I woke up the next morning to sunlight, warm sheets, and the deeply unsettling realization that I was being watched.
Not in a creepy way.
In a Sterling way.
Which, admittedly, was only slightly less alarming.
I cracked one eye open.
There he was.
Already awake. Already dressed from the waist up, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, one arm under my pillow, looking down at me like I was a financial report he had personally commissioned and intended to memorize.
“How long have you been awake?” I asked.
“A while.”
“That is not a time measurement.”
“No.”
I squinted at him. “Were you staring at me the whole time?”
“Yes.”
There was no shame in that answer whatsoever.
I would have found it more disturbing if I weren’t currently using his chest as a pillow.
“Why?”
Sterling brushed a strand of hair off my face.
“Because you’re still here.”
My entire body went still.
Because there it was again.
That rawness he only revealed when he forgot to hide it quickly enough.
I pushed myself up onto one elbow.
“Sterling.”
He looked at me.
I could still see the remnants of yesterday on his face, tucked away in the places most people would miss. The relief. The disbelief. The part of him that had spent twenty-four hours bracing for abandonment and still hadn’t fully relaxed.
The system flickered weakly back to life.
“Interface restored. Obsession meter recalibrated.”
I blinked.
“What’s it at?”
There was a pause.
Then, in a voice filled with existential exhaustion, the system said, “Host… there is no longer an obsession meter.”
I sat up straighter. “What?”
“The emotional state has shifted.”
“To what?”
Another pause.
Then, almost resentfully: “Mutual love with stable attachment.”
I stared ahead for two seconds.
Then I burst out laughing.
Sterling’s hand slid to my waist to steady me. “Should I be offended?”
“No,” I managed. “This is just the first good news I’ve gotten from that idiot machine in twenty-four hours.”
He studied my face.
“You’re happier this morning.”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
He seemed to absorb that quietly.
Then he said, “Good.”
That one word, in that voice, did something unreasonable to my insides.
I dropped back onto the bed and covered my face with a pillow.
Sterling pulled it away almost immediately.
“No hiding.”
“That’s rich coming from you.”
His mouth curved.
And then, because apparently the universe had decided I could not have a single peaceful morning, my phone exploded with notifications from downstairs.
Calls. Messages. Family group chats.
Sterling reached for his own phone on the nightstand, glanced at it, and his expression cooled by several degrees.
“What?” I asked.
He looked at me for a moment.
Then handed me his phone.
The headline on the business news alert made my stomach drop.
VANCE-CARTER STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP RUMORED AFTER PRIVATE DINNER SIGHTING.
Below it was a grainy photo from last night.
Not of me.
Of Sterling standing when Vanessa approached the table.
From that angle, with me blocked by the floral display, it looked exactly like an intimate dinner between the two of them.
I sat up so fast the blanket nearly strangled me.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Sterling’s expression was glacial. “I’m handling it.”
I stared at the article again.
Anonymous sources. Market speculation. Nauseating phrases like suitable match and powerful alliance.
Then I saw the name beneath the byline.
Briar Cole.
Society columnist. Professional parasite. Human embodiment of designer venom.
“She posted this at six-thirty in the morning?” I said. “Does she sleep in a coffin?”
Sterling took back the phone and typed something with swift, economical movements.
“What are you doing?”
“Destroying her credibility.”
That sounded hot.
And probably illegal.
I approved.
My own phone buzzed again.
This time it was from my mother-in-law.
Not texting.
Calling.
I stared at the screen like it was live ammunition.
Sterling glanced over. “Answer it.”
“You say that like your mother doesn’t terrify hedge fund managers.”
“She likes you.”
“She likes the version of me that brings chaos to charity events.”
“That is still you.”
Unfortunately, that was true.
I answered on speaker.
“Good morning, Evelyn.”
“Is it?” came my mother-in-law’s cool voice. “Because I have opened the news before breakfast, Chloe, and I would like to know whether I need to start ruining journalists before coffee.”
I sat up straighter. “No, ma’am. Sterling says he’s already ruining one.”
There was a brief silence.
Then, from the phone, a soft exhale that might have been amusement.
“Good,” Evelyn said. “He’s slow in the mornings.”
Sterling’s jaw tightened. “Mother.”
“I assume the girl in silver is irrelevant?”
“Extremely,” I said at the same time Sterling said, “Yes.”
Another pause.
