Celeste’s POV
Adrian’s hand closed around my wrist the exact second our lips broke apart. The kiss had left me completely breathless, my head spinning in the enclosed glass car of the ferris wheel. The sweet, brotherly illusion we had maintained for years was shattered into a million pieces on the floor between us.
His grip wasn't rough, but it was urgent, a tight touch that made my skin burn.
"We're leaving," he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Now."
"Adrian, wait—"
"No." He cut me off instantly, his eyes scanning the darkened park below us as the ferris wheel slowly brought our car back down to earth. "Someone was close enough to take that photo this morning, Celeste. You think I'm letting you stand out here in the open like a fucking target?"
My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it pulsing in my throat. The image of that text message was still burned into my brain. I wanted to argue, to tell him I wasn't a fragile doll, but my voice came out small and fractured. "Who would do this? Who even knows my schedule?"
"I don't know yet." The ferris wheel car clicked open, and he pulled me hard out into the freezing night air. His muscular body was angled perfectly between me and the open space, acting like a human shield. "But I'm going to find out. I swear to God, Celeste, I'm going to find out."
"Adrian, look at the background of that picture again," I said, my hands shaking so badly I could barely keep up with his long strides. "They are so close. I'm scared."
"Don't think about it anymore." He shoved his hands into his pockets, his jaw locked tight. "Look at me. Focus on my voice. We need to get to the car."
We took the exit stairs fast, our frantic footsteps echoing loudly against the metal structure. I stumbled once, my shoe catching on a loose bolt, and a small gasp escaped my lips. Adrian caught me before I could even fall, his strong arm sliding around my waist and pulling me flush against his hard chest.
"I've got you," he murmured against my hair, his chest rising and falling heavily. "Just keep moving, little star. I've got you."
The words hit me somewhere deep, right in the center of my chest where all my old secrets lived. He'd been saying that to me for eleven years. I've got you. Ever since the day he arrived at the Lindstrom estate, a broken ten-year-old boy with no parents, no smile, and no voice. I still remembered the exact day I found him sitting alone in the overgrown corner of our garden.
The memory surfaced without warning, sharp and painful.
I was only six years old back then, too young to understand what death meant, but old enough to know that the boy sitting in the dirt looked like he had forgotten how to breathe. He sat on the cold stone bench near the rose bushes, his dark hair falling into his eyes, his hands limp in his lap. He hadn't spoken a single word since his parents' funeral. The adults at the estate whispered around him constantly, treating him like he was made of thin glass.
But I didn't whisper. I didn't treat him like he was broken. I just walked right up to him in my muddy yellow dress and sat down on the dirt beside his sneakers.
He hadn't looked at me. He didn't even acknowledge I existed. So, I did the only thing my six-year-old brain could think of. I reached over, wrapped my small fingers around his, and took his hand.
His fingers had been so cold. Stiff, like ice. But after a long, agonizing moment of silence, his fingers had twitched. Then, they slowly curled around mine, squeezing back so hard it almost hurt.
We sat like that for a whole hour. No words. No explanations. Just two lonely kids holding hands in a garden that smelled like damp earth and grief. And when the sun started to set and my nanny finally came to drag me inside, his lips parted, and he finally spoke his first words in weeks.
"Don't go."
And I hadn't gone. I stayed right by his side, every single day after that.
"Celeste, stay with me," Adrian's voice snapped me back to the present. He pushed open the heavy security gate of the park and pulled me toward the dark street where his black Audi was parked illegally under a broken streetlamp.
"Get in," he muttered, opening the passenger door for me. "Lock it as soon as I close it."
I climbed inside the leather interior, and he slammed the door shut with a solid, heavy thud. The car was freezing, and I shivered violently as he sprinted around the hood, slid into the driver's seat, and turned the key. The engine roared to life, loud and aggressive in the quiet night.
The drive to my penthouse apartment was dead silent. Adrian kept his left hand firmly on the steering wheel, navigating the sharp turns of the city streets, while his right hand rested heavily on my bare knee. His thumb traced slow, heavy circles against my skin, sending a completely different kind of shiver running down my spine.
"Do you remember the day we met?" I asked softly, desperate to break the suffocating silence.
His grip on my knee instantly tightened, his knuckles going slightly white. "I remember every single detail, Celeste. I know exactly what you wore."
"Really?" I looked over at him, watching the passing streetlights paint long shadows across his sharp jawline. "What did I wear?"
"A yellow dress," he said, his voice dropping into a low, rough tone. "It was bright as hell. You looked like a little sun walking straight into the worst storm of my life. I hated you for a second because you were so bright, and everything inside me was so dark."
"You wouldn't talk to anyone," I murmured, leaning my head back against the seat. "But you talked to me."
"Because you didn't give me a choice, you stubborn brat." A ghost of a real smile finally tugged at the corner of his lips. "You just sat right down in the dirt, holding my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world."
"Maybe it was," I whispered.
Adrian suddenly pulled the car to a fast stop right outside my luxury high-rise building and killed the engine. The sudden silence was deafening. He unbuckled his seatbelt and turned his entire body to face me. The sheer intensity in his eyes made my stomach do a violent flip.
"Celeste," he said, his voice cracking slightly as he reached out to cup my cheek. "Whatever happens next... I need you to understand something. You are the only good thing in my entire life. The only thing that ever made sense after my parents died in that fire."
