The wedding incident? 

I stare at Adrian as my thoughts race, partially distracted by how close he's standing and how good he smells. 

So good-there's a hint of-

Wait.  My brain comes to a grinding halt. My jaw slacks. 

"You're not talking about..."

He nods. "Yes."

I shake my head and the laughter that leaves my lips is doubting. "Nah. It's impossible for you to know about that. It was years ago. I was a freshman. There's no way..." I trail off, when it dawns on me that he's serious. 

"How?" I question, still baffled. My head is spinning with theories. Has he been stalking me? That's impossible. Adrian Hawthorne couldn't care less about my less-than-average life. 

Even when my father happened to lose the company to Hawthorne Industries, we never crossed paths. 

I only showed on his radar at the auction.  

Funny enough...I bite my bottom lip hard, tilting my head as my train of thought derails. I never thought to ask him what he was doing there. Was he expecting to buy someone else?  

Hell, I wasn't paying attention to what was being auctioned while I stood in the dark, hidden from the main stage. 

I was thinking about how gullible I'd been to believe my stepfather that things were about to change-that he was finally putting in effort to get sober and pick up his duties as a father. And the only family I had left. 

My brows squint as I search Adrian's face for answers. "How would you know about something that happened years ago?"

His brow arches, ever so lightly. He takes a step closer and I instinctively suck in a breath, holding it somewhere between my throat and my lungs. 

He brings his lips close to my ear. "What did you think...I was going to bring you into my home without doing due diligence?" His voice rumbles through my ear, carrying a hint of mockery I don't miss. "I don't trust anyone, Miss Wilson."

Adrian pulls away, his gaze pinned on my face. "Much like someone who comes from a greedy, dishonest family."

Greedy? 

Greedy??? 

"I-"

I start to argue, but he's already stepping to the side, speaking to the bartender. "She'll have a mocktail. Keep the alcohol away for the rest of the evening." 

"Yes, sir."

I whirl around, a scoff slipping out at the bartender's response. "You're going to listen to me over him? You think a man should control what a woman drinks?" I thrust my hands on my hips and his gaze slides down to my cleavage for a split second.  

Typical. 

"I'm going to get something strong," I insist. "That's what I want. Unless you're willing to admit that you're sexist."

The bartender's face turns red as he glances away, scratching his head awkwardly.  "I-I'm sorry, miss," he mutters, "but Mr. Hawthorne is the host of the party. He hired me. I'm afraid I have to do as he asks."

Wait. 

What?  

I glance at Adrian-at his expressionless face and those impossibly arrogant eyes. And then it clicks. Julian had mentioned that he had bars and clubs, so it was easy for the host to ask for his services."

I'd assumed it was someone in his social circles. Another wealthy New York socialite who wanted to impress. 

But I should've known. 

After all, Adrian didn't want me here. He had every right to refuse, since it was his party.

I roll my eyes, planting my hands higher. "Right," I drawl dryly. "I see. You know what?" I shake my head. "I'm suddenly no longer in the mood for a drink. I think-" I raise a finger, "-I'm going to find a handsome stranger to talk to and maybe dance with him, if possible."

"Then if he offers me a drink, I'm going to say yes." My chin jutted out defiantly as my eyes narrow, my gaze moving from Adrian to the bartender and back. "And if he asks me to leave the party with him, I won't turn him down, because the host doesn't want me here in the first place."

He says nothing. 

I expected it. 

I blow out an exasperated breath as I turn, ready to go mingle by all means. Julian said to have fun and not let his brother ruin my night. I plan to do exactly that. 

I've gone three steps, maybe four, when I feel strong fingers clamp around my wrist. Adrian pulls me back and I find myself pressed to his chest. 

His hard, muscled, warm chest. 

My stomach dips without warning. A shiver runs down my spine, gathering just between my thighs. I breathe a little unsteadily. 

"What do you want from me?" I hiss. "You revoked my invite to a party that I didn't know about until your brother informed me. Now you've banned me from the bar. What else?" I lift my head, staring into his eyes. "You're going to send me home? Ground me? Since you own me and I'm expected to live by your rules, walking on eggshells and saying "yes, sir," to every command?"

