Updated Dec 11, 2025 • ~12 min read
OLIVER
Three weeks.
I’d been searching for three weeks.
Sent my head of security to every bar, restaurant, and rideshare company in the city. Combed through security footage from my building. Checked credit card receipts from Aurelis, hoping she’d left some trace.
Nothing.
She’d disappeared like smoke. Like a dream I’d imagined in a moment of weakness.
Except I had proof she was real. The note on my nightstand, scrawled in angry handwriting: I’m not a hooker, asshole.
I’d deserved that.
I’d left cash because I was an idiot. Because I’d woken up at 5 AM with her curled against me, peaceful and perfect, and reality had come crashing back. I had a 6 AM call with Tokyo. A company to run. A fiancée expecting me to show up for brunch with her parents.
A life that didn’t include the woman sleeping in my bed.
The cash was supposed to help. Tide her over until she found another job, kept her off the streets, away from loan sharks and landlords and whatever other disasters were chasing her.
I’d realized my mistake the second I saw her note.
She thought I’d paid her for sex.
I’d tried to track her down to explain. Sent my people to her old employer—Daphne Merrick hadn’t been cooperative, refused to provide contact information. Dead end after dead end.
The name she’d given me was fake. Anna instead of Hannah. Smart. Self-protective.
I’d almost given up.
And then Phoebe had walked in this morning, announced my new assistant was starting early, and opened the door to reveal—
Her.
Hannah.
Standing in my office doorway, color draining from her face, looking at me like I was her worst nightmare.
Which, apparently, I was.
“Was it?” The question hung between us. “A mistake?”
Her hands were shaking. I watched her curl them into fists, watched her pull herself together through sheer force of will.
“Yes,” she said. Firm. Final. “It was.”
The words hit like bullets.
I’d known she’d be angry. I’d expected her to hate me. But hearing her say it—that what we’d shared was a mistake—made something in my chest crack.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “About the money. It wasn’t—I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How did you mean it?”
Fair question. One I didn’t have a good answer for.
“You said you were being evicted. I was trying to help.”
Her laugh was bitter. “By leaving cash on the nightstand? Like I was something you paid for?”
“No. God, no. I was trying to—” I ran a hand through my hair, felt the careful control I’d built over three weeks starting to fracture. “I panicked. I had a meeting. I had—” I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t tell her I’d had brunch with Vivian, where we’d discussed floral arrangements for a wedding I didn’t want.
“You had a life to get back to,” Hannah finished. Her voice was hollow. “I get it. One night. That’s what we agreed.”
“Hannah—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “This is my job. I need this job. So we’re going to pretend last night never happened, and we’re going to act like professionals, and in a few months maybe this will stop being the most mortifying thing that’s ever happened to me.”
She was right. It was the smart thing to do. The only thing to do.
So why did every word feel like losing her all over again?
“Fine,” I said. Matched her tone. Professional. Cold. “Phoebe will have your paperwork ready. Review the employee handbook. Your duties start Monday.”
“Perfect.” She turned to leave.
“Hannah.”
She stopped. Didn’t turn around.
“For what it’s worth,” I said quietly. “I looked for you. For three weeks. I wanted to explain.”
Her shoulders tensed. “You’re engaged, Mr. King.”
The formal address was a knife between my ribs.
“I know.”
“Then there’s nothing to explain.”
She walked out.
And I let her go.
HANNAH
I made it to the elevator before the shaking got too bad.
Pressed the button seventeen times before it arrived. Fell against the back wall when the doors closed, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.
Oliver King.
OLIVER KING.
CEO of King Industries. Billionaire. Engaged billionaire. My new boss.
I’d slept with my new boss.
My engaged new boss.
Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God.
The elevator descended. I watched the numbers drop, counting them like a lifeline. Forty-two, forty-one, forty, thirty-nine—
I was going to throw up.
I needed to get out of this building, off this planet, into a different dimension where I hadn’t made every single wrong choice possible.
The doors opened on the lobby. I walked out on autopilot, past the receptionist, through the revolving doors, into sunshine that felt like an assault.
My phone rang.
Elise.
I almost didn’t answer.
“So?!” She was practically vibrating through the phone. “How’d it go? Did you get it? Are you now a corporate badass?”
“I got it,” I heard myself say.
“Yes! I knew it! Tell me everything! Is the CEO nice? Phoebe said he’s intense but fair. What’s he like?”
A liar. A stranger. The best mistake I ever made.
“He’s fine,” I said. “Professional.”
“That’s it? Just fine?”
“Elise.” I stopped walking. Pressed my hand to my eyes. “I can’t talk about this right now. I just—I need to go home and process.”
“Okay.” Concern crept into her voice. “Are you okay? You sound weird.”
I was not okay. I would never be okay again.
“I’m fine. Just overwhelmed. New job jitters.”
“Understandable. Okay, go decompress. But we’re celebrating tonight! Drinks on me!”
“Sure,” I lied. “Sounds great.”
I hung up before she could press further.
My apartment was exactly as I’d left it. Still a disaster. Still temporary. Still the only place that felt like mine.
I collapsed onto my couch—secondhand, lumpy, perfect—and stared at the ceiling.
This was fine. This was manageable.
So I’d slept with my boss before I knew he was my boss. So he was engaged and hadn’t mentioned it. So he’d left me cash like I was a transaction.
None of that mattered.
I needed this job. Needed the salary, the stability, the chance to not be homeless.
I could be professional. I could be distant. I could absolutely, definitely, without question pretend that I didn’t remember exactly what it felt like when he—
No.
Not thinking about that.
Not thinking about his hands. Or his voice. Or the way he’d looked at me like I was the only person in the world.
