The first thing I notice is that my name is spelled right.
"Ms. Harper?" The receptionist's voice is soft, but the way she says my name—clear, precise—makes my skin crawl. My real name, not the version people usually mangle or the alias I've used for landlords who don't ask questions.
"That's me," I answer, because pretending it isn't would only make it worse.
Crowe Industries' executive floor smells like money and industrial-strength air freshener—sleek glass walls, dark wood floors, a massive abstract painting that looks like someone set fire to a landscape and then framed the remains. I keep my hands folded tight around my beat-up messenger bag like a shield.
Reception gestures to the double doors at the end of the hall. "Mr. Crowe will see you now. You can go right in."
Right, because that's what people like me do: stroll right into the office of a man worth more than most small countries.
My knees threaten mutiny. I nod instead of speaking, because my voice is too close to shaking. I walk. Each step taps out the rhythm of the last twenty-four hours against the polished floor: Police station. Questioning. Fraud. Marriage license.
"Don't run," I tell myself under my breath. "Running makes you look guilty."
The doors open on a whisper of hydraulics when I push. His office is too bright—floor-to-ceiling windows pouring honed, cold daylight over everything. A sprawling city view, a desk bigger than my entire studio apartment, and behind it, the man himself.
Aiden Crowe stands instead of sitting, one hand braced on the desk. The first time I saw him was on the office intranet, a clipped video message about productivity targets and "navigating the turbulence." In person, he's taller, the clean lines of his suit pressed like they were drawn on him. Dark hair, careful, annoyingly perfect. His tie is the same deep blue as the logo on every elevator wall downstairs.
His eyes are the thing, though. From the screen, they'd just looked sharp. Now, as they lock on me, they’re something else entirely—startled, almost raw, before the expression slams shut.
"Ms. Harper," he says, as if he hasn't been staring. His voice is low, even. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."
"I didn't know 'no' was an option," I say, and immediately want to bite my tongue. This is not the time for my mouth to go freelance.
A corner of his mouth moves—too fast to be a smile, more like a muscle memory trying to break through. "Please. Sit."
The chair across from his desk swallows me, soft leather against my palms. The door clicks quietly behind me as it closes; the sound traps the air in my lungs.
For a beat, neither of us speaks. The hum of the HVAC, the faint thrum of the city below, the distant ring of a phone outside—it all presses against the silence between us.
He slides a manila folder across the desk. My name is typed on an attached label, bold and inescapable: MAY ELAINE HARPER.
I eye it like it might bite. "I've already seen copies. At the station."
"These aren't copies." His gaze doesn’t leave my face. "These are the originals. Or what the county clerk believes are the originals."
The word county claws at old memories. Courthouses. Social workers. Judges who never once looked directly at me.
I force my lips to move. "They're forgeries. The officer said so. My signature—it's not mine. I've never even met—" I stop, swallow. My throat is dry. "I mean, I have definitely never married you."
There. Said it.
His jaw flexes. "I know."
"Great," I say, a brittle laugh scraping free. "I'm glad we agree on that part. Maybe you can explain it to the detective who thinks I'm running some kind of con on you. Because apparently, either I married you five months ago, or I'm a criminal mastermind with access to your legal team and a lot of free time."
Silence again. He watches me like he's cataloging each word, setting it somewhere inside some precise mental structure.
"You're not under arrest," he says. "You're not being charged."
"Yet," I snap, my hands tightening on the arms of the chair. "They used that word, too. 'Yet.'"
His gaze drops briefly to my hands. "May I?" he asks.
The question stuns me enough that I just blink.
"Your bag," he clarifies, nodding to where I'm gripping it. "You're cutting off circulation."
I release the strap like it's hot. "Right. Sorry. I'm just—"
"Scared," he finishes quietly.
The word hangs there. Accurate. Unbearable.
"I'm fine," I lie. I straighten my shoulders. "Look, Mr. Crowe—"
"Aiden," he says automatically. Then, slower, like he's correcting himself, "You can call me Aiden."
