Chapter 2 - 2
Ethan Hale did not answer immediately. That was my first clue that the explanation would be bad.
The second clue was the security man who appeared beside us without seeming to cross the room. He had an earpiece, a wrestler’s shoulders, and the expression of someone who had already calculated how quickly he could carry me off the ship.
“Not here,” Ethan said.
“Oh, I think here is perfect. There are witnesses.”
His mouth almost smiled. “You believe I’m dangerous.”
“You abducted my hand.”
“Graham,” Ethan told the guard, “we’re fine.”
Graham studied me, decided I was unlikely to assassinate a billionaire with a dessert fork, and stepped away.
Ethan led me through glass doors onto the promenade. The Mediterranean wind was cool against my shoulders. Behind us, the ballroom glowed gold; ahead, the Amalfi cliffs rose like dark teeth around villages jeweled with light.
“My full name is Ethan Hale,” he said. “I’m chief executive of Hale Meridian.”
Even I knew the company. Hale Meridian owned hotels, ports, and the Aurelia—the floating palace beneath my feet. Financial magazines liked photographing Ethan in rolled shirtsleeves beside headlines about ruthless turnarounds. I had never connected that severe face with the man stealing my cheesecake.
“And Richard?”
“Richard Mercer controls eleven percent of our voting stock. Tomorrow, the board decides whether to sell our cruise division to his private-equity group.”
“What does that have to do with an imaginary wife?”
Ethan looked through the glass at Olivia. “Richard wants the sale. Olivia wants the combined company—and me. For six months they’ve told investors our alliance is inevitable. Tonight Richard cornered me and asked whether I intended to announce an engagement tomorrow.”
“So you invented a marriage?”
“I rejected a trap.”
“By throwing me into it.”
That landed. He lowered his eyes, and for the first time he looked less like a magazine cover and more like a tired man who had made a spectacularly stupid decision.
“You’re right,” he said. “I panicked.”
I laughed once. “Billionaires panic by buying islands. Normal people lie about being married.”
“I will correct it.”
His phone vibrated. Then mine did. Around the ballroom, phones lit up like fireflies.
The ship’s lifestyle blogger had posted a photograph of us: Ethan’s hand at my back, my face turned toward him, sunset burning behind us. HALE HEIR SECRETLY MARRIED, the caption announced.
My stomach dropped.
“Correct it now.”
Before he could respond, another notification appeared. The hotel where I worked had tagged me. Congratulations to our own Claire Donovan!
My boss added three heart emojis.
“Oh, no.”
Ethan’s lawyer arrived at a speed that suggested Graham had summoned her. Lena Ortiz was compact, elegant, and visibly furious.
“Tell me you did not represent to Richard Mercer that this woman is your legal spouse.”
“I did.”
“In front of two directors and a financial reporter?”
“Apparently.”
Lena closed her eyes. “The board’s morality clause allows an emergency confidence vote if a chief executive knowingly makes a material misrepresentation during acquisition negotiations.”
I pointed at Ethan. “Your ridiculous lie could get you fired?”
“It could also tank tomorrow’s vote,” Lena said. “If we retract tonight, Mercer argues Ethan fabricated a spouse to manipulate the directors. If we maintain it, Olivia will investigate. Either way, she has ammunition.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “How long?”
“Until the vote concludes tomorrow evening. Then we announce an amicable separation and accept the personal embarrassment.”
I stared at both of them. “You skipped the part where I leave.”
Lena faced me. “You can. You owe him nothing.”
“She’s leaving,” Ethan said.
It was the first decent thing he had done, which annoyed me more than it should have.
Then Olivia appeared behind the glass, raising a champagne flute in our direction. At her side, Richard was speaking to three board members. One of them checked his phone and looked sharply at Ethan.
“If the sale happens,” I asked, “what changes?”
Ethan hesitated. “Mercer Capital will close two shipyards, outsource crews, and sell three historic hotels. About forty-eight hundred jobs.”
“Including the Aurelia staff?”
“Many of them.”
I thought of Maria, the housekeeper who had smuggled me an extra invitation after the charity raffle had accidentally assigned me a shared cabin. I thought of Devon at the champagne station, saving tips for nursing school. Rich men loved calling numbers inevitable when the numbers belonged to other people.
“Twenty-four hours,” I said. “No touching without permission. No more surprises. And when this ends, you tell the truth publicly. You take the blame.”
“Agreed.”
“Also, I get my cheesecake back.”
That surprised a real laugh out of him.
Lena drafted a one-page confidentiality agreement in the ship’s business center. I refused the money Ethan offered. I did, however, make him promise that if his division survived, no frontline employee would lose a job for twelve months.
He signed.
At midnight, we entered his two-bedroom owner’s suite because Olivia had bribed someone to learn my cabin number and discovered I was registered alone. Ethan gave me the master room and took the couch without argument.
Before we separated for the night, he showed me Olivia’s schedule: breakfast, a couples’ auction, then the board reception. We spent an hour creating a history that could survive casual questions. Our first movie was supposedly an old comedy. Our imaginary first argument concerned his inability to replace an empty toilet-paper roll. He learned my birthday, my mother’s name, and the fact that I kneaded dough when anxious. I learned he had lost a younger brother and had not taken a vacation since. For a few minutes, the performance fell away. We were simply two strangers exchanging facts people usually earned slowly.
“Why did you choose me?” I asked.
“You were the only person in that ballroom who looked unimpressed.”
“I was impressed by the cheesecake.”
“Exactly.”
I was removing my earrings when someone slid an envelope beneath the door.
Inside was an old photograph of my father standing beside the unfinished Aurelia fifteen years earlier.
Across his face, someone had drawn a red X.
May you like
On the back were seven words.
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHY YOUR FATHER DIED.