The last words scrape out of me, breathless and  burning.

Then silence.

Just the sound of my breathing-too loud, too uneven-and the way my chest rises against his with every inhale.

Adrian doesn't let go. He doesn't tell me to go home, like I expect. He leans in, closer. His voice drops into a rasp, brushing far too close to my ear.

"If you're going to flirt with a man in this room," he says, "then I suggest you choose wisely, Miss Wilson. Don't forget...you belong to me."

For a long, embarrassing moment, I forget how to speak. The words are at the tip of my tongue, but Adrian's eyes are boring holes through my face and into my brain, cutting off the part that connects to speech.

"Then again," he murmurs, "I doubt you had any time between the jobs and shifts you had to pick up to learn how to dance."

He releases my hand abruptly and I lose my footing a bit. Adrian's eyes dance with curiosity as he folds his arms. "My brother is...reckless. He does things as he wants, with no regard of how it affects others, as long as he's having fun. I would've expected you to know better, Miss Wilson."

His gaze trails over my body with barely a flicker of interest-not like the gaping stare the bartender gave. And yet, heat travels down the path his eyes take, pooling in my belly. I will myself to ignore it.

He doesn't think it's pretty. He's probably calculating how much it cost and why Julian had to spend so much money on someone like me.

I cross my arms over my chest, defensively. "I'll return it tomorrow. It didn't come with a tag, but I'm sure I can persuade them to take it. After all, it was your brother who suggested something outrageously expensive."

I feel bad for throwing Julian under the boss, but he dragged me into it.

Adrian tuts softly. "It looks good on you."

Huh?

I stare at him, unblinking. My lashes lift and fall, once. Faster, twice. He did not just give me a compliment? I pull my bottom lip between my teeth, feeling very self-conscious all of a sudden. "What?" he asks. "Would you rather I said yellow doesn't look good on you? That it doesn't complement your eyes and the way they shine under the chandelier light?"

"I-"

A flush rises quickly to the back of my neck. I feel...hot. I glance around, searching for something. A waiter, a glass of cold water-a drink, for heavens sake. Because either Adrian Hawthorne had a concussion before he came up to me or I'm hallucinating.

"But if you were to throw yourself into the arms of any man here-" his voice turns serious, "-you'll only end up giving them bloody ties. And then, I'd have the unfortunate responsibility of explaining how someone with no social graces got into a party like this."

"So, you see, Miss Wilson," his eyes narrow and his tone deepens with a note of distaste," perhaps you should've stayed home after all."

I take back everything I just said.

Adrian Hawthorne didn't hit his head and sudden become a normal member of society. He's still the arrogant, narcissistic asshole I know. And the heat in my stomach is because I haven't had anything to eat since I left the campus.

Julian promised me overpriced caviar.

"You know what?" I purse my lips tightly with a bitter smile. "I get it. I'm going to stay out of your way. I won't bother you with the insult of watching me make a fool of myself, just because I'm doing my best to fit in with your social circle."

A lump thickens in the back of my throat and my eyes sting with tears. "I'm going to put myself in time-out, find a corner and stay there until you're ready to send me away to where you think I belong."

I march away without another word-without waiting for the response I know will never come-swiping my eyes angrily with the back of my hand. I move out of the way, just in time to avoid a waitstaff carrying a tray of bubbly glasses.

I change my mind at the last minute, snagging one.

"Ma'am," she protests weakly, but I'm tipping my head back already and letting it pour down throat. The liquid is thick and fruity, not like the punch and burn I expected. I scoff with a sharp breath, staring at the glass with disappointment. "You too?" My voice cracks pitifully.

"Here," the server hands me another, a smile touching her lips. She tilts her head when I stare at it questioningly. "The people who asked for it won't miss it anyway. They're probably blacked out by now. And," she says in a hushed, excited whisper as she leans closer, "it's a twenty-year-old bottle of rum. If you can't taste it, why would you drink it?"

I end up with a bottle of rum, standing outside on the balcony, away from the party and the noise. The evening-night-breeze beats on my skin mercilessly. I shiver, wrapping an arm tightly around my chest as I take another swig from the bottle.

