The CEO reluctant bride

CHAPTER ONE: The Breaking Point POV: Judith I stared at the hospital bill until the numbers blurred together like rain on a windshield. Eight hundred thousand dollars for Mirabel's heart transplant, and that was just the surgery, not counting the anti-rejection medications she would need for the rest of her life or the follow-up appointments that stretched into infinity. My hands trembled as I folded the paper and shoved it deep into my purse where it could not mock me anymore with its impossible demands. The elevator doors opened on the forty-second floor of Morgan Enterprises and I stepped out into the gleaming hallway that always smelled faintly of leather and expensive cologne. My reflection on the polished marble floors showed a woman who looked put together in her neat gray suit and practical pumps, but inside I was screaming, falling apart piece by piece like a puzzle someone had thrown against a wall. Benjamin's office loomed ahead with its massive oak doors that cost more than my entire year's salary, and I paused to smooth my skirt and check that my eyes were not red from the crying I had done in the bathroom during lunch. He could never see me weak, never see me as anything other than the perfectly efficient assistant who anticipated his needs before he voiced them and kept his calendar organized down to the minute. Three years I had worked for him and not once had he looked at me like I was human, like I was a woman instead of a very useful piece of office equipment. I told myself it was better this way, that my secret feelings for him were childish and pointless, that a man like Benjamin Morgan would never notice someone like me. He dated models and heiresses, women who wore diamonds like they were born to them and never had to check their bank accounts before ordering coffee. My phone buzzed with a text from the hospital and my stomach dropped before I even read it. Mom needs to see you immediately, the nurse wrote, and I knew from the lack of details that it was bad news, the kind they did not want to deliver over text message or phone call but needed to say to your face so they could watch you crumble. I pushed through Benjamin's office doors without knocking because his calendar showed he was in a meeting downstairs for another hour, and I needed a moment alone to fall apart where no one could see. The office was empty as expected, all dark wood and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city like Benjamin owned every building in sight, and maybe he did for all I knew. I sank into the leather chair behind his desk and let my head fall into my hands. The tears came hot and fast, soaking through my fingers as I tried to muffle the sounds of my sobbing, but it was useless. Everything was useless, all my hard work and careful budgeting and secret consulting jobs under a fake name could not add up to enough money to save my sister or give my mother one more comfortable year or keep our tiny family from being torn apart by medical bills and impossible choices. I cried until my throat hurt and my eyes burned, until I had no tears left and just sat there empty and hollow, and that was when I heard the door open behind me. My whole body went rigid with horror as I realized someone had walked in on my breakdown, and when I turned around, Benjamin Morgan stood in the doorway staring at me with an expression I could not read. He should have been in his meeting for another forty-five minutes, should have been everywhere but here witnessing the moment his perfect assistant finally cracked, but instead he stood there in his immaculate suit with his dark eyes fixed on my tear-stained face. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole, wanted to disappear into nothing rather than face the humiliation of being caught crying at his desk like some pathetic child. Instead of the anger or disgust I expected, Benjamin closed the door quietly behind him and walked to the bar cart in the corner of his office, and when he returned, he held two glasses of amber liquid that caught the late afternoon light. He set one glass on the desk in front of me and took the other for himself, then surprised me completely by sitting in the chair across from his own desk as if I belonged there, and he was the visitor. We sat in silence for what felt like hours, but it was probably only minutes before he finally spoke, and when he did his voice was softer than I had ever heard.