The Marriage Clause

The ring box has been sitting on Damien Cross's desk for exactly four minutes, and he still hasn't looked up from his laptop.

You know it's four minutes because you've been counting — the same way you count everything in this office: his back-to-back calls, the espresso he abandons half-finished, the number of times a day his jaw tightens when the board is mentioned. Two years as his assistant has taught you to read Damien Cross the way sailors read weather. And right now, a storm is coming.

"Sit down," he says finally, closing the laptop. He slides the box across the desk with one finger, like it's a quarterly report he's already bored of. "I have a proposal for you. I'd advise you to hear all of it before you run."

Up close, the flawless CEO looks — for the first time in two years — tired. There's a shadow along his jaw and a document beside him with the words CROSS FAMILY TRUST, ARTICLE VII visible at the top.

"Marriage," he says, as if answering a question you were too smart to ask. "Twelve months. On paper. You'll want for nothing, your sister's treatment is covered, and when it's over, you walk away wealthy." His eyes finally meet yours, gray and unreadable. "One condition. No one — not the board, not my family, not the press — can ever know it isn't real."