The boardroom of Ashford Industries occupied the entire forty-second floor, a monument to glass and steel that overlooked the city like a throne room. Harper Thorne sat at the head of the conference table, her spine straight, her hands folded calmly on the polished surface. She was twenty-four years old, and she could feel every single pair of eyes in the room waiting for her to fail.
"Miss Thorne." Clark Thorne's voice cut through the silence like a blade wrapped in silk. He sat halfway down the table, flanked by board members who had once smiled at her father's jokes and now looked at her with barely concealed doubt. "While we all appreciate your... enthusiasm for the Donovan merger, I think the board would agree that perhaps a more experienced hand should guide such a significant decision."
Harper met her uncle's gaze without flinching. Clark was fifty-two, handsome in the way men with money and power often were, his silver-touched hair perfectly styled, his suit custom-tailored. He looked like a success. He looked like he was in control.
He looked like a predator who had finally cornered his prey.
"The merger is sound," Harper said, her voice level. "The projections speak for themselves. Donovan Tech's patents alone will increase our market value by thirty percent over the next two years."
"On paper, perhaps." Clark leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands in a gesture of false reasonableness. "But you're asking us to trust projections made by a CEO who's been in the position for less than six months. A CEO who, forgive me for saying so, is still grieving."
The word hung in the air like poison.
Harper's jaw tightened, but she forced herself to breathe slowly. Around the table, she could see board members shifting uncomfortably. Some looked sympathetic. Most looked calculating.
"My personal circumstances," she said carefully, "have no bearing on my professional judgment."
"Don't they?" Clark's expression softened into something that might have looked like concern to someone who didn't know him. "Harper, your parents died six months ago. That kind of trauma... It affects decision-making. No one would blame you for needing time. For stepping back and letting someone with more experience take the reins while you heal."
Someone like you, Harper thought. The words he didn't say hung louder than the ones he did.
She straightened her shoulders. "The Donovan merger moves forward. Unless someone would like to present an actual financial argument against it?"
Silence.
Clark smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Of course. We all want what's best for Ashford Industries. That's why we're here."
The meeting continued, but Harper could feel the shift in the room. Her uncle had planted his seed of doubt, and it was already taking root. When the board members finally filed out an hour later, their handshakes were perfunctory, their smiles thin.
Clark was the last to leave. He paused at the door, turning back to look at her with something that might have been pity.
"Your father built something extraordinary here, Harper. It would be a shame to see it crumble because of pride."
Then he was gone, and Harper was alone in the vast, empty boardroom.
She allowed herself exactly ten seconds. Ten seconds to let her hands shake. Ten seconds to close her eyes and see her father's face, her mother's smile, the twisted metal of their car on a rain-slicked road. Ten seconds to feel the weight of everything she was about to lose.
Then she stood, smoothed her skirt, and walked to her office.
Richard Moss was waiting for her.
Her father's lawyer looked older than she remembered, his grey hair thinner, the lines around his eyes deeper. He stood when she entered, and something in his expression made her stomach drop.
"Richard." She closed the door behind her. "What is it?"
He gestured to the chair across from her father's desk. Her desk now, though she still couldn't quite think of it that way. "You should sit down."
Harper remained standing. "Just tell me."
Richard sighed, reaching into his briefcase to pull out a thick folder. "Your father's will contained a clause. A protection clause, he called it. He made me promise not to tell you until absolutely necessary, and I've respected that promise until now. But after what I just witnessed in that boardroom..." He set the folder on the desk. "You need to know."
Harper's throat felt tight. "What kind of clause?"
"A marriage clause." Richard opened the folder, revealing page after page of legal documents. "According to the terms of your father's will, you must be legally married within ten days of your twenty-fourth birthday to maintain a controlling interest in Ashford Industries. If you fail to meet this requirement, your controlling shares transfer to the next blood relative."
The world tilted.
Harper gripped the edge of the desk, her knuckles white. "Clark."
"Yes."
"When..." Her voice came out hoarse. She cleared her throat, forced steel back into her spine. "When is the deadline?"
Richard checked his watch. "Your birthday was yesterday. You have until five PM, nine days from now."
Nine days. Two hundred and sixteen hours. She had two hundred and sixteen hours to find someone to marry or lose everything her parents had built.