Then Evelyn said, in the tone of a woman filing the information neatly for future use, “Fine. Then I’ll only ruin the columnist.”
I loved her a little.
The call ended two minutes later with three directives, a lunch invitation, and an unrelated critique of some senator’s wife’s taste in floral arrangements.
I lowered the phone slowly.
Sterling looked at me. “You’re smiling.”
“I think your mother may be my favorite member of either family.”
“She’ll be delighted to hear that.”
“I absolutely will not tell her. It would make her too powerful.”
Sterling’s phone buzzed again.
He checked the screen, then looked at me with an expression I had come to recognize as irritation wrapped around logistics.
“What now?”
“There’s going to be a board issue.”
I blinked. “From one tabloid photo?”
“Yes.”
“Your executives are dramatic.”
“My board includes two uncles, a cousin, three men who think rumors are governance, and one woman who enjoys blood in the water purely as a hobby.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
He set the phone down.
Then, infuriatingly calm, he said, “Come with me today.”
I stared at him.
“To work?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sterling looked almost surprised by the question.
“Because if I walk into Vance Global with you at my side, the rumor dies before lunch.”
That made sense.
Annoyingly elegant sense.
Then he added, “And because I don’t want you far from me today.”
My heart did the stupid thing again.
The system murmured, “Stable attachment remains intact, but the male lead is displaying protective focus.”
I silently asked it whether it could shut up forever.
It declined.
By ten a.m., I was in one of Sterling’s spare offices upstairs changing into a cream suit I’d forgotten I owned and trying to mentally prepare myself for appearing at Vance Global headquarters for the first time in months.
The last time I’d gone, I had ended up straddling Sterling in his chair while he signed acquisition papers.
In front of a frosted glass wall.
That several people definitely could not see through.
Probably.
Now I was returning as a respectable wife with a functioning sense of emotional reality.
This was frankly less comfortable.
Sterling waited for me by the elevator in a dark suit that made him look like money had developed a jawline.
When he saw me, his gaze lingered for exactly one beat too long.
I raised a brow.
“What?”
“You should come to the office more often.”
“That sounded like an HR violation.”
“I own HR.”
“That’s worse.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
We stepped into the private elevator together.
The doors closed.
The space was mirrored, polished, far too intimate.
I folded my arms.
Sterling stood beside me, one hand in his pocket.
Then, without looking at me, he said, “Vanessa didn’t approach me last night by accident.”
I turned to him. “What?”
He met my eyes in the mirror.
“She knew I was there.”
My stomach dropped.
“Are you saying she set it up?”
“I’m saying Briar Cole doesn’t get a clean rumor package by coincidence.”
Heat flashed through me.
Not fear this time.
Anger.
“Why would Vanessa do that?”
Sterling’s expression went flat. “Because certain people mistake silence for invitation.”
That sentence did not help my temper.
At all.
The elevator opened onto the executive floor.
The second we stepped out, conversations shifted.
Heads turned.
Assistants straightened.
Analysts tried and failed not to stare.
Sterling, unbothered, took my hand in full view of everyone and walked me straight through the center of the floor.
Whispers ignited in our wake.
By the time we reached the boardroom, the rumor had probably already died and been replaced by seventeen others.
Good.
Let them work for it.
The board meeting was exactly as terrible as Sterling had implied.
His uncles looked constipated by capitalism.
His cousin Graham gave me a relieved nod, like my existence was the only thing keeping the day from becoming a hostile takeover of family dignity.
One silver-haired board member smiled at me and asked, “Mrs. Vance, joining us unexpectedly?”
Sterling answered before I could.
“My wife is here because I asked her to be.”
The man smiled more tightly. “Of course.”
Then came the real issue.
Not the photo, exactly.
But what it implied.
Vance Global was in late-stage talks on a merger with Carter BioSystems—Vanessa’s family company. A rumor about personal ties between Sterling and Vanessa could shift leverage, stir speculation, affect stock movement, invite scrutiny.
It was corporate gossip with dollar signs attached.
Gross.
One of the uncles cleared his throat. “Sterling, given the optics, perhaps it would be wise to create some distance from—”
“My wife?” Sterling said.
The room went quiet.
The uncle adjusted. “From any distractions.”
Sterling sat back in his chair and folded his hands.
The temperature in the room dropped.
“Let me make this simple,” he said. “There is no personal relationship between me and Vanessa Carter. There has never been one. Any suggestion otherwise will be handled legally.”
His gaze swept the table.
