My Contract Husband Promised Not to Touch Me, Then I Started Wishing He Would

EMMA'S POV

Breakfast was served in the main lodge, in a long cedar room with windows facing the mountains. By eight-thirty, it was already full of people who looked like they owned things.

Adrian stopped just inside the doorway and lowered his voice. "My uncle's at the far table. Gray suit. He'll come to us."

"How do you know?"

"Because he hates waiting for information."

He was right. We'd barely made it ten steps before a man in his late fifties stood up and spread his arms like a game show host.

"There he is. And this must be the mystery bride." Richard Vale had Adrian's height and none of his stillness. His handshake lasted a second too long. "Emma, is it? I have to say, the whole family was stunned. Adrian doesn't even tell us when he switches phones."

"It happened fast," I said.

"Clearly." He smiled. "Sit, sit."

Adrian pulled out a chair for me before I could reach for it. The legs scraped softly against the floor. He waited until I was seated, then took the chair beside mine, close enough that our shoulders were almost touching.

Richard didn't even let me unfold my napkin.

"So, where did you two meet?"

I'd prepared for this. Marcus had given me a one-page summary on the drive up. Charity event, mutual friend, six months of dating. I opened my mouth.

"When did you start seeing each other?" Richard went on. "And what is it about my nephew, exactly? Because I've known him thirty-two years, and charming isn't the word that comes to mind."

A couple of people at the table laughed. A woman across from me leaned in, interested.

None of this was in the contract.

"Well," I started, "we actually met at a—"

"She hates answering personal questions before coffee," Adrian said.

He said it lightly, already signaling the server. A cup appeared in front of me thirty seconds later.

I stared at it.

Last night, before I'd locked myself in the bedroom, I'd come out once for water. He'd been on the porch with his laptop, and I'd muttered something about how Marcus had emailed me twelve questions at six in the morning and nobody should be interrogated before caffeine. I hadn't even been talking to him. I'd been talking to the fridge.

He'd remembered.

Richard chuckled, but his eyes stayed sharp. "Protective. That's new."

"I've always been protective," Adrian said. "You just never had anything I wanted to protect."

The table went quiet for half a second. Then someone laughed again, and the conversation moved on.

I wrapped both hands around the cup and drank, mostly so I'd have something to do with my face.

---

After that, it didn't stop.

A cousin came over to say hello, and Adrian shifted his arm slightly away from his body. Just an inch. Enough space. I understood and slid my hand into the crook of his elbow like I'd done it a hundred times. His arm was warm and solid under the wool of his jacket.

He didn't look at me, but I felt him relax.

When an older board member's wife insisted on a photo of "the newlyweds," Adrian turned toward me first.

"Okay?" he asked quietly.

One word. One second. Then his hand settled at the small of my back, light enough that I could have stepped away without effort.

I didn't step away.

The woman took four pictures. In every one, I was smiling like someone who'd been married for years.

That was the problem. He never grabbed. He never assumed. Every touch came with a pause, a small space where I could say no. And because of that space, I noticed every single one of them.

By the time the board meeting started at ten, I'd stopped counting.

---

The conference room had a view of the outdoor pools and a projector showing renovation plans. I'd assumed I'd sit in the back and look supportive. Instead, Adrian sat me at the table beside him.

Forty minutes in, Richard leaned back in his chair.

"Since we have a fresh perspective in the room," he said, "Emma, I'm curious. The younger market says our brand feels dated. What do you think we should do about it?"

Every head turned toward me.

I knew what he was doing. He'd decided I was the pretty wife Adrian had picked up for the vote. He wanted me to say something cute about Instagram so he could smile and move on.

Adrian didn't say a word. He didn't touch my hand or give me a look. He just waited.

I put down my pen.

"Honestly? The problem isn't that your properties are old," I said. "It's that every renovation is trying to make them look new."

Richard's smile faded slightly.

I nodded at the screen. "That lobby redesign. Gray stone, recessed lighting, the same lounge chairs I've seen in three airport hotels this year. It's clean. It's also completely forgettable. People don't drive four hours into the mountains for a lobby they could get downtown."

"Modernization is what guests expect," Richard said.

"Comfort is what guests expect. That's different." I turned to the board chair, a silver-haired woman named Margaret Osei who hadn't spoken all morning. "What you have here is privacy and history. Eighty-year-old cedar. Original bathhouses. That's what people pay for, and it's exactly what your renovations keep removing. You're paying a lot of money to erase the most valuable thing you own."

No one spoke.

Richard opened his mouth, then closed it.

Margaret looked at me for a long moment. Then she turned to her assistant. "Get her thoughts in writing. I want them in next quarter's proposal."

Under the table, Adrian's knee brushed mine. It might have been an accident.

I didn't think it was.

---

The hallway outside was empty when I finally caught up to him.

"You knew he'd ask me."

"No."

"Then why weren't you worried?" I stepped in front of him. "I could've said something stupid. He would've used it against you for the rest of the week."

Adrian looked down at me. His expression didn't change, but his voice did. It got quieter.

"Because you're not a wife I rented to nod along."

I didn't have an answer for that.

He held my gaze a second longer, then walked on toward the elevators. I stood there in the hallway, feeling something I hadn't agreed to in any contract.

---

When we got back to the villa that night, housekeeping had come and gone.

The rose petals were gone. The bed had been remade with fresh white linen, the pillows stacked neatly against the headboard.

Through the open paper doors of the side room, I could see the daybed.

It hadn't been touched by housekeeping. A thin blanket was folded at one end, but badly, like someone had given up halfway through. A pillow had been jammed against the wall at an angle that couldn't have been comfortable. One corner of the blanket hung all the way to the floor.

Six foot three. On that.

He'd been on calls since lunch and hadn't complained once.

Adrian dropped his keys on the counter and started loosening his cuff links, like last night. I kept looking at that blanket.

"You can sleep in the bedroom tonight," I said.

He looked up.

"The bed's huge," I added quickly. "We can each take a side. There's plenty of room. It's really not a big deal."

He didn't move. The cuff link sat half undone in his fingers.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

That was all. He didn't tease me or jump at the offer. He just asked, the way he had before the photo this morning, and left the space open for me to take it back.

And suddenly, standing between the bed and the daybed with my heart pounding, I wasn't sure at all.