My brain short-circuits for a second at the intimacy of it. CEOs don't invite junior assistants to use their first names. They don't drag them into private offices or have their names on manila folders, either.
Aiden moves around the desk and takes the chair beside mine instead of the one opposite. The sudden proximity rearranges the air. I can see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, smell something expensive and understated on his skin—clean, like citrus and cold air.
"Ms. Har—" He stops, shifts. "May. I need you to listen carefully."
"I'm listening." My voice is thinner than I'd like.
"The documents are forged, yes," he says. "But they are, to every external eye, valid. The signatures match our records. The timeline fits. The witnesses are, on paper, real. The clerk who processed them is real. The problem is not proof of their authenticity. The problem is proving their falsity."
"Which means," I say slowly, "right now, legally, I'm…"
"My wife," he finishes.
The heartbeat I have been pretending is normal stutters hard. "That's insane. I didn't—this isn't—that's not—"
"I know you didn't do this," he interrupts, and there's steel under the soft. "I've already had our legal team and a forensic analyst review your signature against every document in your employment file. The discrepancy is clear." He hesitates. "And I know you."
I freeze. "You don't."
His eyes meet mine, and the intensity there feels like heat pretended to be distance. "I do."
My brain scrambles, searching for the least terrifying explanation. He's the CEO; maybe he "knows" me in the broad, corporate sense. Employee ID, productivity reports, whatever. But that's not what he sounds like. It's not what his gaze feels like, pinning me in place as if I'm a question he's been waiting to answer.
"You don't," I repeat, quieter. "I'm just an admin. I've worked here nine months. We've never even spoken before today."
"We have," he says, and there's something like pain flickering beneath his control. "You just don't remember. Or you don't want to."
The floor tilts, slightly. Old panic brushes at the edges of my vision, black spots like ash. "If this is some kind of game—"
"It's not." The word is clipped. He inhales once, a measured breath, like he's reining himself back. "But we don't have time for that conversation right now. We have a different problem." He leans forward, forearms on his knees, his voice going even lower. "Whoever did this was not trying to marry you to me. They were trying to blow up my life."
"So I'm collateral damage." The words taste bitter. "A convenient nobody."
His gaze sharpens. "You are not a nobody."
The conviction in his tone stops me more than the words. People have said nice things to me before, but no one has ever said that like it's an irrefutable fact.
I look away, to the windows, the endless grid of buildings and streets. "The detective said there's media interest. That your name's already involved. They asked how long I'd known you, whether I'd met any of your family." My laugh fractures. "They looked at my file and decided this must be my fault. Because of… because of before."
He knows what "before" means. I can tell by the way his fingers tighten briefly. "Your juvenile record is sealed," he says. "It should not have been accessed."
"But it was," I say. "And when people see 'foster kid' and 'fire' and 'fraud' in the same paragraph, they don't ask questions. They think they already know the answers."
He goes very still. For a second, it feels like the whole room has stopped breathing. "They were wrong then," he says softly. "They're wrong now."
My chest constricts. The way he says "then"—like it's something we both lived through—is wrong. Impossible.
I lick my lips. "What exactly do you want from me, Mr. Crowe—Aiden? Because the detective also said something about indictments, and if this is your idea of a courtesy meeting before you throw me under the bus, I would rather just call a lawyer and—"
"No." The word lands like a gavel. "I'm not throwing you anywhere." He turns slightly, facing me fully now, shoulders squared. "I brought you here to give you a choice."
A choice. My whole life has been other people's decisions. Judges. Foster parents. Caseworkers. Landlords. Men in suits.
"What choice?" I ask, wary.
"If we fight the validity of the documents head-on," he says, slipping back into CEO cadence, "it becomes a story. The forged marriage license, the mysterious assistant, my supposed lack of oversight. It invites scrutiny into your past and mine. Into my family, into your sealed case. It gives whoever orchestrated this exactly what they want: chaos."
"And the other option?" My voice is barely above a whisper.
Aiden studies me, like he's weighing how much truth I can take. "We don't fight the validity."
I stare. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," he says slowly, each word deliberate, "we accept it. Publicly. Temporarily. We control the story instead of letting it control us."