I leaned into his warm palm, my fingers reaching up to brush the small, rugged scar that cut right through his left eyebrow. "You're the only person who ever made me feel like a real human being, Adrian. Not an heiress. Just me."
He closed his eyes, breathing in sharply. "I love you. You know that, right? I've loved you since I was a broken ten-year-old boy sitting in your garden."
"I know," I whispered, tears pricking the backs of my eyes. "I love you too, Adrian."
I leaned across the center console, wrapping my arms around his neck, and pulled him down into another kiss. This one was desperate, heavy, and wild. Adrian let out a low groan, his hands gripping my waist tightly, pulling me completely over the console and onto his lap. The kiss turned deep, his tongue sliding against mine as if he were trying to print his soul onto mine.
When he finally pulled away, his breathing was ragged, his lips wet and swollen. He rested his forehead against mine. "I have to get you inside. Before I lose my mind."
He opened his door and walked me quickly to the building's secure entrance, his hand resting firmly on the small of my back. When we reached the glass doors, he pulled me into a hug so tight it almost crushed my ribs.
"Happy birthday, little star," he whispered fiercely against my hair. "Go inside. Lock the doors. I'll call you the second I get to my place."
"Okay," I said, reluctantly pulling away. "Be safe, Adrian."
He didn't answer. He just watched me walk through the glass doors, disappearing back into the shadows of the night.
...
Adrian’s POV
I waited until the light in Celeste's top-floor bedroom window finally flicked on before I allowed myself to draw a full breath. I stood perfectly still on the deserted sidewalk, my hands shoved deep into my pockets, staring up at that distant window like it was the very last star in a dying universe.
She was so beautiful. So innocent. She had absolutely no idea about the darkness that constantly scratched at the edges of her perfect world. And she definitely didn't know how desperately I needed her just to stay fucking sane.
I meant every single word I said to her in the car. Celeste was my entire world. She was the only person who had ever looked at me and seen a boy worth saving, rather than a broken orphan to be pitied or an object to be used. She had held my freezing hand in that garden when I was literally drowning in my own grief, and she had never let go.
I didn't have a hidden agenda. I wasn't trying to become the heir just because the Lindstroms adopted me, and I didn't have some confidential file on their business tucked under my mattress. I wasn't playing a game with her. I was just a guy—completely and utterly in love, and terrified that the only good thing in my life was about to be ripped away.
But we had to keep it a secret from her parents—our parents. They couldn't know how we felt about each other.
Except tonight, the stakes had completely changed. That fucking photo on her phone. That single, terrifying word written in red: Soon.
Someone was actively watching her. Someone who knew exactly who she was, her daily schedule, and how to get close to her. My gut told me this wasn't some cheap paparazzi scumbag looking for a quick paycheck. This was something much darker. Something deliberate.
I finally forced my legs to move, turning away from the building. My small apartment was a ten-minute walk away, and I decided to take it slow, needing the biting cold air to clear the static out of my head. But it didn't work. The heavy unease sat squarely in my chest like a block of lead.
As I walked down the cracked sidewalk, my mind involuntarily drifted to Edmund Carlisle.
Edmund had been there since the very beginning. He was the one who had held my shaking shoulders at the funeral while my parents' coffins were lowered into the dirt. He was the one who told me heroic stories about them, who promised to always look after me when the rest of the world turned its back. He was the closest thing I had to a real father. And yet...
Something about Edmund over the last few years had always felt slightly off.
I tried to shake the thought, but it kept clawing its way back to the surface. It was the way Edmund always kept my grief so close to the surface, never letting the old wounds fully heal. He would constantly bring up the fire, constantly remind me of what I had lost, keeping the anger fresh. And then there was the way he always steered our private conversations toward the Lindstrom family.
“Are they treating you well, Adrian? Do they actually include you in their private dinners, or do they make you feel like a charity case? Do you feel like part of the family, or do you know your place as an outsider?”
I remembered the way Edmund's eyes would sharpen, turning cold and calculating, whenever I mentioned Victor Lindstrom's private business dealings or upcoming mergers.
I had dismissed it for years, telling myself that Edmund was just being protective. Edmund was my only remaining connection to my dead parents. Of course the old man would be intense about my well-being. Of course he would be suspicious of a billionaire tycoon like Victor Lindstrom.
But lately, the questions from Edmund had gotten far more pointed. More aggressive.
“Have you noticed anything unusual at the main office, Adrian? Any strange late-night meetings? Have you seen any private documents on Victor's desk that you shouldn't have seen?”
I had always answered no. Because there was truly nothing to report. The Lindstroms were good people. They had taken a mute, broken orphan into their home when no one else wanted the burden. They had raised me right alongside their own daughter. They had given me a life.
And Celeste...
Celeste was absolutely everything to me. She wasn't part of some massive corporate conspiracy. She wasn't hiding dark secrets. She was just a beautiful girl who had been lonely her entire life, even while surrounded by billions of dollars.
I shook my head aggressively, pressing my palms against my eyes as I turned the corner onto my street. I was being paranoid. The stress of the photo was making me crazy. Edmund was my mentor. My protector. The man who had pulled me out of the smoking wreckage of my childhood and given me a reason to keep living.
"He's just trying to protect me," I whispered to the empty, dark street as I pulled out my apartment keys.
But a tiny, nameless crack of doubt has formed.
