The Tycoon's Runaway Cinderella

Adrian Ashford never brought up marriage.

Because, as far as I knew, he couldn't afford to.

Then one night I watched him open a bottle of wine that cost more than I made in a year. Flicked the cork like it was nothing.

The real Adrian was old money. A name that opened doors I'd never see the other side of. And he'd spent five years living in my one-bedroom, pretending to be a man who clipped coupons.

One of his friends asked him, "Five years playing broke. Aren't you bored yet? When do you cut her loose?"

Adrian didn't look up from his phone. "The day I get engaged."

I didn't scream. I didn't beg.

I turned off my phone. I blocked his number. And on the morning he got engaged, my plane lifted off the runway and crossed an ocean.

Here's what I heard later.

The Ashford heir, halfway to his own engagement party, told the driver to turn the car around.

He drove across the city to a shabby little walk-up.

And when he let himself in and found it empty, every last trace of me already gone, the composure he'd worn his whole life cracked straight down the middle, right there on the floor, and whatever was under it never came back.

Chapter 1

I was scrolling Instagram when a face stopped my thumb cold. Tucked in the background of someone else's party, half-sunk into a couch, head down over his phone, was the man I'd loved for five years. My coupon-clipping boyfriend. Except this room, these glossy people, the money practically dripping off the walls, he had never once breathed a word of any of it to me.

One hand was propped near his face, half-covering it. But I would know that high nose, that hard line of brow, anywhere.

I opened my camera roll, pulled up a photo of Adrian, and held them side by side. Again. And again.

I tapped open a chat with Bianca Holloway, a college almost-acquaintance, the kind you only ever trade likes with, and circled the man in the background before I hit send.

Me: [Hey, random question. Is this guy a friend of yours?]

For some reason, she'd smeared a blur filter over that exact corner of the photo.

She wrote back fast. Faster than I expected.

Bianca: [Why do you want to know? Don't go poking around about him.]

Me: [Nothing. He just looks a little like my boyfriend.]

And he did. Nobody on earth knew Adrian's face better than I did. I could have drawn the exact angle of his frown from memory.

Then the messages came in a flurry.

Bianca: [Rosalind. Daydreaming in the middle of the day? My husband can't get a single word in around that man. Your boyfriend clears what, a few grand a month? They don't live in the same universe.]

Bianca: [Or what, you finally came to your senses? Ready to dump the deadweight?]

I cut off the sneering and sent back a cartoon sticker, a little guy bowing a thank-you.

Me: [Just asking. That's all.]

Bianca had always needed to win, and she'd never forgiven me for beating her out once, back in college. Then she married into a publicly traded fortune, and I went and fell for Adrian, a broke nobody. Only then did she finally unlock her Instagram for me to admire.

I swiped over to Adrian's chat.

Me: [Almost home?]

His reply came quick, under the contact I'd pinned to the very top, a little heart beside his name. A photo of a dark, empty conference room, and a cartoon kitten tipping its head, wiping away a tear.

Adrian: [Still stuck at work. Get some sleep, don't wait up.]

Me: [Poor thing. Love you.] I sent a hug, two kisses, and tucked the phone back into my pocket, settled.

That was my Adrian. A guy who dragged himself to a job every morning for a paycheck that barely covered rent. What could he possibly have to do with Bianca's world?

I got home to the Brixton, and a message lit up the screen. Drop a file off at the Aldrich Club.

I turned right back around, ordered a car on the company account, and went.

Grown-up nights are rarely your own.

I climbed out into a knife of cold wind and looked up.

I'd heard of the Aldrich Club. The people who came and went through those doors were not ordinary people. My boss had probably ridden in on some client's coattails. That was the only way a man like him got inside a place like this, a members-only club folded into a converted brownstone down a quiet, moneyed street.

I pushed through the heavy doors. Attendants in pressed suits flanked the entrance, and once I stated my business, one led me inside, all deference.

I'd known what I was walking into. I handed over the file, then pinned the fake smile on myself and made the rounds with the bottle, pouring, toasting.

Most of the time, a file drop doesn't need me in the flesh. But tables like this always want a pretty girl to warm them up.

So I walked into the kind of place my broke, coupon-clipping boyfriend could never have afforded to set foot in.

Not knowing I'd just walked into his.

Chapter 2

"Director Bauer, this is Rosalind, from our tech team. She'll walk you through the specs. Trust me, she's the real deal."

The client's fingers grazed the back of my hand. I lowered my glass and slid out of reach without a word.

A lot of the time, I don't get to refuse out loud. Sometimes you just absorb the staring.

A few drinks in, I made an excuse and stepped out for air.

Around a corner in the hall, a door sat half-open, brass fittings catching the low light.

I almost walked past it. Then a voice came through the gap.

"God, it kills me. She actually thinks Adrian won't marry her because he's broke?"

My feet stopped.

