Evelyn's fingers still trembled around the glass Adrian had quietly replaced with water. The scotch had done little to drown the ache in her chest, but she drank it anyway—hoping the burn might cauterize the image of Daniel and Liliana tangled in betrayal. Hoping to feel anything but empty.
The hotel bar was quiet now, its clamor dimmed to a murmur of low conversation and clinking glasses. The world moved on, oblivious to the moment her own had shattered.
Adrian hadn't said a word in the last ten minutes. He just sat across from her, nursing a drink he barely touched, watching her with that quiet intensity that made it hard to breathe. It wasn't pity. It wasn't curiosity. It was something colder. Sharper. A kind of recognition.
"You're not going to pretend you didn't recognize me," she said finally, her voice raw, breaking the silence.
His lips curved, barely. "No."
"Then what do you want?" she asked, dragging her gaze to meet his. "A story to tell? An advantage? What exactly do you want from me."
"I don't want to hurt you, Evelyn," he said calmly, with unsettling sincerity.
She laughed bitterly. "Everyone else already did, it would make no difference."
Adrian leaned forward, elbows on the table, his voice dropping low and deliberate. "What if I told you I could help you ruin them, ruin everything, everyone who crossed you?"
Her heart stuttered.
She blinked. "What?"
Adrian placed his drink down gently. The glass didn't even clink. Everything he did was measured, controlled. "Daniel. Liliana. Your father. Even Genevieve, if it comes to that. I understand everything, I know what's going on. All of them. And I know exactly where to strike."
Evelyn's fingers tightened around her glass. Her breath caught in her throat. The air between them felt charged, like the quiet just before lightning splits the sky.
"You've been watching me," she said slowly.
"No, I haven't. Figuring you out is just not as hard as you think.
She stared at him, trying to see past the tailored suit, the calm, cool expression that didn't crack no matter how heavy the silence pressed between them. "did you plan this."
"I planned for a chance," he said. "What I didn't plan for… was that you'd be more than I expected."
She looked away, jaw clenched. She gritted her teeth. "That doesn't answer why."
"Because I know what it means to be betrayed by the people who should protect you," he said. His voice dipped into something unfamiliar, something that carried weight. A flicker of pain, quickly buried. "And because I'm not offering pity. I'm offering power."
Power.
The word hit her like ice water. It scraped through her defenses, cold and clear. She sat up a little straighter, breath shallow. Not comfort. Not sympathy. Not the warm, empty platitudes people murmured when they didn't know what else to say. No—he was offering her something colder. Sharper. Something forged in fire and wielded like a weapon.
Something that could actually change things.
"I don't want to be someone's tool," she whispered.
"Then don't be," he said, voice like a knife wrapped in silk. "Be my partner."
The words didn't make sense at first. They hung in the air like smoke—unbelievable, ungraspable. Her brows drew together as she tried to decipher the layers beneath them.
A partner. Not a pawn.
Not a puppet.
She blinked. "Partner in what?"
"A marriage," he said. "A contract. Public. Loud. Strategic."
The word marriage landed like a stone in her chest.
He didn't flinch. Didn't soften. "They thrive on scandal, Evelyn. On perception. You and I, together—we change the narrative. We give them something they can't control."
Her laugh was small, bitter. "You want to marry me to make a statement?"
"To start a war," he replied evenly. "One we'll win."
She stared at him, trying to understand what kind of man could offer that kind of deal with such cool conviction. Was it madness? Or genius? Or just the logical conclusion of a life lived in the shadows of power?
"A marriage," she repeated, quieter this time. "Just like that."
Adrian leaned in, the air between them crackling. "Nothing about this will be just like that. Not for you. Not for me. But I've seen what you're capable of—beneath the grief, the anger, the betrayal. You have the fire. You just don't know where to direct it yet."
Evelyn's pulse thrummed in her ears. Marriage. Contract. Power. Revenge. All tangled in a proposition that felt too surreal to be real—but too tempting to ignore.
And still, some part of her whispered: What if he's right?
Evelyn stared. "You want to marry me?"
"I want to give them something to fear," he said. "And you… you want to make them pay."
Silence fell like ash. The noise of the bar faded again into the background, blurred and distant.
She stared at him like he was mad. Maybe he was. Maybe she was too, for not getting up and walking away.
"You want to use me."
"I want to choose you," he corrected. "Because you are the most dangerous woman in this city and you don't even realize it yet."
She laughed—sharp, bitter. "I'm broken."
He leaned in, eyes piercing. "No. You're becoming."
The words hit her somewhere deeper than she expected. Somewhere buried beneath the hollowed-out grief and fury. Becoming. Not ruined. Not done. Still in motion.
She wanted to hate him for it. For knowing her pain, for reading her like a map of fractures and bruises. But instead, she just sat there, blinking away the sting in her eyes, terrified of how much sense he made.
"And what do you get?" she asked softly.
"Revenge," he said. "And an heir."
She flinched. "A child?"
"Eventually. When you're ready. If you ever are. It's negotiable."
It was the way he said it—not cold, but not pleading either. Just fact. Like he'd already accepted she might never want that, and wouldn't push. Still, the idea twisted something deep in her gut.