The marriage took place at a hotel owned by the Blackwood family, in a hall whose walls were lined with white marble and cream-colored flowers. Not a single detail looked excessive. Precisely because everything was perfect, Elise felt as though she were standing inside an advertisement for someone else’s life.
The chairs were filled with investors, distant relatives, shareholders, and people who knew her only from the news. They smiled as Elise passed. Some looked at her with pity, others with curiosity. No one had come to watch two people fall in love.
They had come to watch two families solve a problem.
Elise waited behind the hall doors with cold hands. Her white dress was simple, but its train was long and heavy. The Blackwood designer had chosen it without asking her opinion. Elise had wanted to refuse, then realized that refusing the dress would not cancel the marriage.
Her father stood beside her.
“If you want to stop, we can still leave,” he said.
Elise looked at him. “Really?”
Her father did not answer immediately.
That was the real answer.
The music began to play. The doors opened.
Elise stepped inside.
At the end of the aisle, Adrian waited in a black tuxedo. He stood straight, neither smiling nor showing any nervousness. But as Elise drew closer, something changed in his expression.
Not happiness.
Nor victory.
Adrian looked like someone who had finally gotten back something he had lost long ago.
Elise’s steps slowed involuntarily.
She did not know this man. She did not know how Adrian could look at the woman who would become his wife with such profound sadness. That look should have made her feel wanted. Instead, Elise felt the opposite—as though she were replacing someone she had never known.
When she reached the altar, Adrian extended his hand.
Elise saw an old umbrella in his shadow. Wet hands. An empty platform. A voice waiting.
She accepted Adrian’s outstretched hand anyway.
The ceremony moved quickly. The wedding vows sounded like lines other people had recited too many times. When the officiant asked them to make their promises to each other, Adrian looked at no one but Elise.
“I promise to respect your choice,” he said.
Not protect.
Not love.
Respect your choice.
Elise did not know why the words felt heavier than a promise of love.
“I promise,” she replied, “not to use this marriage to hurt your family.”
Adrian’s eyes hardened for a moment.
As though he had heard something Elise had not said.
They exchanged rings. Elise’s ring felt cold on her finger. Adrian slipped it on with careful movements, almost too careful, as though he were afraid to touch her skin.
When they kissed, applause erupted throughout the hall.
Adrian’s lips touched hers briefly—formal, without the warmth a wedding kiss should have held. But before he pulled away, his thumb brushed the side of Elise’s face. The touch lasted less than a second.
Elise felt something her body had known for a long time.
Not Adrian.
A memory.
After the ceremony, they stood beneath the crystal lights to greet the guests. Adrian knew when Elise was beginning to tire, when someone was trying to pry for information, and when he needed to cut off a conversation without offending the other person.
“Don’t smile at that woman,” Adrian whispered.
Elise turned to him. “Why?”
“She’ll assume you like her son.”
“Wasn’t that the point of this event? To make everyone believe we’re a happy couple?”
“Happy is different from available.”
Elise held back a laugh. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like everyone wants to take something from you.”
Adrian looked at her. “Usually, they do.”
At the head table, Victor Blackwood rose to make a toast. He was a tall man with silver hair and a smile that was too measured. When he referred to Elise as the “long-awaited daughter-in-law,” the guests chuckled.
Elise did not laugh with them.
Victor came down from the stage and approached them.
“Good boy,” he said to Adrian. “You finally did something sensible.”
Adrian did not respond.
Victor then extended his hand to Elise. “Welcome to the Blackwood family.”
Elise shook it.
Victor’s fingers were cold.
“We’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” he whispered.
Elise pulled her hand away.
“What do you mean?”
Victor’s smile widened. “I mean, we’ve been waiting for the day Adrian found a woman willing to tolerate his bad habits.”
Adrian took half a step forward, placing himself between them.
“Enough.”
Victor looked at his son, then chuckled. “You’re still too quick to anger.”
“And you still talk too much.”
For a moment, the air between them grew tense. Then Victor stepped back, his smile unchanged.
The night grew late. When the last guest had left, Elise stood in front of the hall window. The city outside looked drenched in rain.
Adrian appeared beside her.
“Do you regret it?”
“The marriage has only been going for a few hours.”
“Time doesn’t always change a decision.”
Elise looked at their reflections in the glass. “You look like a man who regrets it.”
“I look like whatever you want to see.”
“No. You look like someone who finally got something.”
Adrian looked at her through their reflection.
“Perhaps I did.”
“And what did you get?”
He did not answer.
Outside, the rain fell harder. Inside the hall, the wedding flowers were beginning to lose their freshness.
Adrian picked up Elise’s coat from the chair and draped it over her shoulders.
The movement was gentle, familiar, and far too precise.
Elise gripped the coat’s collar.
“Adrian.”
“Yes?”
“Have we met before?”
For the first time that night, the man looked genuinely shocked.
Then he turned his face away.
“Good night, Elise.”