ADRIEN POV
My mother doesn't knock.
She sweeps into my penthouse as though she owns the place—which, technically, she doesn't, but try telling Eleanor Moreau anything she doesn't want to hear.
Her heels click against marble, sharp as gunfire. She sets her leather gloves on the table like weapons being drawn.
"Adrien."
I close the folder in front of me. I knew this confrontation was inevitable, but Eleanor always has a way of making inevitability feel like ambush.
"Mother."
She doesn't sit. Eleanor never sits when she's angry; she prowls.
"I will ask you once," she says crisply, "and only once. Who is she?"
I lean back in my chair, deliberately calm. "A stranger. An accident. Nothing more."
Her eyes—steel gray, colder than mine—narrow. "Nothing more does not trend across every social media platform on the continent. Nothing more does not invite speculation about the Moreau name. Nothing more does not lure vultures to our doorstep."
I don't respond. Silence is often the only shield with her.
But Eleanor doesn't relent. She circles the room, her voice low and cutting. "You have responsibilities. You are not a boy in nightclubs anymore, Adrien. You are the heir. Every headline is a reflection of this family. And I will not allow some—" she waves a hand, dismissive—"nobody to tarnish it."
The word strikes harder than she intends. Nobody.
I see Nora's face flash in my mind—defiant, unpolished, entirely unimpressed with me. A nobody? Hardly.
But I don't argue. Not yet.
"What do you expect me to do?" I ask instead.
Eleanor stops pacing, her gaze pinning me like a hawk's. "Eliminate her. Quietly. Before she believes she matters."
Something in me tightens.
"I'll handle it," I say.
"You had better." Her tone is final, sharp enough to cut stone. She slides her gloves back on, already turning away. "Do not mistake my warning, Adrien. You cannot afford weakness. Not now. Not ever."
And just like that, she leaves, the echo of her heels fading into silence.
For a long time after she's gone, I don't move.
Her words linger, pressing against me like a weight: eliminate her. Before she believes she matters.
The rational response is obvious. Distance myself. Issue a statement. Find a way to make the story vanish.
But instead, I pour myself a drink and stare at the city lights below, restless.
Because the truth—the one I will not admit aloud—is that she already matters.
Not to the press. Not to the family.
To me.
Not in the way my mother fears, not yet. But enough that her face won't leave my mind. Enough that her laugh still cuts through my composure. Enough that when she slammed the door in my face, I felt the sting.
And Eleanor is right about one thing.
That sting is dangerous.
Which is why I will see Nora Quinn again.
Not to destroy her.
To decide why she unsettles me—and what I intend to do about it.