Accidentally Bound
Chapter 3
Almost
The work emergency arrived on a Thursday in the form of a frantic client email and a dead hard drive.
Elena stared at the blue screen of death on her laptop and felt her entire week collapse. The presentation files for the biggest branding project of her year were trapped inside a machine that now made a noise like a dying dishwasher.
Adrian appeared at her shoulder without being asked. “May I?”
She hesitated only a second before sliding the laptop toward him. “If you can save the files, I’ll name my firstborn after you.”
“No need for blood oaths.” He sat at her desk, opened a terminal window she didn’t even know existed, and began typing with the focused calm of someone who had done this a thousand times. “How recent is your last backup?”
“Tuesday. Maybe.”
He made a low sound that might have been disapproval or sympathy. “We’ll work with what we have.”
Twenty minutes later the files were extracted, transferred to an external drive he produced from his own bag, and opened on his laptop without a single complaint about the inconvenience.
Elena exhaled for what felt like the first time in an hour. “You’re officially my favorite accidental husband.”
The words left her mouth before she could stop them. Heat climbed her neck.
Adrian’s hands stilled on the keyboard. When he looked up, something warm and dangerous flickered in his eyes. “I’ll take the title.”
The air between them did that thing again—tightening, heating, becoming too aware of how close their chairs were.
Elena cleared her throat and stepped back. “I need to finish the presentation. The client wants it tomorrow morning, and the files are a mess.”
“Then we should go somewhere with better internet and fewer distractions.” He closed his laptop. “I have access to a place outside the city. Quiet. Fast connection. You can work without Mrs. Delgado’s television bleeding through the floor.”
She should have said no. Temporary roommates did not take weekend work trips together.
Instead she heard herself ask, “How far?”
“Forty minutes. An Airbnb I use when I need to concentrate. It’s already paid for through the weekend.”
Of course it was.
Two hours later they were in his car—an unremarkable dark sedan that somehow still smelled expensive—heading north. Elena clutched her external drive like a talisman and tried not to notice the way Adrian’s hands looked on the steering wheel.
The house was a modern cabin tucked among trees, all clean lines and floor-to-ceiling windows. It was the kind of place that belonged in design magazines, not in the temporary life of an IT support specialist.
Elena stood in the entryway and turned in a slow circle. “This is not a normal Airbnb.”
“It belongs to a friend.” Adrian set their bags down. “He lets me use it when he’s out of town.”
Another careful answer. Another almost-truth.
She let it go. She had a presentation to finish.
They worked on opposite sides of the long dining table as afternoon slid into evening. Elena rebuilt the presentation from the recovered files. Adrian handled whatever remote crises kept lighting up his phone. Every so often she would look up and find him already watching her, and the awareness would spark between them like a live wire.
By nine she was done. Exhausted. Wired.
Adrian closed his laptop. “You should eat.”
“I’m too tired to cook.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you cook.” He stood and crossed to the open kitchen. “Sit. I’ll handle it.”
She sat on the low couch facing the dark windows and listened to the quiet sounds of him moving around the kitchen. The domesticity of it should have felt strange. It felt dangerously natural.
He brought her a simple plate—pasta, garlic, whatever had been in the fridge—and sat beside her instead of across from her. Close enough that their knees almost touched.
They ate in silence. The only light came from a single lamp in the corner. Outside, the trees moved in a soft wind.
When the plates were empty, neither of them moved to stand.
Elena was acutely aware of every inch of space between them. Of the way his shoulder almost brushed hers when he shifted. Of the heat coming off his body in the cool room.
“This is getting complicated,” she said quietly.
Adrian turned his head. In the low light his eyes were darker than usual. “I know.”
“We said no complications.”
“We did.”
Neither of them looked away.
The moment stretched. Elena’s pulse was loud in her ears. She could have stood up. She could have gone to the guest room he had pointed out earlier and closed the door.
Instead she stayed exactly where she was.
Adrian’s gaze dropped to her mouth for half a second. When it returned to her eyes, the careful control he usually wore had thinned to something transparent.
“Elena.” Her name in that voice was a warning and a question at the same time.
She didn’t answer with words. She simply didn’t move away when he leaned in.
The first brush of his mouth against hers was careful, almost questioning. The second was not.
Heat flooded her so fast it made her dizzy. She made a small sound against his mouth and felt his hand come up to cup the side of her neck, thumb resting just under her jaw. The kiss deepened. Slow. Thorough. Dangerous.
When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathing harder than the situation should have required.
Adrian rested his forehead against hers for a second. “We should stop.”
“We should,” she agreed, even as her fingers curled into the front of his shirt.
He kissed her once more, softer this time, and then forced himself back. The loss of contact left her skin cold.
“Thirty days,” he said, voice rough. “We’re still in the middle of a legal mess. And there are things you don’t know about me.”
The honesty in the last sentence landed harder than the kiss.
Elena swallowed. “Then tell me.”
Something pained moved across his face. “Not yet. Not like this.”
She wanted to push. She also understood the look in his eyes—the same look she wore when she was protecting something fragile.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Not tonight.”
They went to separate rooms. Elena lay awake in the guest bed listening to the quiet of the house and the louder quiet of her own thoughts.
In the morning she would almost ask the questions that had been building since the first night.
Almost.
But the almost was getting harder to hold.