For a moment I think I misheard. "You want me to pretend to be your wife."
"Legally, you already are," he says. "All we'd be doing is acknowledging the existing paperwork and putting boundaries around it. A contract. A defined term. Protections for you and for me."
My heartbeat is riotous now, thudding in my ears. "That's—that's insane. You can't just—why would you even—"
"Because the alternative," he cuts in, "is worse. For you. For me. For everyone on my payroll when our stock takes another hit and the board panics." His gaze holds mine. "If we present this as a private decision we made months ago—an impulsive civil ceremony we chose to keep quiet—then the forged elements can be investigated behind the scenes without you being paraded as some sort of con artist. The narrative becomes 'secret marriage to avoid a circus' instead of 'criminal fraud.'"
"But it's a lie," I say. "We didn't get married. We didn't decide anything."
His lips press together. "Sometimes," he says, "the only way to survive a lie is to choose a different one. One we can manage."
A flare of anger cuts through the fear. "Easy for you to say. You have an army of lawyers. A PR machine. I have a closet with a broken door and a hamster named Taco."
A fraction of something almost like amusement flickers across his features. "You have a hamster named Taco."
"Don't laugh," I mutter. "He bites."
"I'm not laughing." His eyes soften, just a touch. "May, I am offering you protection. Legal, financial, reputational. I will make sure you are not destroyed by this."
"Why?" I blurt. The question has been building since the moment he said my name like he meant it. "Why do you care what happens to me? I'm not your responsibility. I'm—" My throat tightens around the next words: I'm used to taking the hit.
He looks at me so steadily that my skin prickles. "Because you didn't do this," he says. "Because you have already been blamed for enough things you didn't do. Because—" He stops himself, something unspoken hovering. "Because it's the right thing."
I hear the words he doesn't say anyway. Because I know you. Because of then.
My hands curl into fists against my knees. "And what happens if I say no?"
"Then," he says, no hesitation, "I still put every resource I have into proving the forgery. I still protect you as best I can. But you will be subpoenaed. You will be questioned. Your past will be dug up. I can't stop that without this… alternative." His jaw tightens. "And whoever did this will have more time to move, to cover their tracks, to use you as a weapon against me."
A dull boom echoes faintly from beyond the windows—construction, maybe—but it startles me anyway. My nerves are frayed raw. "So either I let you use me as a shield," I say slowly, "or I let them use me as a bomb."
He flinches at the metaphor. Just the smallest pull at the corner of his eyes, gone in a blink.
I take a breath that scrapes my lungs. Count the exits automatically: door behind me, windows (too high), the side door I hadn't noticed before that probably leads to a private corridor. Old habits.
"What would this… contract look like?" I ask at last.
Something in his posture loosens, like a cable easing. "Limited term. One year, maximum." He ticks points off on his fingers, each one cool and ordered. "Separate bedrooms. Clear financial provisions—I'll have my general counsel draft them with your own independent representation. No requirement of…" He catches himself, throat working. "Of intimacy."
Heat floods my face. "You mean sex."
He looks away briefly, color touching his cheekbones. "Yes. No requirement of that. This would be, on the record, a real marriage. But privately, it is a legal arrangement to mitigate damage and buy us time to investigate who is targeting us." He looks back at me. "And I will not cross any boundary you set."
He says it like a vow.
"Media?" I ask. "Your family? The board?"
"I'll handle them," he says. His voice sharpens, the CEO edge returning. "There will be media training, yes. Appearances we'll have to make together. Some… performance. But I'll insulate you as much as possible. And you will be compensated. Generously."
"I'm not selling myself," I say, the words whipping out faster than thought. "Not for your stock price."
"That's not what this is," he says quickly. "I'm not asking you to be something you're not. I'm asking you to let me put my name between you and a target."
My laugh is humorless. "You realize your name is the reason I'm the target."
His shoulders drop, the admission landing heavy. "Yes," he says quietly. "I do. Which is why I intend to clean this up. Completely."
