It’s been four days since I started working at StreamEats, and I’m simply going through the motions.
My apartment looks exactly how I left it before Vegas—an explosion of cookbooks, thrift-store furniture that’s charming in the “this might collapse if you sit wrong” way, plants in various stages of thriving or dying (no in-between), and my grandmother’s vintage French copper pots hanging above the stove like I’m one good decision away from being a functional adult.
It smells like the lavender candle I forgot to blow out before I left, mixed with the faintly sour, vaguely threatening scent of the sourdough starter on my counter.
Everything is the same.
Except I’m married to my CEO.
And the entire internet knows about it.
Fresh from another day where I had to hide in the supply closet to avoid Victor, I drop my briefcase by the door and face-plant onto my velvet thrift-store couch.
My phone has been on silent since I got called into a “meeting” this morning with Victor’s terrifying—and freakishly stylish—publicist.
Rachel Stone.
A woman who looks like she could negotiate peace treaties while simultaneously destroying your self-esteem, she corralled me into her office with a flick of her red nails. I had no choice but to follow.
Especially when I walked in to find Victor sitting there.
Dark suit tailored to perfection on his broad shoulders, he raised those naval gray irises to mine, his gaze crashing over me like a wave.
“Miss Beaumont,” he rumbled before looking away again.
I straightened. “Mr. Kade.”
“Harper,” Rachel fired. “We need to talk. Strategy. Narrative. Damage control. I’ll email you a media plan by tonight. Until then—no social media, no interviews, no talking to anyone who might have a recording device. Including your hairdresser.”
“I don’t have a hairdresser.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
Then she’d turned to Victor and said something in a low voice that made his jaw clench, handed us both folders marked CONFIDENTIAL, and picked up her phone and made a call.
Victor and I remained frozen, holding our ridiculous folders, not looking at each other.
“So,” I’d said finally. “That was?—”
“It’s the end of the work day.” He stood to his feet, buttoning his suit jacket. “Go home, Miss Beaumont.”
“I was just going to say?—”
“I’ll handle this.” He’d looked at me with a gaze as hard as cement. “We’ll coordinate through Rachel. Keep your schedule clear for tomorrow. We have… logistics to discuss.”
“Logistics.”
“Yes.”
“You mean like how to un-marry your employee?”
His jaw had knotted and then loosened. “Among other things.”
Then he’d walked out of the leopard-patterned office and left me standing there with my folder and my shame.
Now I’m home. Alone. Married.
And catastrophically screwed.