"Sweet kid. Real trusting."

I took a few steps closer. Listened.

"I had someone pull her accounts. Her whole life's savings, every last dollar, two hundred seventy grand give or take. She emptied all of it into a down payment. Calls it their 'marriage home.'"

Two hundred seventy thousand.

"That wouldn't buy a closet in this city."

I'd stopped breathing.

"And the thrift-store costume, man. You've done laps around the world and you're still running the broke-boy act? Five years. Aren't you sick of dress-up?"

I thought about what he'd worn that morning. A jacket that looked cheap. Pants off some bargain site, fifty bucks at most. And a pair of limited-edition sneakers I'd chased down through three separate resellers to put on his feet.

I looked down at myself. Nothing on me came to more than a couple hundred.

Maybe I'd misheard. I pressed my palm against my fingers and pulled out my phone to call him.

Then a man inside leaned forward, hooked two fingers around the bottle on the table, and flicked it open like it cost nothing.

The motion turned his profile into the light.

The clothes on him. The careless, bone-deep ease of money on a man who'd spent five years swearing he had none.

The broke boyfriend I'd tucked into bed for five years cracked open in front of me, and what stood underneath was a stranger.

My fingers knotted in the hem of my coat. Knuckles white.

I opened my mouth and nothing came out. My throat had closed around the cold.

Adrian flicked a glance at the man who'd been talking. "I keep my own pace. Stay out of it."

"Come on. What pace takes five years? You said it was just for fun. Don't tell me you actually fell for the little Cinderella."

Adrian's hand paused over his lighter. A beat too long. Then he breathed out a laugh and looked away. "Listen to yourself."

"Even if you mean it. You really think you can marry her? Take my advice. Cut it clean, walk away. Don't waste the girl's best years. Let her go find someone in her own lane."

"Grayson." Adrian exhaled smoke, lazy eyes sliding over. "You talk too much."

"Heh." Grayson looked back at him, half a smile. "You're the quiet type, sure. But pull what you pulled last time, texting me at two in the morning to tap some share-to-win link for your Cinderella, and I'll end you before you finish the sentence."

A guy in glasses raised his hand, mild as milk. "I actually think those apps are great. Maxed out my big-spender badge."

Nobody looked at him. Grayson pushed on. "So when do you tell her?"

Adrian was quiet for a moment. "The day I get engaged."

"It's settled, then. The Whitmores?"

A pause. Then, easy as breathing:

"Mm."

Chapter 3

"So how are you going to play it? You know this is on you. It's not right."

"I won't play it at all. Adrian just disappears. Clean."

"Works for me. Honestly, if you hadn't gone looking for it, a girl like that would've lived her whole life without once crossing paths with people like us. When it's done, cut her a check. She gave you five years. Don't send her off empty."

The words came from some other world and drove straight through me anyway.

I looked at him. God, how I wanted him to open his mouth right then and say something different.

She's not like that. Rosalind is different. She's the woman you've been with for five years, your real girlfriend, out in the open, no question about it.

But no. He didn't argue. He didn't say one more word.

I stood frozen near the doorway. I clutched the deed I always kept in my bag, knuckles going white, and took a step back. Then another.

A thread of cigarette smoke drifted in the gap. I wanted to see through it to his face, the one that never gave anything away.

Tears dropped onto the paper, one, then another. I wiped them off fast, terrified of ruining it.

For years I'd told myself Adrian didn't dare bring up marriage because money was tight. Because he was scared he'd never get past my parents.

He'd heard every word the day my mother called. Heard it clearly.

"His parents are both gone, fine, but he's got less schooling than you, makes less than you, no house, no car. What exactly do you see in him? The face?

"With everything you've got going for you, what kind of man couldn't you land?

"Come home. I've got a whole lineup of sharp young men to introduce you to. Every one of them better than him."

I'd cupped a hand over the phone. "Mom, he just got staffed on a big project. He'll get a raise next month. And he works hard, he's good to me, I just love him.

"As for a place, we've saved enough for a down payment these last few years. Our two paychecks will cover the mortgage after that. See? It only gets better."

That night, after I hung up, I crouched by the bed and dug out every bank card I owned, laid them across the mattress one by one, and looked up at him. "Let's get married. I've got the money. Worst case, I'll take care of us both."

Something flickered through his eyes that I couldn't read, and he went still. All he said was three words. Give it time.

Back then I thought he meant wait. Wait for him to climb one more rung, wait for him to come marry me in style.

I never decoded that look. Looking back now, I think he was smiling.

Laughing at how easy I was to fool. At how my whole blazing heart wasn't worth a dime.

For days I'd been turning over how to surprise him just right.

While I was picturing a future with him in some warm, full little apartment, he was running the numbers on how to walk away clean from a five-year con.

It was so funny I couldn't stop the tears.

It took everything I had not to shove that door open.

