Elena's POV
The guard’s grip loosened immediately. I turned around.
The man standing a few feet away was tall, composed, and dressed in a dark coat like he had just stepped out of a manhwa series.
He had silver-grey eyes and this aura that screamed of importance. I squinted at him, I had seen him before at a company dinner two years ago, briefly, across a crowded room.
Lucien Kingston. Adrian’s older brother.
I remembered scraps of that dinner now, how he'd stood near the windows the entire night, a glass in his hand that he never seemed to actually drink from, watching the room like he was cataloguing it rather than enjoying it.
Adrian had introduced him briefly, almost reluctantly, and Lucien had said maybe ten words to me before excusing himself. I remembered thinking he seemed like a man who didn't belong to the family he was standing in.
“Sir…” the guard started.
“If you lay your hand on her again,” Lucien said, still looking at the guard with the same quiet deadly expression, “you will not enjoy what comes after it.”
The guard stepped back immediately, bowing down in fear.
I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. A minute ago he had his hand on my arm like I was nothing. Now he couldn't even look up. It was strange, watching someone go from cruel to scared that fast, all because of one man's voice.
Lucien turned to me then. There was this look in his eyes when he looked at my face — not pity, it was something I couldn't read and then he said, quietly, “Play along.”
Before I could ask what that meant, he placed one hand lightly on my waist and walked forward.
“My apologies for the delay,” he announced softly like this was a minor inconvenience rather than what it was.
“She’s with me.”
No one dared to stop us. That alone explains the power he had.
We rode the elevator in silence. I stood with my arms around myself and stared at the numbers climbing and told myself to hold it together for ten more minutes. Just ten more minutes.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” he said, without looking at me.
I glanced at him. “You don’t even know why I’m here.”
“I know enough.”
I said nothing, just stared at the steel door before me.
He waited outside while I went in. I moved quickly and without hesitation — I had always known exactly where everything was.
My hands didn't shake until I reached the second drawer. I made myself stop, breathe, and keep moving. Every folder I touched was a piece of the last eight years; contracts I'd negotiated at midnight, deals I'd closed while Adrian was elsewhere, proof of a life I'd built with my own hands and handed to him without a second thought.
I'd been so foolish, I muttered with a small shaky smile.
I pulled every contract with my name on it, canceled two investment deals on my phone while I was still standing at the desk, the kind of cancellations that would take a long time for Adrian to untangle.
I gathered the documents I needed for the divorce filing. When I came back out, Lucien was leaning against the wall across from the door with his hands in his pockets, exactly where I had left him.
He looked at the folder under my arm and said nothing.
I expected him to ask what was in it, or why it mattered so much. He didn't. He just pushed off the wall and started walking, like whatever I'd needed in there was already none of his business.
I followed him, holding the folder a little tighter than before. It was the only thing that would vindicate and console me right now.
We took the elevator back down and he walked me to his car.
“I can take you home,” he said quietly as he opened the car.
I almost laughed. “I don’t have one.” I looked down, trying to hide the tears that were forcing themselves to come out.
He turned to really look at me then. “Your parents?” He asked.
“They chose profits over me.” I said and lifted my head, tucking my hair behind my ears and also to keep the tears from falling out.
I wasn't even surprised, really. That was the worst part. Some small part of me had already known what they'd say before I knocked. I just hadn't let myself believe it until I heard the door close shut in my face.
I just wasn't going to fall apart before him.
“I’m fine. I just need to find a hotel that will
….”
“Elena”, Lucien began softly.
My name in his mouth was different from the way Adrian said it. It made me wonder if Adrian ever called my name with such affection for 8 years.
He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and placed something on the car hood, before me.
A folded document. I picked it up and opened it slowly, and I read the top line and then I read it again because the first time did not make sense.
A marriage certificate with two names on it, printed and waiting to be signed.
His and mine.
“What is this?” I asked, my voice filled with both confusion and silent rage.
“Exactly what it looks like.”
I set it down on my knee and looked at him. “You’re his brother.”
“Half-brother,” he said. “We share a father. Nothing else.”
I stared at the paper, at the neat printed lines and the blank space where a signature should be. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m not someone who says things I don’t mean.”
The city was still going on, hustling and bustling —headlights sweeping past, a siren somewhere far off, the world carrying on like nothing had changed.
And I was standing here in front of Kingston and Co holding a marriage certificate with a man I barely knew who was watching me with those calm grey eyes like he had all the time in the world and was cock sure of his proposition.
He reached into his coat's pockets and brought out a small box and placed it before me.
He opened it and a diamond ring sparkled right back at me.
“Marry me”.
