goes to James including the company and the estate and everything I've spent my life building." Adrian opened the door. "So you better be a good actress."

He left and I stood there in the hotel room with a ring I didn't remember getting and a contract that enslaved me for eighteen months and the knowledge that I was now part of some dying man's test.

I looked at my phone and saw the transfer confirmation, forty thousand pounds sitting in my account, and I knew I couldn't give it back even if I wanted to because I'd already used it to pay the bank.

I was trapped.

Completely, totally trapped.

And tonight I had to pretend to be in love with a man I'd met twelve hours ago or lose everything I'd sold myself for.

Elena POV

The car pulled up to a mansion that looked like something out of a period drama and I sat in the passenger seat trying to calm my racing heart while Adrian checked his watch for the third time.

"Remember what we discussed," he said. "We met at a charity event six months ago, fell in love, got married quickly because we couldn't wait."

"Right." I looked down at the dress he'd sent to the hotel, black and expensive and not something I would ever pick for myself. "And if they ask questions I can't answer?"

"Smile and look at me like you're in love, I'll handle the rest." Adrian opened his door. "Ready?"

"No." But I got out anyway because I didn't have a choice.

The mansion was even bigger up close with columns and perfectly manicured gardens and windows that probably cost more than my entire neighborhood, and I followed Adrian up the steps feeling like I was walking toward my execution.

A butler opened the door before we could knock and led us through hallways lined with paintings and sculptures into a dining room where three people were already seated at a table that could have fit twenty.

"Adrian." The man at the head of the table stood up and I knew immediately this was Richard Blackwell because he had the same sharp features and cold eyes as his son. "You're late."

"Traffic." Adrian's hand found the small of my back. "Father, this is my wife Elena."

Richard's eyes moved to me and I saw surprise in his eyes which he immediately masked and I felt like I was being examined under a microscope. "Mrs. Blackwell, what a surprise to finally meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." My voice came out smaller than I wanted.

"This is my brother James," Adrian continued gesturing to a man who looked like a younger version of their father. "And his fiancée Maya."

James stood and shook my hand with a smile that didn't reach his eyes and also the surprise i saw in Richard eyes. "Welcome to the family, Elena."

Maya just nodded at me from her seat and she was beautiful in a way that made me feel inadequate, all perfect hair and flawless makeup and designer clothes.

We sat down and servants appeared with food I was too nervous to eat, and Richard started asking questions immediately like this was an interrogation instead of a dinner.

"So Elena, where did you and Adrian meet?" he asked.

"A charity event six months ago." I repeated the story we'd practiced. "At the-"

"The art museum benefit," Adrian finished. "Elena was there with friends and we started talking."

"How romantic." Richard's tone suggested he didn't believe a word. "And you decided to marry after only six months?"

"When you know you know." Adrian reached over and took my hand and I tried not to flinch at his touch. "Why wait?"

"Indeed." Richard cut his steak. "And what do you do, Elena? For work?"

"I-" I hesitated because we hadn't discussed this. "I was studying literature at university before my parents died."

"Died?" Richard looked up. "Recently?"

"Two weeks ago." My throat tightened. "Car accident."

"My condolences." But his voice was flat. "And now you're married to my son, how convenient."

"Father," Adrian said sharply.

"I'm simply making an observation." Richard went back to his food. "Young woman loses her parents, suddenly marries into money, these things happen."

I wanted to leave, wanted to walk out of this room and this mansion and never come back, but Adrian's grip on my hand tightened in warning.

"Elena and I are in love," Adrian said. "That's all that matters."

"Love." Richard smiled but it wasn't kind. "James here is also in love, aren't you James?"

"Madly." James put his arm around Maya. "Can't wait to make it official."

"Two sons, both suddenly getting married within days of each other." Richard looked between them. "Almost like there's some competition involved."

The room went silent and I could feel tension rolling off Adrian in waves.

"There's no competition," Adrian said. "I married Elena because I wanted to spend my life with her."

"How touching." Richard stood up. "Come with me, Elena, I want to show you something."

"Father-" Adrian started.

"Your wife can walk with me for five minutes." Richard was already moving toward the door. "Unless you don't trust her alone with me?"

Adrian's jaw tightened but he nodded at me and I stood up and followed Richard out of the dining room and down another hallway lined with family portraits.

"Do you know why I called this dinner?" Richard asked without looking at me.

"Adrian said you wanted to meet me." I was struggling to keep up with his pace.

"I wanted to see if you were real or if this was another one of my son's schemes." Richard stopped in front of a massive portrait. "And now I'm not sure which would be worse."

I looked at the portrait and my heart stopped.

The woman in the painting looked exactly like me, same dark hair and dark eyes and facial structure, like I was looking at a photograph of myself in someone else's clothes.

"That's Sophia," Richard said watching my face. "Adrian's first wife."

"First wife?" The words barely came out. "He was married before?"

"For two years, ended tragically." Richard's voice was casual like he was discussing the weather. "Tragic accident about a year ago."

I stared at the portrait and the woman who looked like she could be my twin. "What kind of accident?"

"The kind where a young woman dies and leaves a lot of questions unanswered." Richard started walking again. "But Adrian never talks about it."

We walked back to the dining room and I couldn't stop thinking about Sophia's face, about how much we looked alike, about how Adrian had never mentioned being married before.

Dinner continued and I barely tasted anything, just moved food around my plate while Richard asked more questions and James made comments that seemed innocent but felt like attacks.

Maya was quiet through most of it until we were leaving and she stopped me in the hallway. "Elena, can I show you where the bathroom is? This house is confusing."

"Sure." I looked at Adrian who was talking to his father.

Maya led me down a hallway and into a bathroom that was bigger than my childhood bedroom, and as soon as the door closed she turned to me.

"I need to tell you something," she said.

"What?"

"Sophia didn't die in an accident." Maya's voice was low. "She jumped off their balcony, I was there that night visiting James and I heard her scream."

My legs felt weak. "She killed herself?"

"That's what they said but I don't know, something about it felt wrong." Maya looked at the door like she was worried someone would walk in. "And you look just like her, exactly like her, down to your hair and eyes."

"I saw the portrait." My voice was shaking.

"Whatever Adrian told you about why he married you, he's lying." Maya grabbed my arm. "Run while you can, before you end up like Sophia."