That wasn’t real. None of it was real.
Tomorrow, I’d review the employee handbook. I’d prepare for Monday. I’d become the best damn assistant King Industries had ever seen.
And I’d forget Oliver King was anything other than my boss.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I almost didn’t look.
We need to talk. Tomorrow. 2 PM. Coffee shop on the corner of 5th and Main. Please. – O
My hands shook as I typed my reply.
There’s nothing to talk about. See you Monday, Mr. King.
I blocked the number.
Deleted the message.
Pretended my heart wasn’t breaking.
OLIVER
She blocked me.
Of course she blocked me.
I stared at the failed message notification, considering my options. I could use a different number. Show up at her apartment. Send another message through official channels.
Or I could respect her boundaries and leave her alone.
The right thing to do was obvious.
“Oliver?”
I looked up. Vivian stood in my office doorway, perfectly styled in cream and gold, looking at me with that expression that meant she wanted something.
“What are you doing here?” I didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh, but three weeks of searching for Hannah plus finding her and losing her again in the same afternoon had stripped away my ability to pretend.
Vivian’s smile tightened. “Charming as always. I’m here because we have a venue walkthrough at four. The Plaza? For our wedding? The one you agreed to three months ago?”
Right. The wedding. The prison sentence.
“I can’t today. Work emergency.”
“You always have a work emergency.” She moved into the office, closed the door. Settled into the chair across from my desk like she owned it. “We need to talk, Oliver.”
“Not now, Vivian.”
“Yes, now.” Her voice went sharp. “You’ve been distant for weeks. Distracted. Forgetting appointments. Is it the Peterson merger? Because if this company is taking priority over our wedding—”
“Everything takes priority over our wedding,” I snapped. “Because our wedding is a business arrangement, remember? Your words. You needed a name and I needed to keep my father’s company. That was the deal.”
I’d expected anger. Defensiveness. Some reaction.
Instead, Vivian smiled. Sad. Knowing.
“You met someone.”
My blood went cold. “What?”
“You met someone. That’s why you’ve been different.” She studied me like I was a puzzle. “Three weeks ago. You came to brunch with my parents and you were… somewhere else. I thought it was work. But it’s not, is it?”
I could deny it. Should deny it.
But I was so tired of lying.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said instead. “She’s not in my life.”
“But you want her to be.”
“Vivian—”
“I’m not angry, Oliver.” She stood, smoothed her skirt. “I’m realistic. We both knew what this was. But if you’re going to spend our entire marriage pining for someone else, maybe we should reconsider.”
Hope flared in my chest. Dangerous, desperate hope.
“You want to call it off?”
“I want you to be honest about what you want. Because if you go through with this wedding and regret it, you’ll resent me. And I’d rather not spend the next forty years with a man who wishes I was someone else.”
She was right. God, she was right.
But I couldn’t call off the wedding. My father’s will was clear: marry by thirty-five or lose the company. I turned thirty-five in eight weeks. The wedding was in six.
If I walked away, I lost everything my father built.
If I stayed, I lost—
Hannah.
The woman I’d spent three weeks searching for. The woman who made me feel real for the first time in my life.
The woman who now worked for me and hated my guts.
“I can’t call it off,” I said finally. “The will—”
“I know the will.” Vivian moved toward the door. “But there are ways around wills, Oliver. Lawyers. Loopholes. If you want out badly enough, you’ll find a way.”
She left.
And I sat in my office, staring at the door, wondering if she was right.
Wondering if I was brave enough to try.
My computer pinged. Email from HR.
New hire paperwork for Hannah Whitman attached. She starts Monday. Please review and approve.
I clicked the attachment. Her resume. Her photo ID from the company badge.
Those eyes. Even in a photo, they gutted me.
I was so screwed.
My office door opened again. I didn’t look up.
“Vivian, I told you—”
“Not Vivian.”
I glanced up.
Tristan, my cousin and King Industries’ COO, stood in the doorway with two cups of coffee and a knowing expression.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“Good observation.”
He set one coffee on my desk, settled into Vivian’s vacated chair. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Is it the Peterson merger? The Shanghai deal? The fact that you’re marrying Ice Queen Barbie in six weeks?”
“Don’t call her that.”
“You call her that.”
Fair point.
Tristan sipped his coffee, studying me. We’d grown up together, closer than brothers. He could read me better than anyone.
“It’s a woman,” he said finally. “You met someone.”
Twice in one hour. Was I that obvious?
“Drop it, Tris.”
“Can’t. Cousin code. When you look this miserable, I’m legally required to meddle.” He leaned forward. “Tell me about her.”
“There’s nothing to tell. It was one night. It’s over.”
“But you don’t want it to be.”
No. I didn’t.
I wanted her in my life. Wanted her laugh, her honesty, the way she looked at me like I was just Oliver instead of Oliver King, heir to an empire.
I wanted everything I couldn’t have.
“She starts Monday,” I said quietly. “As my assistant.”
Tristan’s eyes went wide. “You slept with your new assistant?”
“I didn’t know she was going to be my assistant. It happened before—” I stopped. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“I know.”
“And you’re engaged.”
“I KNOW.”
Silence. Tristan processed this, his expression shifting from shock to concern to something that looked like pity.
“So what are you going to do?”
I looked at Hannah’s photo on my screen. Memorized her face one more time.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m going to do nothing. She needs this job. I need to marry Vivian. That night was a mistake we both agreed to forget.”
“Do you believe that?”
No.
But it didn’t matter what I believed.
It mattered what was right.
And letting Hannah go was the right thing to do.
Even if it killed me.
“Yes,” I lied. “I believe it.”
Tristan didn’t look convinced.
Neither was I.
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