It's still sticky and sweet, but it fights off some of the cold.

I hate it here.

I didn't think ending up in the home of the man who picked me up like a discounted tab at a hole-in-the-wall diner was going to magically turn my life around...but I didn't think it was going to be this horrible.

I don't have to worry about money, tuition or a roof over my head, but now I have to deal with a narcissist who doesn't miss any opportunity to remind me of how inadequate I am, compared to him.

Alina Wilson, pauper. Adrian Hawthorne, CEO of Hawthorne Industries, billionaire and recluse.

A tear slides down my cheek. I don't bother brushing it away this time. My lips are all bruised from holding the back and the wind, brushing harshly against the tiny cuts, sting horribly.

I want to go home.

I'm not sure where that is, but I'm done being strong.

I go to take another swig, only to discover that the bottle's empty. "Crap." I shake it, growing furious by the second. I'm nowhere near drunk. The server said it was aged rum, but she must've been confused.

"Oh well," I shrugged. I'm Murphy's Law little experiment. If anything can go wrong, it's bound to go wrong for me. I slowly bend down, placing the bottle on the ground. The floor tilts as I try to stand up and my head lolls forward, dangling off my neck. My vision swims as my surrounding blurs into a mix of hazy colors and distorted images.

 "Woah," I mutter as I grip the railing, slurring the word. "That was trippy."

A tiny, high-pitched laugh that resembles nothing like me, pours out. I shake my head. "Gotta try again...slowly."

I turn, raising one foot. The ground distorts, sinking deeper and then magically rising higher than my shoe. I squint in confusion, trying to make sense of it, while balancing on one foot.

Bad idea.

It happens in slow drunken motion. My arms flail out, my shoes fly off my feet, landing somewhere in the dark and my legs give way from underneath me, like a rug roughly pulled forward. And then I'm falling.

I open my mouth to scream for help, but nothing comes out. Just pure horror, coursing through my veins and the late dawning that perhaps I shouldn't have drunk the half-bottle the staff snuck out for me.

It was rum, after all.

I close my eyes, thinking about all the things I thought about doing. The boring goals on my list. My graduation walk in mere months.

This is how I die, I think to myself. In a yellow, expensive dress I was going to return, outside a party where I don't belong, drinking stolen rum. From a split brain.

I wait for the end-

And end up slamming into something hard, with a firm grip digging into my waist. I feel something beating against my ear. Thump. thump. thump. Warm breath floods my ear as an amused drawl fills the thundering silence of my near-death incident.

"Is this a desperate cry for help, Miss Wilson. Or are you trying to appear more approachable due to your lack of social etiquette?"

My attempt to pull away from Adrian fails as his arm tightens around my waist. "Not so fast, Miss Wilson," he grunts softly. "Unless you want to end up with a concussion."

I try one more time, glaring at him when he doesn't budge. "What do you care? It would keep you from having to see me, wouldn't it? You won't have to bother about my lack of social etiquette and how much of a sore thumb I am."

My words slur as I speak, and the anger in my voice is nothing compared to how it sounds in my head.

Adrian's brow lifts a fraction as he leans closer. "Have you...been drinking?"

Duh? I shrug. "Why? I didn't get it from the bar, if that's what you're worried about. And I haven't assaulted any of your guests yet," I say snappily, sarcasm and frustration evident in my voice. "So, you can let me go now."

He doesn't.

He looks me over, his gaze tracing an invisible pattern from my face, over my lips that feel parched, and my dress-my chest, actually, with the gaping cleavage space. His jaw tightens as his eyes flare sharply with something too quick to name.

His arm falls away abruptly, but his presence has sucked away some of my inebriation, so I don't fall to the ground. I step back, thrusting my arms to my chest. "What? You're going to lecture me now on how much I can drink, by myself?"

"Your dress," he mutters, his voice coming out with a thick rasp. I scoff, ready to defend myself, but a soft breeze blows by, and I feel a patch of cold on my chest. Not the chill in the air, but a brush in one particular spot.

I glance down.

"Shit, shit!" I groan, turning around quickly to do damage control. Between my near kiss with death and Adrian's timely arrival, my dress...malfunctioned. The plunging space that was supposed to be in the middle had moved to one side, exposing my-

And he saw it.

