His lips pressed against mine—warm, deliberate, devastating.
It wasn’t soft or tentative. It was deep. Certain. And it shattered the fragile reality we’d been clinging to.
I froze...
Then shoved him back.
"What the hell are you thinking, Adrien?" My voice was sharp, shaky. "What is wrong with you?"
He blinked, breathing a little too fast, like he hadn’t expected what happened. "Isabella—"
"No." I stepped away, chest rising and falling. "You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to kiss me like that. This—this isn’t even part of the contract."
His jaw tensed.
"One day you’re cold and unreadable, like I’m just another item on your schedule, and the next—" I gestured wildly between us, "you kiss me like you mean it."
I took a breath, then spat out the words I’d held back too long. "You called me a gold-digger. Yet here you are, kissing me. Aren’t you afraid you’re just giving me the opening to steal your gold?"
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small remote control with a few buttons. Without looking away from me, he pressed one.
Each of the heavy curtains of the kitchen slid closed smoothly, shutting out the hidden eyes of the cameras.
The sudden silence in the kitchen was deafening. The gentle classical music was still playing, but without the sense of being watched, its presence felt hollow, artificial.
Then he said. "Are you still on that?"
"Yes," I said, voice low but fierce. "I’m fully on that. More than ever."
Without another word, he dropped to his knees right in the middle of the kitchen floor.
I repeat. Adrien Walton knelt before me!!! What is going on!
My breath hitched. My anger, boiling just seconds ago, was momentarily stunned into silence.
He looked up at me, his eyes unwavering and serious. "I’m sorry," he said quietly. "For everything. The words, the coldness, the confusion. I didn’t mean it—none of it. You’re not a gold-digger, Isabella. You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted to hold onto."
Hold one... what?
My voice, when it came, was barely a whisper, fractured with disbelief. "You... you can’t say that."
"I know," he said, his tone rough.
"I was scared, alright? You got under my skin, and I didn’t know what to do with that. And so I did something stupid. From the very first moment I saw you, you weren’t what I’d expected. You were sharp, and you didn’t back down, and you looked at me like I was just... Adrien. Not Adrien Walton."
My heart was racing, like a bird frantic in a cage. Adrien Walton was kneeling before me, not just apologizing, but showing a vulnerability that I dared not dream I would see in him.
"You... you were scared?" I echoed, the question faint, dripping with utter bewilderment. The man who commanded rooms, who navigated multi-million dollar deals with effortless cool, admitting fear over me? It felt impossible.
Is this... a dream?
He nodded slowly, still on the floor, his gaze unwavering. "Terrified," he admitted. "If I could somehow speak every word I kept buried, your name would be the last thing ever whispered. my soul longs for you, even when I try to deny it."
He hits his chest. "My heart... beats for you, even when I try to stop it.." He paused. "I notice everything──every glance, every silence, every little thing you think no one sees. And I know I shouldn’t feel this way. But I do. I have for a long time."
My breath caught again. "A long time?" My voice was still weak, barely a thread. He’d called me a gold-digger a week ago, acted like I was an inconvenience for the time period I have worked with him.
He’d negotiated a cold, transactional contract. And now he was saying he’d felt this... longing... for a long time? It didn’t make any sense. It felt like a cruel joke delivered with devastating sincerity.
"You... you have?" I managed to whisper, my voice trembling, not with rage this time, but with sheer astonishment, perhaps even a terrifying sliver of hope I immediately tried to crush. "You felt this all along, but you called me a gold-digger? Treated me like an object?"
He flinched, his unwavering gaze dropping for an instant before meeting mine again. The vulnerability was still there, stark and unsettling.
"I know," he repeated, his voice rough, filled with a self-reproach that felt brutally honest." It was easier that way. Easier to keep you at arm’s length, to pretend you were just like everyone else who wanted something from me. It was a lie I told myself to justify pushing you away because I didn’t know how else to handle feeling... this."
Okay... Can he at least get up now?
His hand reached for mine—not forcefully, just an offer. "But with you... I don’t want to push anymore."
My chest tightened. Part of me wanted to pull back, but another part... the part that had felt that kiss deep in my spine... that part was leaning forward.
He got to his feet slowly, without breaking eye contact. I was close enough to him that there wasn’t even a breath between us.
"I meant that kiss," he said his voice low and raw. "It wasn’t for the cameras. It was for me."
My heart stopped beating entirely, or maybe it just started beating so fast I couldn’t feel individual throbs, just a frantic flutter beneath my sternum. "For... for you?" The words barely formed as sound, scraped from a throat that suddenly felt completely dry.
He didn’t move, didn’t touch me, and continued to hold my gaze with weight in an overwhelming intensity. And my God, those eyes. They were usually well-guarded windows; this night they were wide open with a piercing, raw need I had never seen directed toward me.
"Yes," he replied, his voice deeper, rougher than I had ever heard. " Every cold word, every lie... it was just noise to drown out the truth. The truth is, Isabella, I want you. And that kiss... that was me finally admitting it to myself, and to you."
I swallowed. My heart was pounding so loudly I wondered if it drowned out the music. I didn’t know what to say... and I couldn’t trust myself to say it without breaking.
So I didn’t.
Instead, I reached for his collar and pulled him down.
This time, I kissed him.
It was messy and it was needy. It was weeks of unstated miscommunication and confusion, and a terrifying, yet exhilarating surge of emotion.
I was not thinking, I was only reacting to his submission, his confession, his unrelenting yearning in his eyes, and the undeniable spark of heat between us.
And this time, I did not stop.