There was no sugar coat on the invitation. Rather it came as a command.
"Pack your things," Adrian said one evening without looking up from his laptop. "We're flying to Bali in the morning."
Elena froze by the doorway of his office, the low light gilding his profile in muted gold. His tone was too casual, too deliberate like someone tossing a match and pretending he didn't care if it burned.
"For business?" she asked.
He closed the laptop with a quiet snap. "For appearance's sake."
A muscle in her jaw tightened. "Of course. Optics." First, it was the honeymoon. Now it's business. What a Bali experience. She sighed.
His gaze lifted to hers. "You're learning."
Of course, who will not learn when you're reminded by it almost every waking hour. She wanted to throw something words, maybe, or the truth, but she just nodded, turning before he could see the way her pulse fluttered in her throat.
The flight to Bali was smooth, silent, suffocating.
Private jet, of course. The air inside hummed with the low vibration of engines and unspoken tension. Adrian sat across from her, reviewing documents on his tablet as though she didn't exist. He looked maddeningly composed, dark shirt rolled to his elbows, collar undone, a hint of cologne threading through the cabin air like smoke.
Elena stared out the window, at the endless stretch of blue ocean and clouds like torn silk. But every time she blinked, she felt his presence. The way silence seemed to obey him. The way even distance bent toward him.
He broke it first.
"You don't have to look so nervous," he said without glancing up. "It's just a conference."
She turned back to him. "I'm not nervous."
"Good." His eyes flicked to her, cool and unreadable. "Because we're sharing a suite."
The air shifted.
Elena blinked. "Excuse me?"
"It's for the cameras," he said simply. "The hotel staff leaks details. Separate rooms invite questions."
"And one bed doesn't?"
A faint smirk curved his mouth. "They'll never know what happens behind closed doors."
Her breath caught, not from shock, but from the treacherous way her body remembered him. The sound of his voice in the dark. The way his hand once found the back of her neck like it belonged there.
That was years ago. Another lifetime.
She looked away. "I see. So this is just another performance."
"Everything is, Elena," he murmured. "Especially us."
Bali greeted them with golden light and the scent of sea salt. The resort, perched on a cliff over the ocean, was all glass and marble and infinity pools that seemed to spill into the horizon.
Photographers waited discreetly in the lobby. Staff bowed, murmuring welcomes. Adrian's hand brushed the small of her back as they walked, light, impersonal, but deliberate enough for every camera to catch.
She hated how her skin still reacted to that touch.
Their suite overlooked the sea, sunlight reflecting off the water in fractured sparks. Inside, the space was a study in luxury, minimalist, elegant, impossible to ignore.
And yes, one bed. King-sized. White sheets. Too much space and not enough distance.
Elena stood by the window, arms crossed, while Adrian placed his luggage down with the ease of a man who owned every room he entered.
"So this is how you stage affection now?" she asked quietly. "A vacation in paradise. Perfect for headlines."
He loosened his watch strap, expression unreadable. "You underestimate the importance of narrative."
"I think you overestimate your ability to control it."
For a moment, he said nothing. The silence between them thickened, heavy with the echo of something they refused to name.
Then he stepped closer, stopping just short of touching her. "Don't test me, Elena."
She turned to face him fully, the sunlight catching in her hair. "Why? Because someone might see us?"
"No." His voice dropped. "Because I might."
Her pulse stumbled.
The air was too warm, too scented with ocean and danger.
But then he stepped back, just enough to break whatever spell had started to form. "Dinner's at seven," he said, tone smooth again. "Smile for the investors."
And just like that, the wall between them rebuilt itself, stone by stone.
Dinner was a performance, laughter that didn't reach the eyes, toasts that tasted like lies.
Adrian was immaculate in his dark suit, charm sharpened to a weapon. Every executive wanted to speak to him, every woman wanted to be seen beside him.
And yet, he kept her close.
A hand at her waist. A murmur at her ear that no one else could hear. "Smile, Elena. They're watching."
She did. She smiled so hard it almost hurt.
But when the photographer asked for a picture and Adrian's arm slipped around her, pulling her against him, she felt his heartbeat, steady, strong, betraying nothing.
