Revenge Bride

POV: Emma Winters

Thunder rolled across the Manhattan skyline like a warning, and I pulled my sweater tighter around my shoulders as I stood on the penthouse balcony. The storm had been building all evening, matching the restless energy that had been coiling inside me for days.

Adrian was in his study working late again, just as he had every night since our dinner together three days ago. We'd fallen into a careful routine—polite conversation over morning coffee, professional updates about wedding plans, and a deliberate distance that felt like a protective barrier around whatever was growing between us.

It was driving me slowly insane.

Lightning illuminated the city below, and I counted the seconds until thunder followed. The storm was getting closer, just like the wedding that was now only two weeks away. Two weeks until I became Mrs. Adrian Blackstone in front of our families and friends, promising to love and honor a man whose deepest secrets remained locked away from me.

The balcony doors opened behind me, and I didn't need to turn around to know it was Adrian. I'd developed an uncanny awareness of his presence—the way the air seemed to shift when he entered a room, the subtle scent of his cologne, the controlled energy that followed him everywhere.

"You're going to get soaked out here," he said, moving to stand beside me at the railing.

"I like storms." I kept my eyes on the lightning dancing across the clouds. "They're honest. No pretense, no hidden agendas. Just pure force meeting immovable objects."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Adrian's jaw tighten. "Is that aimed at me?"

"Should it be?"

Another flash of lightning, closer this time, followed quickly by thunder that vibrated through the building's steel frame. The first drops of rain began to fall, warm and heavy.

"Emma." Adrian's voice was careful, controlled. "If there's something you want to ask me, just ask."

I finally turned to look at him, taking in the expensive shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the way his dark hair was slightly mussed from running his hands through it, the guarded expression that never seemed to completely leave his steel-gray eyes.

"Who are you really?"

The question hung between us as rain began falling harder, and for a moment I thought Adrian might actually answer honestly. Something flickered across his face—vulnerability, maybe, or regret.

"I'm the man who's going to marry you in two weeks."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." I stepped closer, raindrops beginning to soak through my sweater. "I mean who are you beneath all the corporate control and careful answers? What drives you? What keeps you awake at night? What made you so afraid of letting anyone get close that you had to hire a wife instead of finding one naturally?"

Rain was falling steadily now, turning the city lights below into watercolor smears. Adrian's shirt was beginning to cling to his chest, and his hair was darkening with moisture, but he didn't move toward shelter.

"You think I'm afraid?"

"I think you're terrified." My heart was racing, but I pushed forward anyway. "I think something happened to you that made you believe the only safe way to connect with someone was through contracts and business arrangements. I think you're so used to controlling every variable that the idea of genuine emotion scares you more than hostile takeovers or billion-dollar negotiations."

Adrian's eyes flashed, something dangerous and raw surfacing in their depths. "And what if you're right? What if I am exactly what you think I am—a man who's forgotten how to feel anything real?"

"Then I'd say you're lying to yourself." I was close enough now to see the rain droplets clinging to his eyelashes, to feel the heat radiating from his body despite the storm. "Because the man who notices when I haven't eaten, who had my studio designed with perfect north-facing light, who kisses me like I'm the only thing that matters in the world—that man feels everything."

"Emma..." His voice was rough, warning.

"What are you so afraid of, Adrian? What's so terrible about letting me see who you really are?"

Lightning split the sky directly overhead, and the thunder that followed was immediate and deafening. The storm had arrived in full force, rain now falling in sheets that soaked us both within seconds.

"We should go inside," Adrian said, but he made no move to leave.

"Not until you answer me."

"You want to know what I'm afraid of?" Adrian's control finally cracked, his voice rising above the storm. "I'm afraid that if I let you see who I really am, you'll run. I'm afraid that this feeling growing between us will destroy everything I've worked for. I'm afraid that for the first time in twenty years, I care more about someone else's happiness than my own plans."

The raw honesty in his voice stole my breath. "Adrian..."

"I'm afraid," he continued, stepping closer until we were almost touching, "that I'm falling in love with you, and I don't know how to do that without losing everything else."

The confession hung between us like a live wire, electric and dangerous. Rain plastered my hair to my head and made Adrian's shirt transparent, but neither of us moved toward shelter.

"What if losing everything else isn't the disaster you think it is?" I whispered. "What if it's just making room for something better?"

His eyes searched my face, looking for something I hoped he could find. "Emma, there are things about me, about why I sought you out—"

"I don't care." The words came out fierce, certain. "Whatever it is, whatever you think you need to protect me from, I don't care. I care about the man who makes me feel stronger and braver than I've ever felt before. I care about the way you look at my art like it matters. I care about the fact that you're the first person who's ever seen me exactly as I am and wanted me anyway."

Thunder crashed overhead again, and Adrian's restraint finally shattered completely. His hands came up to frame my face, his thumbs brushing away raindrops even as more fell to replace them.

"Emma, if we do this—if we cross this line—there's no going back to the contract. No pretending this is just business."

"Good," I breathed. "I'm tired of pretending."

Adrian's mouth crashed down on mine with the force of the storm around us. This wasn't the careful, testing kiss from the museum balcony. This was desperate, consuming, twenty years of loneliness and control finally breaking apart against the reality of human connection.

