His lips pressed against mine—warm, deliberate, devastating.
It wasn't soft or tentative. It was deep. Certain. And it shattered the fragile reality we'd been clinging to.
I froze...
Then shoved him back.
"What the hell are you thinking, Adrien?" My voice was sharp, shaky. "What is wrong with you?"
He blinked, breathing a little too fast, like he hadn't expected what happened. "Isabella—"
"No." I stepped away, chest rising and falling. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to kiss me like that. This—this isn't even part of the contract."
His jaw tensed.
"One day you're cold and unreadable, like I'm just another item on your schedule, and the next—" I gestured wildly between us, "you kiss me like you mean it."
I took a breath, then spat out the words I'd held back too long. "You called me a gold-digger. Yet here you are, kissing me. Aren't you afraid you're just giving me the opening to steal your gold?"
