Contract Marriage To The Coldhearted Tycoon

Adaline balanced the heavy silver tray on her forearm, navigating the sea of pulsing bodies and spilling champagne. She pushed past the velvet rope into the private VIP mezzanine at the back of the club, where the deafening music subsided into a low, muffled roar.

Booth Four sat tucked into the deepest, darkest corner of the lounge, shielded by thick acoustic panels.

Slumped in the corner of the curved leather banquette, a man sat with his elbows braced on his knees, his broad shoulders heaving in jagged, irregular breaths. His head was buried in his hands, long, aristocratic fingers knotted violently into thick dark hair.

Adaline set the tray on the low glass table with a quiet clink.

"Your Macallan, sir."

The man didn't move. A sheen of cold sweat drenched his tailored charcoal shirt, turning the fine fabric translucent across the hard, sculpted lines of his back.

From the shadows behind the velvet drape, a woman in a skintight scarlet cocktail dress suddenly lunged forward. She reeked of cheap vanilla spray, her hands darting down to hook beneath the man's armpits, trying to lever his massive weight off the sofa.

"Come on, sweetheart," the woman cooed, her breath hot against his neck, a room keycard already gripped between her manicured fingers. "You're burning up. Let me get you to a private suite upstairs..."

Crack.

The man's arm lashed out with terrifying, whip-fast precision.

His forearm struck the woman's chest, the violent impact launching her backward. She hit the edge of the glass table, screeching as her heels slipped on the slick hardwood floor.

"Touch me again," the man rasped, his voice a gravelly, suffocating growl that rattled with pure physical agony, "and I will tear your throat out."

The woman scrambled to her feet, pale with shock. She caught the cold stare of two approaching security guards, realized her window for a honey-trap had collapsed, and melted into the shadows of the exit.

Adaline didn't run.

Instead, she stepped closer, her analytical instincts overriding caution. The man's pupils were dilated so wide his irises were swallowed in black. Veins corded along his thick forearms, his jaw locked so hard the bone looked ready to splinter.

This wasn't alcohol poisoning.

Years in hospital wards with Angus had taught Adaline the signs. He'd been drugged. Someone had spiked his scotch with a fast-acting aphrodisiac—something synthetic. His heart was redlining.

"Sir," Adaline said, her voice dropping into a calm, commanding register as she reached for the service radio at her hip. "You've been drugged. I'm calling our house medic—"

Before she could unclip the radio, he moved.

His hand shot through the dim light like an iron vice, clamping around her right wrist with bruising force.

Adaline gasped. The heat radiating through his palm scorched straight through the fabric of her black shirt. She tried to yank her arm back, but the man was an immovable wall of muscle and bone. His thumb pressed dead center against the rapid fluttering of her radial pulse.

"No medics," he ground out. Every word was dragged from his throat through sheer, agonized willpower.

"Let go of me!" Adaline hissed, leaning in, struggling against his grip. "Your pulse is hammering over one-sixty! You're having a hypertensive crisis!"

"The house staff... is compromised," he rasped, his dark, fever-blinded eyes locking onto hers through a pair of fogged, wire-rimmed glasses. The irises behind the glass were an unnerving, glacial steel-gray, burning with terrifying clarity despite the drug ravaging his body. "Standard ER will pump me full of sedatives. Combined with this drug, it could trigger a fatal arrhythmia. They will kill me on the gurney."

His grip tightened, pulling her down until her face was barely inches from his. The raw, masculine scent of expensive cedar, vintage peat scotch, and scorching fever flooded her senses.

"Do not let them touch me," he commanded, his breath searing her collarbone. Even slumped in an alley booth, drowning in the drug, he radiated the absolute, crushing authority of an apex predator staring down an executioner. "Get me out of this club. Secure room. Now."

Adaline stared into the dark abyss of his eyes.

She was looking at a complete stranger—a dangerous, lethal titan of the city who was one wrong heartbeat away from sudden death.

Twenty minutes ago, she had believed playing by the rules and giving eight years of her life to a high-society heir would earn her safety. It had earned her betrayal, humiliation, and a death sentence for her brother.

A reckless, defiant spark ignited in her chest.

"Can you stand?" Adaline asked, her voice turning razor-sharp.

The man gave a single, rigid nod.

Adaline stepped in, ducked beneath his massive arm, and hauled his scorching, heavy frame against her shoulder.