Chapter 78: Before You...After You
ADRIEN’S POV
The revelation hits me like a bucket of ice-cold water.
I stand frozen under the dim, expensive light of the church hallway, staring at Louise. My mouth is slightly open, my brain flatlining as her words echo off the quiet marble walls.
Ten years. Not once.
He didn’t even kiss the vulture?
My mind spins in circles, desperately trying to process what she just said. Orion? A virgin? The same Orion who looks at me like he wants to tear me apart and eat me alive?
The same shameless bastard who, literally five minutes ago, whispered in my ear about bending me over a table and ripping my clothes off in front of high society? He spent a whole decade with this beautiful, wealthy, perfect woman and never even kissed her?
She is objectively beautiful. I’m a hater not a liar.
For a second, a stupidly logical thought crosses my mind— maybe he’s just entirely broken. Maybe the ice-cold exterior that he shows everyone else extends to his bedroom.
But then a completely absurd realization pops into my head, and my stomach does a violent flip.
I let out a sharp, breathless laugh, my defensive walls instantly slamming back up like a shield. I look at Louise, my eyes narrowing into slits as I fall back on my favorite weapon— pure, unadulterated sarcasm.
"Wow, Louise," I drawl, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning my shoulder against the wall with fake relaxation.
"Are you actually trying to tell me that Orion Vassilis is a virgin? The terrifying, cold-blooded monster of our entire social circle is a pure, untouched maiden waiting for marriage? Please tell me you’re joking. It’s a bit early for April Fool’s."
I’ve literally caught that bastard making bedroom eyes at me.
Louise doesn’t flinch at my mocking tone. She doesn’t yell or throw her champagne glass at me, which almost scares me more. Her face remains tight, her skin pale, and her eyes glitter with a cold, dead sort of anger that feels entirely too real.
"To the best of my knowledge? Yes," she replies, her voice flat, sharp, and completely devoid of emotion.
Then, out of nowhere, she lets out another mocking, hollow laugh. It’s a self-deprecating, ugly sound that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
The ice queen is fully melting, and it isn’t pretty.
"Do you think I didn’t try to find out?" she continues, her voice dripping with bitter irony as she steps closer, her heels clicking aggressively against the tile.
"I’m more of a Dubois than you are, Adrien. I don’t just accept failure, and I certainly don’t accept being ignored. For years, I thought he was hiding someone. I thought he had a secret mistress locked away in some penthouse, or maybe a string of high-end escorts he visited in the dark to keep his reputation clean. I hired the best private investigators money could buy. I tracked his schedule, his cars, his bank accounts, his private flights."
She takes a step back, staring down at her champagne glass as if she wants to smash it into a thousand pieces against the gleaming floor.
"And do you know what I found after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, Adrien? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The man goes to business meetings, he goes to kill people, then he goes home. He had no interest in anyone. He didn’t look at women, he didn’t look at men, he didn’t look at anyone."
She looks back up at me, her eyes drilling straight into mine, delivering the final blow.
"Both before... and after you ran away at seventeen."
The words hit me like a physical punch to the gut. Before and after you ran away.
The air in the hallway suddenly feels entirely too thick, wrapping around my throat and making it hard to take a proper breath. The implication hangs between us, dark and infuriatingly heavy.
If Orion had absolutely no interest in anyone else, if he never touched a flawless woman like Louise in ten years, but he’s practically suffocating me with his unwanted, intense attention now...
What the hell does that mean?
Before I can stop it, Louise’s venomous words dredge up a memory I remember burying in the deepest, darkest corner of my mind.
I’m seventeen again.
The grand, suffocating halls of our elite academy are echoing with the distant sound of heavy rain beating against the glass.
Back then, my hatred for Orion was loud, violent, and completely irrational. I hated the way he looked at me like he owned me. I hated the way he controlled every room he walked into.
But somewhere along the line, during that chaotic final year before I finally escaped, that hatred had started to tilt. It had twisted into something else—something dark, confusing, and irritatingly hot.
I remember the heavy wooden door of the janitor’s closet at the end of the sports hall. I remember the sharp smell of bleach, old dust, and that suffocating, intoxicating scent of wood and smoke.
I remember being trapped. Orion had cornered me in the dark, his broad frame completely blocking out the light from the hallway, pressing me hard against the metal shelves until the edges dug painfully into my spine.
I had been breathing heavily, spitting insults at his face, swearing up and down that I would kill him if he didn’t back off. As usual.
But he didn’t back off. He didn’t even blink. He just stared down at me with those hungry, dark eyes that seemed to see right through my skin.
And then, he leaned down.
My heart hammers violently against my ribs right now as the vivid memory of his lips crushing against mine flashes through my brain.
I remember the searing heat of it. It was my first kiss. That damn bastard.
The bruising, desperate force. The taste of him completely filling my mouth, erasing every logical thought in my head until I was entirely consumed by him. I fought him for a split second, but my hands had ended up gripping the dark fabric of his jacket, pulling him closer even as my brain screamed at me to push him away.
I must have been drugged or something.
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