“As for distractions, if any of you intend to frame my marriage as a governance issue because a gossip columnist got creative with camera angles, you can save your energy for someone with less patience.”
No one spoke.
Good.
I was having a wonderful time.
Then Graham, bless his messy soul, said, “For what it’s worth, Chloe being here is probably the clearest possible message.”
I liked him instantly.
Sterling didn’t react, but one corner of his file shifted an inch. Which I had learned was basically the billionaire equivalent of gratitude.
The meeting should have ended there.
It didn’t.
Because evil never rests.
About forty minutes in, the assistant at the door stepped in and quietly informed Sterling that Vanessa Carter was requesting five minutes in person regarding the pending merger.
My head snapped up.
Sterling’s expression didn’t change.
“Reschedule,” he said.
The assistant hesitated. “She says it’s urgent.”
Of course she did.
Because women like Vanessa never called things urgent unless there were witnesses.
Sterling was about to repeat himself when I touched his sleeve.
His gaze slid to mine.
“Let her in,” I said softly.
He looked at me.
Careful.
Questioning.
I smiled.
Not sweetly.
The system whispered, with awe, “Host is entering combat mode.”
Yes.
Yes, I was.
Vanessa entered five seconds later in a dove-gray suit, polished and stunning and composed enough to make magazine covers sigh.
She stopped when she saw me.
Again.
I truly was becoming one of her least favorite recurring surprises.
“Mrs. Vance,” she said.
“Vanessa,” I replied.
She turned to Sterling.
“I won’t waste your time. The article this morning is becoming a problem for both our companies. I thought it best to discuss a unified response.”
Sterling’s tone was cool. “Legal is handling the response.”
Vanessa nodded. “Naturally. But perception matters.”
I smiled brightly.
“It does,” I said. “Which is why I’m so glad you came in person. It’s always easier to clear up misunderstandings face-to-face.”
Vanessa’s eyes shifted to me.
There it was again.
That polite, polished smile women wore when they wanted to socially slap each other with crystal glassware.
“I agree,” she said.
So we were doing this.
Excellent.
I folded my hands on the table.
“Then let’s be perfectly clear,” I said. “Any perception that my husband is personally available, romantically ambiguous, or emotionally receptive to outside interest is false.”
One of the board members choked on absolutely nothing.
Vanessa’s smile thinned.
“Of course,” she said. “No one is suggesting otherwise.”
“Briar Cole did.”
“That was not authorized by me.”
I tilted my head. “Then you won’t mind publicly correcting it.”
Vanessa held my gaze.
Sterling remained silent beside me.
He was letting me do this.
Which was either deeply supportive or wildly entertaining for him.
Possibly both.
Vanessa said, very carefully, “I have no objection to correcting a misinterpretation.”
“Wonderful.” I leaned back. “Then we all want the same thing.”
Sterling finally spoke.
“Yes,” he said. “An end to this.”
His voice was polite enough to cut diamonds.
Vanessa looked at him.
And in that look, finally, I saw it.
Not love.
Not even hope, exactly.
Calculation.
She hadn’t wanted Sterling.
She had wanted the possibility of Sterling. The prestige. The story. The leverage. The way men like him made women like her even more untouchable in public imagination.
The second I understood that, my anger sharpened into something colder.
She had tried to use my marriage as a line item.
Unforgivable.
Vanessa must have read something in my face, because her own expression cooled.
She turned back to Sterling. “I’ll have my team coordinate with yours.”
“Do that,” he said.
And that was all.
She left.
The room breathed again.
One of the uncles muttered, “Well.”
Sterling rose to his feet.
“Meeting adjourned.”
People moved quickly after that.
No one wanted to be the last one in a room after Sterling used that tone.
As the boardroom emptied, I stayed seated for a moment, adrenaline crashing through me all at once.
Sterling came around the table and stopped beside my chair.
“You enjoyed that,” he said.
I looked up at him. “A little.”
His mouth curved.
Then, unexpectedly, he offered me his hand.
I took it.
He helped me up, and before I could say anything clever, he bent his head and kissed my temple.
Right there.
In the boardroom.
In his office tower.
With two assistants and one fleeing director definitely still in view through the glass.
I stared at him.
He looked entirely unconcerned.
“What was that for?”
“For being my wife,” he said.
My brain short-circuited.
Utterly.
Completely.
The system sighed dreamily. “Stable attachment remains disgusting.”
I had never felt more understood.