Adrian's POV
Adrian walks through his penthouse that night and sees it like a stranger.
It's sterile. Cold. Everything is white and gray and expensive. The furniture is modern and untouched. There are no photos on the walls. No evidence that anyone actually lives here. No proof of life at all.
He moves from room to room. The kitchen gleams like nobody's ever cooked in it. The living room has a view that costs more than most people's houses, but there's nothing in it. Just space. Emptiness. The physical representation of his entire life.
He stops in front of the room that will be hers.
Three doors from his.
Close enough that he could hear her if she called. Far enough that she's completely separated from him. Three doors is a wall. A boundary. A reminder that she's here because of a contract, not because she chose to be.
Adrian stands in the empty room and tries not to think about how close and how far away three doors actually is.
Marcus finds him there.
His assistant is the only person Adrian lets see him like this. Unguarded. Thinking. Almost human.
"You're really doing this?" Marcus asks carefully.
Adrian doesn't answer because the answer is complicated. He can't just say "it's business" and have it be true. Not anymore. Not after watching Olivia sign that contract with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
He hired her to solve a problem. His board wanted stability. He needed someone to make him seem normal. That was the plan. Clinical. Clean. Business.
But when he watched her sign those papers, something inside his chest cracked.
She looked like she was signing away pieces of herself. Like each letter of her name was costing her something. Like she was burying parts of who she was just to save people who didn't deserve saving.
Adrian wanted to tell her to leave. Wanted to rip up the contract and send her back to her broken family and his broken world.
He didn't.
Instead, he watched her trap herself in a cage he built.
"It's business," Adrian finally says.
Marcus doesn't believe him. Adrian can see it in his expression. Marcus has worked for Adrian for five years. He's seen Adrian destroy competitors without blinking. He's seen Adrian make decisions that cost thousands of people their jobs and never flinch.
But Marcus has never seen Adrian hesitate.
"You're falling for her," Marcus says.
"I'm not." Adrian's voice is flat. Final. "I don't fall for people, Marcus. I use people. That's the difference between winning and losing."
"Is that what this is? Using her?"
Adrian walks past his assistant and out of the empty room. He can't stand looking at it anymore. Can't stand knowing that in a few days, Olivia will be sleeping three doors away from him. Close enough to torture him. Far enough to remind him that she's never actually going to be his.
"She needed money," Adrian says. "I needed a wife. It's transactional."
"You built a hospital in her mother's name before she even came to your office," Marcus says quietly.
Adrian stops.
He doesn't turn around.
"How did you know about that?" Adrian asks.
"Because I work for you. I know your secrets." Marcus walks to stand next to him. "You started funding that hospital six months ago. Right after you destroyed her father's company. You told me it was for tax purposes. But we both know that's a lie."
Adrian's jaw tightens.
He can't explain it. Can't articulate why he started building something beautiful for the family he destroyed. Can't tell Marcus that watching Olivia volunteer at a community clinic while her world fell apart made him understand something he'd been missing for fifteen years.
That revenge tastes like ash.
That winning feels like losing.
That power without purpose is just a very expensive prison.
"It was just business," Adrian says again.
"You're lying to yourself," Marcus says. "And that's dangerous. Because if you actually care about her, Adrian, this ends badly. She signed a contract that forbids her from loving you. If she breaks that rule, she loses everything. And if you care about her, you're going to want to break it with her."
Adrian finally looks at his assistant.
"Then I won't care about her," Adrian says. "I'll do what I do best. I'll control the situation. I'll keep the walls up. I'll make sure nothing happens that hasn't been planned."
"You can't control people," Marcus says. "You can only control what you do to them. And if Olivia Chen lives three doors from you for three years, something is going to give."
Adrian walks to the window.
The city spreads out below him. All those people living lives. Making choices. Falling in love. Believing in things that matter.
He gave all of that up fifteen years ago. The day his father died. The day he decided that love was weakness and trust was stupid.
He became untouchable.
And now Olivia Chen is going to move into his untouchable world.
And somehow, Adrian knows, she's going to touch him anyway.
"If she falls in love with me," Adrian says to the window, "it ends. That's what the contract says."
"What about if you fall in love with her?" Marcus asks.
Adrian doesn't answer.
He can't.
Because the truth is terrifying. The truth is that he's already watching for signs. Already measuring the distance between his room and hers. Already trying to figure out how to survive three years of pretending when everything inside him wants to be real.
"Get out," Adrian says quietly.
Marcus leaves him there at the window.
Adrian stands alone in his penthouse, surrounded by everything he's ever wanted and nothing he's ever actually needed.
In a few days, a girl with haunted eyes and a secondhand dress is going to move into this place.
She's going to sleep three doors away from him.
She's going to play his wife for the world.
And Adrian Kess, who thought he was untouchable, is going to discover that he's not.
That he never was.
That the moment Olivia Chen walked into his office, something started breaking inside him that can't be fixed.
And the contract he made her sign is the only thing standing between him and complete destruction.