I fisted my hands in his soaked shirt, pulling him closer as his arms wrapped around me. The rain was cold, but Adrian's mouth was warm, demanding, perfect. He kissed me like he was drowning and I was air, like he was trying to memorize every detail in case this was the only time he'd get to touch me like this.

When we finally broke apart, both gasping, I realized we were both shaking—from cold, from adrenaline, from the magnitude of what had just shifted between us.

"Christ, Emma," Adrian breathed against my forehead. "What are you doing to me?"

"The same thing you're doing to me." I looked up at him, seeing past the storm-darkened hair and the rain-soaked clothes to the man underneath—vulnerable, honest, finally letting me see him without his carefully constructed armor. "I'm falling in love with you too."

His eyes closed as if my words physically hurt him. "You don't understand what you're saying."

"Yes, I do." I reached up to trace the line of his jaw, feeling him shiver under my touch. "I understand that this started as a business arrangement and became something real. I understand that you're fighting it because it scares you. And I understand that whatever you think you need to tell me, whatever secret you think will change how I feel about you, you're probably wrong."

Adrian captured my hand, pressing it flat against his chest where I could feel his heart racing. "What if I'm not wrong? What if the truth destroys this?"

"Then we'll face that when it happens." Lightning illuminated his face, showing me the war raging behind his eyes. "But right now, in this moment, this is real. What we feel for each other is real. Can't that be enough for tonight?"

For a long moment, Adrian stared down at me, and I could practically see him making a choice. Then his mouth was on mine again, softer this time but no less intense, and I knew he'd decided to stop fighting this thing between us, at least for now.

"We're going to catch pneumonia," he murmured against my lips.

"Probably." I smiled up at him, feeling lighter than I had in weeks. "Worth it though."

Adrian's laugh was soft, genuine, and it transformed his entire face. "Come on. Let's get you inside before you freeze."

He kept his arm around me as we headed for the balcony doors, and I leaned into his warmth, feeling like something fundamental had shifted between us. The careful distance was gone, replaced by an intimacy that made my skin tingle and my heart race.

Inside, Adrian disappeared for a moment and returned with towels and one of his sweaters. "Change out of those wet clothes before you get sick."

I took the sweater, noting how it would probably fall to my knees, and looked up at him. "Adrian?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For letting me in, even just a little bit."

His expression grew serious, and he reached out to tuck a strand of wet hair behind my ear. "Emma, I need you to know that whatever happens, what I feel for you is real. That part isn't a lie."

There was something almost desperate in his voice, like he was trying to tell me something without actually saying it. But before I could ask what he meant, he was heading toward his own room to change, leaving me standing in the hallway with his sweater in my hands and the taste of him still on my lips.

As I changed into his oversized sweater and dried my hair, I thought about the way he'd kissed me, the raw honesty in his voice when he'd admitted he was falling in love with me. Whatever secrets Adrian was keeping, whatever he thought would destroy this thing between us, I meant what I'd said—we would face it together.

Because despite everything—the contract, the careful boundaries, the feeling that he was holding parts of himself back—I was completely, irrevocably in love with Adrian Blackstone.

The question was whether he would let himself love me back, or if his secrets would destroy us before we ever had a real chance.

An hour later, I found Adrian in the kitchen making hot chocolate, his hair still damp from the rain and his clothes changed into jeans and a simple gray sweater that made his eyes look like silver. The domestic scene was so normal, so couple-like, that it made my chest tight with hope.

"Couldn't sleep either?" I asked, accepting the mug he offered me.

"Too much adrenaline." His eyes met mine over the rim of his cup. "Emma, about what happened out there—"

"Don't." I set down my mug and moved closer to him. "Don't apologize for it, don't analyze it to death, and don't try to convince yourself it was a mistake."

"What if it was a mistake?"

"Then it's my mistake to make too." I reached for his hand, intertwining our fingers. "Adrian, I'm a grown woman making informed choices. I know this complicates our arrangement. I know it makes the next few weeks more difficult. But I also know that what I feel for you is the most real thing in my life right now."

He squeezed my hand, his thumb tracing over my knuckles. "The most real thing in my life too."

We stood there in the quiet kitchen, the storm still raging outside, and for the first time since I'd signed that contract, I felt like we were on the same side of something instead of circling each other warily.

"So what now?" I asked.

"Now we take it one day at a time. We see where this leads us." Adrian lifted our joined hands to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to my knuckles. "And we try not to overthink it."

As he walked me to my bedroom door, his hand warm in mine, I felt like we'd crossed some invisible threshold. Whatever happened next, we weren't just business partners anymore. We weren't just two people playing roles for mutual benefit.

We were something new, something undefined, something that felt dangerous and beautiful and absolutely worth fighting for.

"Goodnight, Emma," Adrian said softly, his hand lingering on my cheek.

"Goodnight."

But as I closed my bedroom door and leaned against it, I couldn't shake the feeling that Adrian's secrets were still there, still waiting to surface. The way he'd looked at me when he'd said "what I feel for you is real" suggested that other things might not be.

I was falling in love with Adrian Blackstone, but I was beginning to suspect that Adrian Blackstone might not be the man I thought he was.

The question was whether the truth, when it finally came out, would destroy us or make us stronger.

Either way, there was no going back now. Whatever happened next, my heart was already his.