The world on the other end of the phone is dissolving into chaos.
Maya is talking a mile a minute.
Words like "conservatorship" and "temporary insanity" and "hostage negotiation" are being thrown around.
I think she just offered to have Theo's kneecaps broken.
It's sweet, in a deeply felonious way.
"Maya, calm down," I say, my voice sounding thin and reedy to my own ears.
"Calm down?" she shrieks. "Elara, the last time we spoke, you were complaining about the font size on the conference pamphlets. Now you're on TMZ getting married to a man you once described to me as 'a fascinating but exhausting case study in narcissistic charm.' Forgive me if I'm not calm!"
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
The tiny blacksmith from this morning is threatening to come back for an encore.
Theo is watching me from across the room.
He's leaning against the wall, arms crossed, with a look of detached, clinical interest.
He's enjoying this.
The bastard is actually enjoying this.
"It's not what it looks like," I lie.
The lie tastes like ash in my mouth.
Lying to Maya is like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster.
Pointless and doomed to fail.
"So you didn't marry him?" she asks, a sliver of hope in her voice.
"Well, yes. That part is… technically accurate."
A string of curses erupts from my phone that would make a sailor blush.
"But it was… a whirlwind romance," I say, the words from Theo's script feeling foreign and disgusting on my tongue. "We reconnected. We realized there was something there all along. We just… knew."
I sound like the heroine of a bad romance novel.
The kind I would clinically dissect for its problematic relational dynamics.
The silence on the other end of the line is deafening.
Maya is not a silent person.
Her silence is more terrifying than her yelling.
"I'm booking a flight," she says finally, her voice dangerously quiet. "I'm retaining a team of deprogrammers. I will save you from this cult of two, Elara. I swear to god."
"That's not necessary…"
"I'll be there tonight."
She hangs up.
I'm left holding a dead phone and a lie that's already starting to unravel.
I look at Theo.
"Your story sucks, by the way," he says. "'We just knew'? You sounded like you were reading a hostage statement."
"I am a hostage," I hiss. "To your insanity."
"Semantics." He pushes off the wall and starts gathering his things. "We need to go."
"Go where? The wolves are literally at the door."
"We're not going out the back, Elara," he says, pulling on a black, ridiculously soft-looking hoodie. "We're not hiding. We're going out the front. We're giving them the story they want."
My blood runs cold.
"You want to… walk through that?"
"Yes." He tosses me my blazer. It looks wrinkled and sad. A metaphor for my life. "And you're going to look at me like I'm the only man in the world. You're going to look deliriously happy. A little overwhelmed by the attention, but completely, utterly, head-over-heels in love. Can you do that?"
"I'm a therapist, Theo. Not an actress."
"You're a woman who wants the Atherton Clinic," he says simply.
The words land like a punch to the gut.
He doesn't know what I read in that email.
But he knows me.
He knows my ambition is my greatest weakness.
And he's not afraid to use it.
"Get dressed," he says, his voice leaving no room for argument. "The show is about to start."
The elevator ride down is the longest thirty seconds of my life.
I'm wearing my rumpled blazer and yesterday's silk shell.
I feel like a fraud.
Theo looks like he just stepped out of a magazine.
Effortless. Confident. Annoyingly perfect.
"Ready?" he asks as the elevator slows.
I just shake my head, my heart hammering a frantic, panicked rhythm against my ribs.
"Just follow my lead," he says, his voice low. "Look at me. And breathe."
The doors slide open.
And the world explodes.
It's not just noise. It's a physical force. A wall of sound and light that hits you in the chest.
"Theo! Theo, over here!"
"Is it true you're married?"
"Who is she, Theo?"
The flashing lights are blinding. A strobe effect of pure chaos. A hundred cameras firing at once, capturing my deer-in-the-headlights terror for eternity.
I freeze.
Every muscle in my body locks up.
This is it.
This is where I crumble.
Then, I feel his hand find mine.
His grip is warm, firm. Grounding.
He leans in, his lips brushing my ear, his voice a low anchor in the storm.
"I've got you."
And then he turns to face the storm.
And he smiles.
It's a work of art, that smile.
It's not his smug, private smirk.
It's a warm, brilliant, charismatic smile that seems to light up the whole lobby. It's a smile that says, I have nothing to hide. I am the luckiest man in the world.
He squeezes my hand, and I look up at him, because it's the only place to look.
He winks at me. A tiny, almost imperceptible gesture.
A signal.
Play your part.
He raises our clasped hands slightly, a gesture of proud ownership.
The flashing of the cameras intensifies.
"She's Dr. Elara Voss," Theo says, his voice projecting easily over the din. "And yes. She's my wife."
The chaos doubles.
A reporter from some entertainment show shoves a microphone toward us.
"Theo, this is a shock to everyone! You've been one of L.A.'s most eligible bachelors for years. What happened?"
This is it. The test.
I watch him, holding my breath.
He laughs, a rich, easy sound.
He looks down at me, his green eyes full of a fake adoration that is so convincing, my own heart gives a stupid little flutter.
"What happened is that I came to my senses," he says, his voice ringing with sincerity. "I've been in love with this woman for a very long time. I was just a fool who was too afraid to admit it. When you find something real, you don't let it go. You don't wait. I wasn't going to make that mistake again."
The lie is… beautiful.
It's poetic.
It's so perfectly constructed, so flawlessly delivered, that for a horrifying, split second, I almost believe it.
He has spun our catastrophe into a fairy tale.
And I am the princess.
I feel a hysterical laugh building in my throat, and I choke it down, transforming it into what I hope is a shy, overwhelmed smile.
I squeeze his hand.
I play my part.
A sleek, black SUV materializes at the curb, like it was summoned by magic.
Two huge security guards appear out of nowhere, clearing a path through the media swarm.
Theo guides me through the chaos, his body shielding mine.
We're bundled into the car.
The heavy door shuts.
And the world goes silent.
The sudden quiet is jarring.
I'm trembling, a fine, uncontrollable tremor running through my entire body. The adrenaline is crashing, leaving me weak and nauseous.
I snatch my hand back from his as if I've been burned.
I press myself against the opposite door, trying to put as much distance between us as possible in the cavernous backseat.
I look at him.
The charming, lovesick groom is gone.
The CEO is back.
His face is a neutral mask, his eyes on his phone as he fires off a series of texts.
The performance is over.
We ride to the private airfield in a silence so thick, I can feel it pressing in on me.
We're on his jet before I can even process it.
We're back in L.A., the city lights a glittering, indifferent carpet below us.
We are back in our reality.
A reality where we are now, for all intents and purposes, married.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out, my hands still shaking.
I expect it's Maya, probably tracking my flight path and assembling a tactical extraction team.
But it's not.
It's a text.
From a number I have saved under Dr. Anya Sharma.
My boss.
The head of the clinic.
A woman who values order and discretion above all else.
A woman who has never once texted me.
My blood turns to ice.
I open the message.
It's only one sentence.
Elara. I've seen the news. Be in my office at 8 a.m. tomorrow. We have a problem.