The room feels too small. Too bright. My life has always been about staying small, moving quietly, never giving anyone enough of a story to care about. Now I'm sitting in a glass box in the sky while a billionaire I barely know offers me a contract to pretend we're in love.
Except he never said love. He said mitigation. Protection. Damage control.
"I need time," I say finally. "To think. To… freak out in private, preferably."
"You can have time," he says. "But not much. The story will break soon, one way or another. We have a narrow window to set the frame." He stands, the signal of the meeting's end, but he doesn't move away from me. "We'll arrange for you to stay somewhere secure tonight."
"My apartment is fine," I protest automatically. "I have rent control."
"Your building was photographed when the police escorted you out this morning," he says, and the fact that he knows that detail makes my stomach flip. "Reporters will be there by now."
Panic slams back, cold and vicious. Taco. My clothes. The little life I've built out of thrift store mugs and secondhand blankets.
"I can't just abandon everything," I whisper.
His expression softens by a degree I didn't know he had. "We'll send someone with you," he says. "Get your things. Your…" His mouth quirks. "Hamster. Then you'll come somewhere safer. Just until this settles."
"And if I decide I don't want your contract?" I ask.
"Then you'll leave tomorrow with a new lawyer, a security detail, and a severance package," he says. "And I'll keep looking for whoever did this without the protection a legal marriage gives you both."
"Both," I echo. "You keep saying 'us' and 'we' like I'm not just a problem to be solved."
He watches me for a long moment. "You are not a problem," he says finally. "You are the only part of this mess that I intend to protect at all costs."
The sentence hits me like a physical thing. My whole life has been about minimizing the damage I cause just by existing. No one has ever used the words protect and me in the same sentence without a "should have" attached.
My chest aches.
"Why?" I ask again, softer this time. "Really."
For a fraction of a second, his composure cracks. Something haunted flickers through his eyes, a shadow of smoke and sirens, of a night I don't let myself remember.
"Because, May," he says, my name almost a whisper now, "this isn't the first time someone tried to burn you for a crime you didn't commit. And I'm done watching it happen."
The world narrows to the shape of his face, the edge in his voice, the word burn reverberating off old scars. A memory presses against the dam I've built in my head—alarm bells, a boy's terrified eyes in the dark, my own voice screaming that the door was jammed—
I shove it back. Hard.
He sees something in my expression and goes still. "You remember," he murmurs.
I push to my feet on unsteady legs. "I need air," I say. "I need—anything but this room."
He stands too, instantly. "I'll walk you out. I'll have Elliot—my general counsel—send you the draft terms. Read them. Talk to whoever you trust." A beat. "Do you have someone you trust?"
The honest answer is no. I swallow it. "I'll figure it out."
He opens the door for me but doesn't step through. The hallway beyond looks longer than before, reception empty now except for the gleam of the floor.
"May." His voice pulls me back. I glance over my shoulder.
He's closer than I realized. For a second we're within arm's reach, the city light catching in his eyes, turning them a stormy gray. He doesn't touch me, but the possibility hangs in the air like static.
"If you walk away from this," he says quietly, "walk because it's what you want. Not because you're afraid you don't deserve more than survival."
The sentence stops my breath for a beat, a clean, painful spike right through my ribs.
"You don't know me," I manage.
His gaze dips once, briefly, to the faint white line on my wrist, the barely-there scar I've never been able to explain away as anything simple. "I've known you longer than you think."
I don't ask what he means. I can't. Not when my knees already feel like water.
"I'll… read the contract," I say instead.
He nods, the mask slipping back into place. "Good. I'll make sure it's worth your while."
As I step into the hall, the air cooler out here, I realize with a sick twist that my life has already split along a fault line.
Either I walk back into anonymity and let his enemies paint me as a villain.
Or I step into his spotlight, his world, his carefully controlled chaos—on his arm, wearing his name.
Behind me, I feel his gaze on my back until the elevator doors slide shut.
Only when the car begins to move do I let my hand shake.
And even then, the echo of his words follows me down: I intend to protect you at all costs.
I don't know yet which scares me more—the people trying to destroy my life.
Or the possibility that he might actually mean it.
