"Ella! Move! Table 3!" My manager hissed from the kitchen entrance of the Grand Plaza Penthouse.
I nodded, my knees shaking inside the cheap black uniform they gave all catering staff. I was a senior at NYU, broke, drowning in student loans, working this engagement party tonight for an extra $150. Just $150 to buy my textbooks for finals.
The penthouse was unreal. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking all of Manhattan. A string quartet playing. Women in diamonds that could feed my family for a year. And in the center of it all - him.
Alexander Knight stood by the fireplace in a perfect black tuxedo, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass of whiskey. He wasn't smiling. He never smiled in magazines. His dark hair was perfectly styled, his jaw sharp enough to cut glass, and his grey eyes - God, his grey eyes were scanning the room like he owned every soul in it.
Beside him was a beautiful blonde in a red dress. His fiancée. Vanessa. The heiress he was supposed to marry to merge two billion-dollar empires.
I was supposed to be invisible. Just serve champagne and disappear.
I took a deep breath and walked toward Table 3, balancing the silver tray with six crystal flutes.
That's when it happened.
A man in a blue suit stepped back suddenly to laugh at a joke. His elbow hit my tray - hard.
Time slowed.
I watched in horror as the tray tipped. Six glasses of champagne flew. And one, full to the brim, arced through the air directly toward Alexander Knight.
No. No no no no -
The champagne hit him square in the chest. Then the glass itself. The cold liquid soaked his white shirt, his $5,000 tuxedo jacket, and splashed all over the documents he was holding in his other hand.
Silence.
The entire quartet stopped playing. Fifty heads turned.
The documents - I could see them now, soaked, ink running. The top page read in bold letters: KNIGHT-VANCE MERGER - $10 MILLION CONFIDENTIAL.
Oh my God. I just destroyed a ten million dollar deal.
Alexander Knight looked down slowly at his ruined shirt, at the dripping papers. Then, very slowly, he looked up at me.
His grey eyes locked on mine. They weren't angry. They were worse. They were ice cold, calculating.
"What's your name?" His voice was low, calm. The kind of calm that comes before a storm destroys a city.
My throat closed. "E-Ella. Ella Scott. Sir, I am so sorry, it was an accident, I didn't -"
"Do you have any idea what you just did?" He held up the ruined papers. Champagne dripped from them onto the marble floor.
Vanessa, his fiancée, stepped forward and gasped. "Alexander! Those are the merger papers! My father is going to kill you! And you -" She turned to me, her beautiful face twisted. "You stupid, clumsy waitress! Do you know how much this suit costs? Do you know who he is?"
"I said I was sorry!" Tears were burning my eyes now. "I'll pay for the dry cleaning, please -"
"Pay?" Alexander let out a short, humorless laugh. He stepped closer to me. Too close. I could smell his cologne - something expensive, dark, with whiskey underneath. I could see the water droplets on his shirt clinging to his chest. "That suit is $8,000. The deal you just ruined is $10 million. You are a college student working catering for $15 an hour. How exactly do you plan to pay, Ella Scott?"
I couldn't breathe. He was so close I had to tilt my head up to look at him. He was at least a foot taller than me.
"Please," I whispered. "I will do anything. Let me work it off. I will clean, I will -"
"Anything?" His eyes narrowed. A strange look passed through them. He looked from me to Vanessa, who was still complaining, to the crowd watching, to the ruined papers in his hand. Then back to me.
For a second, something clicked behind his eyes. Like he just got an idea. A dangerous idea.
He leaned down, so close his lips were almost at my ear. His voice was so low only I could hear it.
"My fiancée just cheated on me with my best friend. My mother is downstairs demanding I get married in 30 days to get my inheritance. And you just gave me the perfect excuse to cancel this engagement party."
I pulled back, confused. "What?"
He straightened up, and suddenly his whole demeanor changed. He put his arm around my shoulder. Possessively. Like I belonged to him.
His touch burned through my thin uniform.
"Everyone!" He announced loudly, his voice carrying across the silent penthouse. "I have an announcement. The engagement is off."
Gasps everywhere.
Vanessa screamed, "What are you talking about?!"
Alexander looked down at me, his hand tightening on my shoulder. His grey eyes were dark, intense, and he was looking at me like I was the most precious thing in the world. It was a lie. A perfect, beautiful lie.
"Because I am already in love with someone else," he said. "And I am marrying her."
He turned me to face him fully. His other hand came up and cupped my chin, forcing me to look at him.
"Isn't that right, sweetheart?"
My brain short-circuited. His fingers on my chin were warm, rough. His eyes were telling me to play along.
"Wh-what?" I managed to breathe.
He smirked, just for me. Then he said the words that would ruin my life.
"You have two choices, Ella Scott. Choice one: I sue you for $10 million for destruction of confidential corporate documents. You will spend the rest of your life paying me. You will never graduate. Your family will lose everything."
My blood ran cold.
"Choice two," he continued, his thumb stroking my chin so softly it made me shiver. "You marry me. For 90 days. You become my wife. You help me make my ex-fiancée jealous, you convince my mother I'm settled so I get my $100 million inheritance, and after 90 days, I give you $200,000 and a clean divorce. And I forget about the $10 million you owe me."
$200,000. 90 days. Marriage.
This was insane. This was a movie. This didn't happen to girls like me.
"You're crazy," I whispered.
"I'm a businessman, Ella. I'm offering you a contract. No feelings. No kissing. No falling in love. Just business."
His face was inches from mine. I could see every lash, every fleck of silver in his grey eyes.
"But you have to decide now. Right here. In front of everyone."
Behind him, I could see Vanessa crying, his mother entering the penthouse looking furious, all the rich guests whispering, phones already out recording.
My $150 job. My $10 million mistake. My entire future.
If I said no, I was dead. If I said yes - I would be the wife of Alexander Knight.
He leaned in again, his lips brushing my ear, and whispered the words that made my knees give out:
"You're my wife now, Ella. Act like it."
And then, before I could answer, he pulled me into his chest and kissed me.
Not a soft kiss. A possessive, hard, claiming kiss in front of his ex, his mother, and fifty New York billionaires - like he was branding me.
My first kiss with a billionaire. And it tasted like champagne and danger.
When he finally let me go, breathless, his eyes were no longer cold. They were burning.
"Well, wife?" he asked loudly for everyone to hear. "What's your answer?"
/1/128423/coverbig.jpg?v=3e12dd6c96afcb2ca7ccde117c818d6a)
View More Comments on App
