The Billionaire's Chosen Bride

Tina's POV

"I'm sorry, ma'am. This card's been declined."

The teller says it loud enough for the whole line behind me to hear. I feel every eye on my back like little pins, each one making the silence around me feel heavier than it should.

"Try it again," I say. My voice comes out steady. That's the one thing I've still got, a steady voice. "There's fifteen thousand dollars in that account. I checked it on Tuesday."

She runs it again. Her fingers move over the machine, then she looks at the screen and shakes her head.

"Declined."

Someone in line sighs loud, like I'm the reason his lunch break is ruined. I want to turn around and tell him he has no idea what ruin looks like. Not yet. I keep my face still, though my stomach has already tightened.

I step out of line with my dead card in my hand and my phone buzzing in my pocket. I don't know why, but something inside me tells me today is the day everything I built falls down. I try to ignore that feeling. There has to be an explanation for a card being declined when I know exactly how much money should be in the account.

The lawyer's voice is flat when I pick up.

"Tina, it's Warren. I need you to see me."

"I'm standing in a bank lobby, Warren. Just say it."

"Your father's company defaulted last night. All of it. The line of credit, the payroll account, the retirement fund he had it tied to, all frozen as of six a.m."

He pauses, and for a moment I hear nothing but the faint noise of people moving around me.

"I'm sorry. I know this is his life's work."

I don't cry. I've never been a crier, not really, not even at funerals. I just go very quiet and very calm, the way I do right before I fall apart later, alone, where no one has to watch it happen.

My fingers tighten around the phone. I stare at the bank doors without really seeing them, listening to Warren's words repeat in my head as if hearing them again might make them less real.

"Thank you for calling," I say, and hang up.

I stand there in the marble lobby while strangers walk around me like I'm furniture. Nobody stops. Nobody asks if I'm okay. The bank keeps moving around me, ordinary and busy, while my mind struggles to catch up with what just happened.

My apartment is four blocks away. I walk there because I don't trust myself behind a wheel right now, and because some stubborn part of me still thinks maybe this is all a mistake.

Maybe there's paperwork. Maybe Warren got the wrong Martins. Maybe I will walk through my front door and find my life exactly where I left it.

There's no mistake.

A notice is taped to my door, orange and official, telling me I have until five o'clock to remove my belongings. Someone already changed the lock. I stand in the hallway holding a box of things a stranger packed for me: my coffee mug, my dad's old watch, a photo of me and my mother from before she left.The box feels strangely light in my arms.

I look at the notice again, hoping the words will somehow change if I read them slowly enough. They don't. I think this is what nothing feels like. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just quiet and empty and gone.

I call Jude.

It rings four times and goes to voicemail, his voice cheerful and recorded and completely useless to me right now."Hey, it's Jude, leave a message."I don't leave one.

I call again. Same thing.

On the third try, I finally understood what my body's been trying to tell me for the last hour. He's not missing my calls. He's avoiding them.

My phone buzzes before I can call again.A text from Amelia, a girl I used to work with, someone I haven't heard from in months.

“Are you okay?? I saw Jude posted from Miami this morning. He's not alone. Did you know he closed out the joint account? I'm so sorry, I thought you knew.”I read it twice.

Then a third time, like the words might rearrange themselves into something that makes sense.They don't.

He didn't just leave. He planned it. Cleared out what was left of our savings, packed a bag and got on a plane.

Somewhere in the last twelve hours, while my father's company was collapsing and my card was getting declined in front of strangers, Jude was ordering a drink on a beach with someone who isn't me.The thought sits in my chest, heavy and cold.

I sit down right there on the curb outside my building, box on my lap, because my legs don't want to hold me up anymore. Two years of my life. My father's company. My whole account balance. Gone in one night, like none of it was ever really mine to begin with.

I laugh. It's not a happy sound. It just comes out of me, sharp and short, because crying feels like it would cost something I don't have left to spend. A woman walking her dog gives me a wide, worried berth. I don't blame her. I probably look exactly like what I am, a person whose whole life just falls apart.

For a moment, I simply sit there and stare at the box on my lap. The things inside are small, ordinary pieces of a life that suddenly feels far away. I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. I don't even know where I'm supposed to go.

That's when the car pulls up.

It's black, long, expensive in a way that doesn't belong on this street, the kind of car that makes the potholes look embarrassed.

It stops right at the curb in front of me, its engine so quiet I only know it's running because of the low hum beneath the pavement.

I sit up a little, box still on my laps, half expecting it to be a mistake, someone lost, someone looking for an address three streets away. I watch the car without moving, unsure why my attention has suddenly fixed on it.

The back door opens.

I don't recognize the man who steps out, not exactly. Something about him is familiar the way a name you've heard once is familiar, a flicker with no shape to it yet. He is tall and puts on a dark coat despite the heat.

He doesn't look at the box on my lap or the eviction notice still crumpled in my fist. He looks at my face like he's confirming something he already knew.

For a second, I forget everything else around me.I open my mouth to ask if he's lost.

He speaks first.

"Tina Martins."

Not a question. Not the way a stranger says a name they just read off a piece of paper. He says it slowly, carefully, like he's been holding onto it for a long time and finally gets to use it.

Adrian's POV

"Get in the car, Ms. Martins."

She doesn't move. Smart. Most people would have climbed in by now, grateful for anything that looks like rescue. She's still deciding if I'm a threat.

I already know everything I need to know about her. I know her father's company defaulted last night. All of it. The line of credit, the payroll account, the retirement fund he had it tied to, all frozen as of six a.m.

I know her fiancé cleared their joint account and boarded a flight to Miami with someone who isn't her. I know she has fifteen thousand dollars in that account, money she can no longer use, and a father in a hospital bed who doesn't have insurance that covers what he actually needs. I've known it since last week, when my people saw the collapse coming, because I made sure it happened on a schedule that worked for me.

I don't tell her that part yet.

"I'm not getting in a car with a stranger," she says. Her voice shake