In His World

Adrian POV

I walked into Marcus's bar at midnight because it was the only place in London where I could think without someone asking me questions I didn't want to answer, and Marcus looked up from wiping down the counter when I came through the door.

"You look like someone died," he said.

"Worse." I slid onto a stool. "My brother got engaged."

Marcus stopped wiping. "James? Your brother James who said commitment was for people who'd given up on life?"

"Apparently he found someone desperate enough to say yes." I signaled for a drink. "My father announced a new rule at dinner tonight, whichever son gets married first becomes CEO."

"That's insane even for Richard Blackwell." Marcus poured me whiskey. "How long do you have?"

"Seventy-two hours starting from when James announced his engagement three hours ago." I downed the drink. "So about sixty-nine hours now."

"And you need a wife in sixty-nine hours."

"I need a wife period, the timeline just makes it more interesting." I pushed the glass toward him. "Another."

Marcus refilled it. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet, that's why I'm here drinking instead of home panicking." I looked at the nearly empty bar. "Any suggestions?"

"Find someone who's as desperate as you are." Marcus sat down across from me. "Offer them something they can't refuse."

"Like what?"

"Money, security, a way out of whatever hole they're in." Marcus shrugged. "Rich men have been buying wives for centuries, you'd just be continuing a proud tradition."

I was about to respond when the door opened and cold air rushed in along with a woman who stumbled through like she'd forgotten how to walk properly.

She caught herself on a table and stood there swaying, and even from across the room I could see she'd been crying for hours because her face was blotchy and her mascara was smeared down her cheeks.

"Should you help her?" I asked Marcus.

"Probably." But he didn't move and neither did I, and we both watched her make her way to the bar like she was walking through water.

She collapsed onto a stool three down from mine and put her head on the counter. "Vodka, I need vodka, the whole bottle if you have it."

Marcus walked over. "I think you've had enough already."

"I haven't had nearly enough." She lifted her head and I could see her eyes were red and swollen. "My parents died two weeks ago in a car accident and today I found out all their debts are mine now."

"How much debt?" Marcus asked gently.

"Forty thousand pounds and the bank wants it in thirty days or they're taking my house." She laughed but it came out broken. "The house where I grew up, where my mother taught me to cook and my father read me stories before bed, they're taking all of it."

Something clicked in my brain, something cold and calculating that told me this was the opportunity I'd