It didn't feel like a wedding.
It felt like a product launch.
Adrian's world moved in straight lines. Limo to hotel. Hotel to photos. Photos to dinner. Every step timed, every setting curated for maximum optics.
The hotel suite was all cream and gold, the kind of place you tiptoe in for fear of scuffing the air. Someone had set out a tray with champagne in crystal flutes. The bubbles rose lazily, as if they too had been told to look expensive.
Photographers swarmed us before I'd taken three steps inside. "Closer," one barked, adjusting his lens. Adrian's hand slid to my waist, warm and steady, like he'd rehearsed this a thousand times.
"Turn toward him," another instructed.
I turned. He turned. Our faces inches apart.
"Now, laugh."
Laugh? I almost asked what was funny, but the thought of making him stumble on camera was tempting. So I leaned closer, said something ridiculous about him having spinach in his teeth.
He didn't have spinach. But the corner of his mouth curved, a quick, unguarded smile.
Click. Flash. Done.
The moment was over before I could decide if it had felt real.
We cycled through poses like mannequins on a conveyor belt. Champagne glasses clinked. Photographers murmured approval.
Adrian never lost his composure. Not once. Even when a makeup artist dabbed at my lipstick and brushed powder along my cheekbone, he waited without checking his phone, gaze fixed on some invisible middle distance.
It was infuriating.
And… impressive.
By dinner, my feet ached. The restaurant was private, lit by amber sconces and candles in silver holders. A single long table gleamed with cutlery so polished it threw back the candlelight.
Adrian ordered a red wine with a name I couldn't pronounce. I asked for pasta I barely touched. The servers moved like shadows.
"Comfortable?" he asked once, tone unreadable.
"Define comfortable," I said.
He didn't answer. Or maybe the silence was his answer.
Halfway through the meal, he shifted the conversation to business trends. Not my business, not his family's either. Global markets. Currency fluctuation. It was like eating dinner with a magazine article.
I let him talk.
Every so often, his gaze would flick to mine, like he was checking a meter I couldn't see.
Back in the suite, I slipped off my heels with a sigh that echoed in the quiet. My phone buzzed.
A friend had sent me a screenshot.
The photo from earlier — the one where I'd teased him about spinach — was already trending.
In it, Adrian wasn't just smiling. He was looking at me like I was the only person in the room.
The caption read: #NotSoContract.
I stared at it for a long moment, thumb hovering over the screen.
Somewhere between the courthouse and this hotel room, the story had started to write itself without my permission.
And I wasn't sure if that s
cared me… or something else entirely.