"Why?" The word came out sharper than she intended. "Why would my father do this?"
Richard's expression softened with something like grief. "He wanted to protect you from fortune hunters. From men who would see you as a means to an end. He planned to tell you when you turned twenty-five, when he was ready to step back from the company. He thought he had time to help you find someone you could trust, someone who would stand beside you for the right reasons." The old lawyer's hands trembled slightly as he closed the folder. "He didn't know he'd die in six months. None of us did."
Harper turned away, staring out the window at the city below. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. Beautiful. Merciless.
"Does Clark know about this clause?"
"I don't know. But if he does..."
"Then this was all theater." Harper's reflection stared back at her from the glass, pale and hollow-eyed. "The board meeting. His concern. He's been counting down the days, waiting for me to fail."
"Harper."
She turned back to Richard. The lawyer looked at her with the same expression he'd worn at her parents' funeral, a mixture of sorrow and helpless rage at the unfairness of it all.
"What do you need from me?" he asked.
Harper walked to her desk, pulling out her tablet with hands that no longer shook. She had no time for shaking hands. No time for grief or fear or any of the emotions that threatened to drown her.
She had nine days.
"I need you to prepare a prenuptial agreement," she said, her voice calm and cold as winter. "Iron-clad. And I need you to keep this absolutely confidential. No one can know about the marriage clause. Especially not Clark."
Richard nodded slowly. "May I ask... Do you have someone in mind?"
"Not yet." Harper met his eyes. "But I will."
The penthouse apartment was dark when Harper finally arrived home, the city lights glittering through floor-to-ceiling windows like a sea of stars. She poured herself a glass of wine she wouldn't drink and sat at her dining table, tablet glowing in front of her.
Marriage.
The word felt foreign in her mouth, like a language she'd never learned to speak. She'd never wanted it, never planned for it. Her parents had loved each other deeply, and watching them had taught her one thing: real love was rare. Most marriages were transactions dressed up in white lace and empty promises.
So fine. She would skip the pretense and go straight to the transaction.
She pulled up her tablet and started searching. Dating apps, matchmaking services, and professional companion agencies. She dismissed them all within minutes. Too public. Too traceable. Clark would have investigators crawling through every digital footprint, every connection, looking for leverage.
She needed someone no one would think to investigate. Someone so far beneath notice that Clark would dismiss them entirely.
Someone powerless.
Her phone buzzed. Maya Chen, her assistant and one of the few people Harper still trusted.
"You're still awake," Maya said when Harper answered.
"So are you."
"I'm worried about you." Maya's voice was soft with concern. "That meeting today was brutal. Are you okay?"
Harper closed her eyes. "I need your help with something. Something confidential."
"Always."
"I need to find someone. Someone ordinary. Someone who wouldn't know me, wouldn't have connections to my world. Somewhere I can observe them without being obvious."
A pause. "Harper, what's going on?"
"I can't explain. Not yet. But I need this, Maya. Please."
Another pause, longer this time. Then: "Somewhere ordinary. Somewhere you already go, where you'd blend in." Maya's voice sharpened with understanding. "Lumière. You go there all the time to think. The staff barely notices you anymore."
Harper opened her eyes. Lumière. The five-star restaurant three blocks from her office, the place she'd discovered two years ago when she needed to escape her father's shadow for an hour. The chef was brilliant, the wine selection perfect, and the corner table by the window was always available for her.
"Thank you," Harper said quietly.
"Whatever you're planning..." Maya hesitated. "Be careful."
Harper ended the call and stared at her tablet for a long moment. Then she pulled up Lumière's reservation system and booked her usual table for tomorrow afternoon, the quiet hours between lunch and dinner service.
She would go. She would watch. She would find someone perfect.
Someone who would never see her coming.
The afternoon light through Lumière's windows turned everything gold. Harper sat at her corner table, a glass of Bordeaux untouched at her elbow, watching the restaurant with calculating eyes.
The dining room was nearly empty, just a handful of late lunch customers lingering over coffee and dessert. Harper had been here for almost an hour, observing. The waitstaff moved with practiced efficiency. The sommelier chatted quietly with a couple at the bar. Everything was familiar, comfortable.