Oh heavens, strike me dead now.

I wouldn't mind going this way, without doing anything on my list.

"I didn't see anything," Adrian says from behind me.

My face floods with embarrassment, and my cheeks turn so red I can feel the heat burning through them. "Please," I mumble, unable to muster anything beyond a whisper, "can you go? I'd like some space."

I hear footsteps retreating moments later, and my shoulders slump, a raw exhale slipping out of me, tears burning my eyes again. I yank the dress to its original position, but it slips away, refusing to cooperate.

I yank harder, and a loud rip fills the air.

I tore it.

It was supposed to be a beautiful dress, but I ruined it. "Stupid dress," I say, gritting my teeth to fight the tears. "Stupid party." It's my fault. I tried to be like them-the people who can actually afford expensive things and don't have to steal a bottle of rum.

My shoulders tremble as a thick sob catches in my throat. It burns as I shove it down, spreading through my chest like a punishing, icy fist. I wrap my arms around my stomach, staring off into the twinkling night sky. "What karma am I paying for? Was I such a terrible person in my past life that you've decided I don't deserve a break?"

"There's no such thing as karma."

A thick coat settles on my shoulders before I can turn. "Human beings take what they want."

My lips stretch into a thin smile as I face Adrian. "What would you say about me, then? That I'm too weak? That I should've been stronger, smarter-" my voice cracks with exhaustion and bitterness, "-and probably seen ahead of time that my stepfather was going to take everything I had?"

He says nothing for a minute, but his jaw flexes subtly, a muscle ticking there. He glances away for a moment, dragging a hand across his chin.

"Let's go."

"What?"

"Home. Let's go home."

I shake my head slowly, confused at his sudden decision. "Why? Isn't this your party? You're the host. I'm the one who wasn't invited. I can take an Uber or something."

Adrian's lips twitch as he chuckles. My eyes widen. It's the first time I've ever heard him laugh. Or do something close to it. "I don't care about the party, Alina. I couldn't give a fuck about the people in there, either. But I'm required to perform certain activities, to pretend as if I care about their vacations and beach homes, to keep my family's name on their lips."

"Oh..." I mutter.

He sighs softly. "And I doubt you'll be going anywhere with that dress. You're my excuse to call it a night."

I roll my eyes, but a tiny smile floats on my lips for a second. "I don't think it's fair to use me, Mr. Hawthorne, after I was so easily discarded just hours ago. That sounds very unfair."

"Hour," he corrects me without missing a beat. "And you had a few glasses from a scheming staff member to keep you company, didn't you?" He looks at me, his expression unreadable.

I squint.

It takes a second for it to click. "That was you?" My voice rises as I point a finger at him. "Why would you ban me from the bar, then?"

His shoulder tips in an imperceptible shrug. "I was saving you from a terrible situation. While you were wondering if you fit in, there were a handful of men staring at you...leering, I should add. None of them would've passed up the opportunity to take advantage of you, Alina."

Oh.

And because I feel silly now that he's pointed it out, I mutter again, "Oh."

Adrian nods. "Unfortunately, my world isn't kind to people who don't understand how it works. Which is why I forbade Julian from bringing you. I knew he was going to pull something tricky, and I wanted to be sure he wasn't going to use you."

So...the social etiquette, the comment on my ability to dance, and his cold attitude were to keep me from waking up in a stranger's bed tomorrow morning without knowing how I got there.

I blink slowly, my gaze to the floor, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, feeling thoroughly guilty. "I-" I lift my head, but he's already walking away.

"Try to keep up," he says, "or you might have to call the Uber after all. Or walk-" he throws me a look over his shoulder, "-you did say you could walk to your uni."

I just-

I was about to take back everything I thought about him tonight. "Ugh." I roll my eyes hard, scoffing under my breath. Adrian Hawthorne is irredeemable.

There's another car waiting for us, with a chauffeur holding the door open. Adrian gets into the back seat, and I start to go forward when the chauffeur's hand shoots out. "I'm sorry, Miss Wilson, but Mr. Hawthorne insists that you ride with him at the back."