Fake Date, Real Fate-Chapter 78: Surviving Miss Miller

ADRIEN’S POV

I have been good so far.

Seriously. I haven’t acted strangely since the day I apologized to her, and have made it a point to conduct myself accordingly.

Professionally and Respectfully. No more... weirdness.

I have kept my distance and stuck to the damn title—"Miss Miller"—like my sanity depended on it which it apparently does.

I have refrained from looking at her longer than necessary and I have only spoken to her when it was work related.

I treated her exactly like what she is: my assistant. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It’s been... manageable.

Even easier, considering I haven’t needed her beyond basic tasks.

Although we still have that contract looming between us, but so far, there hasn’t been a situation where I needed her to play the part again.

I was reviewing the last column of a financial report when the door finally opened.

Then she walks in.

Her heels click against the polished floor like a slow countdown. Her expression? Calm and neutral.

She placed the mug on my desk

I almost ask her why the hell it took her so long to bring a damn cup of coffee, but I bite it back. No need to poke at peace.

Instead, I picked up the mug, and took a sip, keeping my eyes glued on the screen.

And—

...What the—

My fingers twitch. My throat clenches.

What the actual hell is this?

I looked at the mug and then back at the screen.

Maybe I’m overreacting.

Maybe I imagined the taste.

I go in for a second sip— slower this time — just to make sure my mouth hadn’t temporarily lost its mind.

Jesus Christ.

I almost spit it back into the cup. My jaw tightened like it was going to crack, somehow it got worse the second time.

My hand almost convulsed and I almost dropped the mug.

What is this? Battery acid with a hint of psychological warfare?

She had never made a bad coffee. Not once. So what changed?

Is she trying to poison me now?

My face must have twisted into some kind of unholy mask because the muscles around my eyes and mouth felt strained, like they were trying to reject the very air I was breathing.

This wasn’t just bad coffee; this was... actively bad. Like someone had intentionally mixed the bitterest, most burnt grounds with dishwater and then stirred it with a venomous spider leg.

Then her voice cuts in, smooth and far too pleasant.

"Is... is everything to your liking, Mr. Walton?"

My jaw muscles screamed in pain because of how hard I was trying to keep my mouth still. My tongue felt like it had been scraped raw using sandpaper soaked in lighter fluid.

Every instinct I had hollered at me to spit this atrocity back into the mug and demand answers, demand to know what kind of sick experiment she had conducted.

I set the mug down carefully. Deliberately. Like it might explode.

Looked up at her for a brief second—just long enough to read the question in her eyes.

Is she still mad at me?

Is this about the damn gold digger comment again? How long is she going to keep holding that over my head?

I don’t even know how to explain what I just drank. I think part of my soul left my body.

"It’s... strong, Miss Miller," I manage, voice even. Barely.

A pause to catch my breath—and maybe my will to live.

"Very strong."

Her expression didn’t shift, not by an inch. Calm, neutral, maybe... expectant? Like she was waiting for me to elaborate or maybe waiting for me to finally crack and spew the tar-like liquid onto my pristine report.

My stomach twisted and churned. It wasn’t just the taste but the total wrongness of it. It tasted like the potion you would make in a cauldron, not a coffee machine. Every nerve in my mouth recoiled.

I pick up the pen beside the paperwork and go back to pretending she hasn’t just tried to assassinate me via caffeine.

"Thank you. You may leave."

She turns. Starts walking toward the door. I know she is still watching. Waiting. So I do what any man with pride and a death wish would do—

I take another sip.

And the world tilted.

My vision blurred for a second. Not blacking out but like my eyeballs recoiled, trying to hide from the sheer unadulterated offence that just coated my tongue and my esophagus, possibly even seeping into my brain.

My eyes water, but I keep them glued to the financial report, feigning intense concentration.

My chest felt tight, like someone had just dropped a sack of wet cement onto it.

Swallowing was an act of sheer, pig-headed defiance. My body screamed, Reject! Eject! Abort mission!

My hand trembled a little as I set the mug back down. Every taste bud was screaming, a symphony of burnt rubber, forgotten locker-room socks and a bitter metallic tang of pure spite.

I should get a medal or a funeral.

The door clicked behind her and I dropped the mug like it was acid, then sprinted to the washroom in my office.

My hand slapped down on the porcelain sink to steady myself. The world didn’t just tilt; it was doing a full-blown loop-the-loop. I leaned over, the taste... the linger of it was an assault on my very being.

I turned the tap on full blast, cupped my hands and splashed water into my mouth. I rinsed, gargled, spat. Again and again.

My mouth felt scoured, raw, like someone had scrubbed it out with a wire brush dipped in battery acid. My tongue felt numb and simultaneously burned.

I stared into the mirror, my reflection pale, eyes wide with something that looked like horror. My jaw was still tight.

What. The. Hell.

My stomach twisted again with painful nausea. It wasn’t just the taste; it was the feeling. Like I’d swallowed something actively hostile, something that was currently staging a coup in my digestive system.

What in God’s name did she do? Did she use salt instead of sugar? Did she find the absolute oldest, most disgusting filter grounds in the city? Did she boil the water in a rusty pail? It defied logic. It defied physics. It defied everything I knew about the simple act of brewing coffee.

She did this. She absolutely did this on purpose.

The calmness, the neutrality in her expression. It wasn’t just a poker face; it was the face of someone executing a plan. A plan to... what? Torture me with coffee? This wasn’t accidental. This wasn’t a bad batch. This was malicious.

Is this how she’s retaliating? By brewing the most vile liquid known to man and serving it with a sweet smile? The gold digger comment. It has to be. How long is she going to punish me for that one stupid, idiotic, admittedly terrible remark?

Damn, I’m sweating.

I picked up the mug again but not to take a drink. Hell no.

I carried it carefully like a dangerous chemical to the small kitchen area.

I poured its contents down the sink and watched the black liquid spiral away. Even the smell seemed vaguely threatening.

I rinsed the mug repeatedly, scrubbing it harder than necessary, trying to erase its connection to the recent horror.

Isabella Miller is trying to kill me.

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