Still, when his hand brushed her bare shoulder, her breath hitched before she could stop it.
He noticed. Of course he noticed. His lips curved, but his eyes didn't. "Careful," he murmured. "You're starting to look like you mean it."
"Maybe I'm just a better actress than you think."
"Or maybe," he said softly, "you were always honest in the wrong moments."
Her smile faltered, but he'd already turned back to their guests, effortlessly reclaiming the conversation.
By the time they returned to the suite, exhaustion had turned her nerves raw. She kicked off her heels and crossed the room, ignoring the way Adrian loosened his tie by the mirror, watching her reflection.
"I'll take the couch," she said.
"There isn't one."
"There's always a couch."
"Not here," he replied, slipping out of his jacket. "This isn't a marriage of convenience, remember? It's a marriage the world wants to believe in."
She met his gaze through the mirror. "The world doesn't sleep in that bed."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Then pretend it's not there."
Her frustration cracked. "Why do you keep doing this?"
He turned. "Doing what?"
"Blurring the line," she said. "One moment you treat me like I'm nothing. The next, you—"
He crossed the distance between them before she could finish.
"Finish it," he murmured.
She couldn't. His nearness stole the air from her lungs.
He reached past her, his hand brushing her arm as he picked up the remote from the table. The gesture was mundane, almost dismissive, but her skin burned where he'd touched her.
"I blur lines," he said quietly, "because you drew them in sand."
The television flicked on, filling the silence with meaningless sound.
He walked toward the balcony, opening the glass doors to the night breeze. "You can have the bed," he said without turning. "I'll sleep out here."
Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "You don't have to."
He looked back over his shoulder, eyes unreadable. "Don't tempt me."
Then he stepped outside, the sea wind catching his hair, the city lights below flickering like dying stars.
Hours passed.
Elena lay in the vast expanse of the bed, staring at the ceiling fan turning in lazy circles. The sheets were cool against her skin, but her thoughts were feverish.
Through the open balcony doors came the sound of waves, and Adrian's voice, low, speaking into his phone.
"Yes," he was saying. "The deal's set for tomorrow. No, she doesn't know. She doesn't need to."
Her chest tightened. She shouldn't care what secrets he kept. She told herself that over and over.
But she listened anyway.
When the call ended, silence returned. Then footsteps. The door slid open again.
He stood there in the dim light, shirt undone, eyes shadowed with something she couldn't read.
"Can't sleep?" he asked.
She pushed herself up on one elbow. "You were talking business. I didn't want to interrupt."
He nodded slowly. "You always were good at pretending not to listen."
"Old habits," she said softly.
He walked closer. Too close, stopping at the edge of the bed. "We've both got habits, Elena."
The air felt charged, fragile.
She could have moved. Should have. But she didn't.
His hand lifted, just a fraction as if to touch her face, then stopped midway. "You still think I'm made of stone," he said quietly.
"I think you like people to believe that."
Something flickered in his gaze. Then he smiled, not the cold, perfect one he gave the cameras, but the kind that looked almost human. "Maybe I do."
He turned as if to leave, and that should have been the end of it.
But then she said, without thinking, "Adrian."
He stopped. Looked back.
The room was too quiet.
"I don't hate you," she whispered, though she didn't know why she said it, or what she expected in return.
He stood there for a long moment, breathing hard enough for her to see his chest rise and fall. Then, without warning, he reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her face, slow, deliberate, dangerous.
"Elena," he murmured, voice roughened, "don't say things you can't take back. You are my wife, remember. I can always take what is rightfully mine." There was a hint of danger in his eyes that she knows both of them know what it means.
She should have laughed. Should have deflected. But instead, her pulse answered for her, wild and uneven.
For a heartbeat, it felt like the world stopped breathing, just the sound of waves, the scent of salt and something heavier, more human.
And then, just as suddenly, he pulled back.
"I'll take the couch," he said hoarsely. "After all."
He walked to the balcony again, not looking back.
Elena lay there, trembling, watching the outline of him against the night.
The line between duty and desire had always been thin. Tonight, she realized, it wasn't just thin. It was breaking.
And in the soft, restless dark, one thought burned through her like fire:
The rules were starting to break.
And neither of them knew how to stop it.