Wrong.
She needed someone new. Someone temporary. Someone who wouldn't.
Movement in the open kitchen caught her eye.
A chef she didn't recognize was working the line, his back to the dining room. He wore standard whites, his dark hair slightly mussed, and he moved with a kind of quiet precision that made Harper pause.
She watched as a younger cook dropped a pan with a clatter that made several diners look up. The new chef didn't flinch. He simply stepped over, said something too quiet for Harper to hear, and demonstrated the proper grip with patient hands. The younger cook nodded, embarrassed but grateful, and the chef squeezed his shoulder before returning to his station.
Kind.
The word surprised her. She watched him for another twenty minutes, studying the way he handled the kitchen chaos with calm authority, the way he tasted a sauce and adjusted it without hesitation, the way he never once looked toward the dining room.
He was focused entirely on his work. Self-contained. Unaware he was being watched.
Perfect.
Harper caught Maya's eye from where her assistant sat at the bar, pretending to work on her laptop. A small nod was all it took.
Five minutes later, the chef approached her table. Up close, he was younger than she'd expected, maybe early thirties, with dark eyes that held a quiet intelligence. He looked tired but composed, his chef's whites spotless despite the kitchen heat.
"Ma'am." He stopped a respectful distance from her table. "You asked to see me?"
Harper studied him for a long moment. He met her gaze without fear or recognition. Just polite curiosity.
"Sit down," she said.
He hesitated, glancing back at the kitchen, then pulled out the chair across from her and sat. "If there was a problem with your meal."
"There wasn't." Harper set down her wine glass. "What's your name?"
"Jay." A pause. "Jay Miller."
"How long have you worked here, Jay?"
"Three weeks."
"Do you like it?"
His eyebrows rose slightly. "Yes, ma'am. It's a good kitchen."
Harper leaned forward, folding her hands on the table. She watched his face carefully as she spoke. "I'm going to make you an offer. I need you to listen to everything before you respond. Can you do that?"
Something flickered in his eyes. Wariness, maybe. But he nodded.
"I need a husband," Harper said. "Legally. For one year. It's a business arrangement, nothing more. You would live in my home, attend necessary public events, and follow specific rules I'll outline in a contract. In exchange, I'll pay you five million dollars."
The silence stretched between them like a wire pulled taut.
Jay stared at her. His expression cycled through shock, confusion, and what might have been disbelief before settling into careful neutrality.
"I..." He stopped, started again. "Did you say five million?"
"Yes. Tax-free, held in escrow, released when the year is complete and the marriage is legally dissolved."
He sat back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. The gesture seemed unconscious, almost vulnerable. "Why me?"
"Because you're nobody."
The words came out harsher than she'd intended, but Harper didn't soften them. This was a transaction. He needed to understand that.
"No offense intended," she continued. "But I need someone who won't complicate my life, won't want more than money, and won't be a target for people looking to hurt me. You fit that description."
Jay's jaw tightened. For a moment, Harper thought she saw something flash in his eyes, anger, maybe, or wounded pride. But then it was gone, replaced by that same careful neutrality.
"This is..." He shook his head. "I need time to think about this."
"You have twenty-four hours." Harper pulled a business card from her purse and placed it on the table between them. "Meet me here tomorrow, same time, with your answer. If you say no, this conversation never happened."
She stood, smoothing her skirt. Jay remained seated, staring at the card like it might bite him.
"Think carefully, Jay," Harper said. "Five million dollars. One year of your life. It's a fair trade."
She walked away without looking back, her heels clicking against the marble floor. Behind her, she could feel his eyes on her back, but she didn't turn around.
She had made her offer. Now she just had to wait.
In the restaurant's quiet corner, Jay Miller sat alone at the table, Harper's business card balanced between his fingers. He stared at it for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
Then his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, glancing at the screen. A message from an unknown number: Thorne meeting confirmed. Clark is moving assets offshore. Need access soon.
Jay looked at Harper's card again. Then at the message.
A slow smile crossed his face, there and gone in an instant. He slipped both the card and the phone into his pocket and stood, buttoning his chef's coat as he walked back toward the kitchen.
She thought she was buying a shield.
She had no idea she'd just invited a wolf into her house.