I backed away, one step at a time. The truth sat on my chest until I couldn't breathe. I dropped my eyes and pressed the call button.

When I looked up, Adrian raised one hand, and the whole room went silent.

Chapter 4

I kept my voice level. "Still at work?"

His came back lazy through the speaker. "Yeah. Probably another hour or two. Why are you still up?"

I wiped my eyes. "I took a fall. I'm at the hospital."

Out of the corner of my eye, he sat up.

"Which hospital?" He motioned for someone to hand him his coat.

He hung up and crushed out his cigarette. One of them asked, "Where are you going? You just sat down."

"My girlfriend's in the hospital. I'm out."

"That counts as your girlfriend? She's barely"

The man didn't finish.

Adrian had a hand on the doorframe, and he looked back at him. Just looked. Nothing moving in his face, no heat in it at all, cold as the black water at the bottom of a winter lake. The voice died mid-word. The man went pale and said nothing more.

I didn't go to any hospital. I took a car home.

The place Adrian and I rented was a small one-bedroom. Just inside the door stood a bookshelf, a few books lined up on it. Leftovers from the year I dragged him through finishing his degree.

My mother wasn't wrong. He didn't have much schooling. When I met him, he told me he'd only made it through community college.

We were both young then. I just thought he was smart, that he had a whole long life ahead of him, that a little effort could get him off that bottom rung. Even for grunt work, a guy with a degree pulls better pay than one without.

So I worked my own job by day and sat up with him at night, drilling practice tests. Brushing our teeth side by side at dawn, I'd race to open the language app and run him back through yesterday's words.

Ten years of old exams. He'd do a set, and I'd go through every one right behind him.

We were on the clock, so we crammed it into six short weeks, and he passed.

To celebrate, even grabbing a cheap dinner out meant digging through three coupon apps first.

And now here I was, scrolling the answers Bianca had dug up, and the whole thing just felt absurd.

Bianca: [That name isn't his. And his real one, I can't tell you.]

Bianca: [His degree? Word is he did his undergrad at MIT, then Harvard after. Young, too. Very.]

I braced against the couch and pressed the heel of my hand hard into my forehead. Even my stomach had twisted into a knot.

The door opened from the outside. I looked up. Adrian, back from the hospital with nothing to show for it, windblown and breathing hard, one hand on the frame.

My phone had a wall of missed calls from him.

I watched him cross to me without a word. He lifted both hands, cupped my face, turned it side to side, and the tightness in his expression finally let go.

"Where'd you hurt yourself?" He knew he'd been played and couldn't have cared less. He just toyed with my fingers and smiled. "Let me put something on it before the cut closes up on its own."

Maybe I was too brave, too quiet, for him to have any idea what I was carrying right then.

I studied him. As if he had always been exactly this unhurried, as if he'd never once lost his head over anything thorny in his life.

I used to think it was a poor, bitter boyhood that had forged that even temper, that nerve to stand still while a mountain came down in front of him.

It never once occurred to me that an ease like that is far more likely grown from extreme power.

Chapter 5

I slid my hand free and looked straight ahead. "Adrian. My mom's pushing me to come home and start meeting men."

His hands went still. The smile hadn't finished leaving his face before it froze there, hard.

"But." I turned, smiling and crying at the same time, the same old love sitting in my eyes. "I told her. Me, I'll only ever marry Adrian. I'm waiting for him to marry me."

I just looked at him. I hadn't meant to cry. For some reason the tears wouldn't take the order.

"I told her we bought a little place. Once we're married, we move in. Then we have a kid. My folks will lose their minds over it. Boy or girl, doesn't matter. A girl with your eyes, she'd have those huge eyes. A boy with my coloring, pale all over."

I dropped my head and dug the papers out of my bag. "Look. When I bought it, I put your name on the deed."

Look at this, Adrian. How could you ever pay me back for these five reckless, full-hearted years of my youth?

Born at the summit. For you, every step down here is one too many.

Are you laughing somewhere inside, that everything I can hold out in both hands is one careless flick of your wrist in that gilded life of yours?

His fingers moved. He bent his head over the papers, and it was a long time before he looked up. "Rosie. I"

"What?" I made it light. "Isn't it the best surprise? Now you never have to be scared of my mom again."

The look my tears had scared into him vanished, and the lazy slouch slid back into place. "Yeah. My Rosie, the powerhouse. Says she'll keep me and means it."

His voice was too soft, too thin, and I almost missed it. "Don't cry. What's there to cry about. Nobody said no to marrying you."

But Adrian. As what, exactly, will you marry me?

I leaned against the table and dialed a number, head down.

While it rang, I watched him move around the kitchen. He'd always been the better cook of the two of us.

The call connected. I kept my voice quiet. "I've decided. I can take the London post."

"When?" I was somewhere far off, and then his eyes found me and snapped me back. "January twenty-eighth. Yes. That day."

That day was the day Adrian got engaged