The rain fell as if the sky had decided to mourn with her.
Lina ran down the wet sidewalk, heart tight, breath uneven. The tears streaming from her eyes mixed with the cold water dripping from her loose hair. Her mind replayed, like a broken tape, the scene she had just witnessed: her ex-boyfriend tangled up with her half-sister inside the family car. Smiles, hands, kisses—so shameless it was cruel.
She only stopped running when she noticed the flickering sign of a corner bar. A discreet, dimly lit place with low music and customers who looked as defeated as she felt. The perfect place to drown sorrows… or disappear for a few hours.
She walked in without hesitation.
The smell of damp wood, strong alcohol, and fried food wrapped around her. The warm lights gave everything a hazy, almost comforting atmosphere. Lina slid onto a barstool and rubbed her trembling hands on her soaked skirt.
"Tequila," she murmured. Her voice cracked. "Two… three. Anything."
The bartender shot her a sympathetic look and asked no questions. In that moment, Lina appreciated that more than she expected.
She drank too fast, as if the alcohol could scrape out years of humiliation, a family that never valued her, dreams shelved for lack of money… and now a betrayal no one deserved to witness.
That was when a man walked into the bar.
The door swung open with a soft bang, letting cold wind cut through the room.
Lina didn't notice at first—she was too busy staring at her empty glass—but everyone else did. Their eyes turned toward him with a mix of surprise and quiet respect.
An impeccable dark suit, a perfectly straight posture, a cold expression. Handsome in a way that bordered on intimidating, his presence seemed out of place in that rundown bar. And yet… there he was.
Adrian Luce.
The youngest—and most feared—CEO in the city.
He walked toward the counter but stopped less than a meter from Lina. Suddenly, a faint flush appeared on his skin, as if something bothered him.
"Allergy…" he muttered under his breath, frowning. That explained why he kept his distance from the nearby women.
But when his eyes landed on Lina, something unexpected happened.
The itching vanished. His breathing steadied. The discomfort disappeared, as if it had never existed.
Impossible.
He stepped closer instinctively, his eyes narrowing with curiosity… and surprise. Lina, in turn, turned toward the new presence and blinked several times, trying to focus.
"You… look like someone important," she murmured with a crooked little smile only slightly drunk people could pull off.
He raised an eyebrow.
"You're crying," he said, completely ignoring her tipsy provocation.
"And you're handsome," she retorted, resting her chin on the counter.
Adrian froze. Almost no one spoke to him like that. Almost no one dared. Or was allowed.
"How much did you drink?" he asked.
"Less than I wanted, more than I should've," she replied with painful honesty.
There was a brief silence as they simply stared at each other—Lina with her red, slightly blurry but beautiful eyes; Adrian with an unreadable expression, as if analyzing every detail of her.
Something about that fragile, soaked, broken girl… drew him in in a way he couldn't understand.
And without thinking too much, he offered her his hand to help her up.
She took it.
Maybe it was the alcohol.
Maybe it was fate.
Maybe both.
The only certainty was that, that night, the two of them walked out of the bar together. And their worlds—so different, so distant—collided hard.
The next morning, Lina would wake up in an unfamiliar bed, in a luxurious bedroom, with a terrible headache… and a man sitting beside her, watching her as if she were the key to something he'd been searching for his entire life.
And he wouldn't take long to say:
"Marry me."
Because she was the only woman in the world he wasn't allergic to.
The only one.
And that changed everything.