Evicting My Billionaire Husband

Marking Territory

That's it! Absolute perfection! Tomas cheered, lowering his heavy camera. "The world is going to eat this up."

The moment the photographer called it, Julian dropped his hand from Elara's waist as if her silk dress had caught fire. He took a quick step back, the intense, burning gaze from a second ago vanishing completely. The cold, impenetrable CEO was back in control.

Elara suppressed a shiver, suddenly aware of the chill in the afternoon air now that his body heat was gone.

"Have the proofs sent to Chloe for approval within the hour," Julian ordered, adjusting his cuffs. He didn't look back at Elara. "I have a board meeting. I will be back at eight."

"Julian," Elara called out as he turned toward the glass doors.

He paused, glancing over his shoulder.

"Am I supposed to just sit in my wing and wait for you like a well-behaved dog?" she asked, her voice laced with challenge.

Julian's eyes narrowed slightly. "You are free to do whatever you please, Elara, so long as you do it inside this penthouse. Until the announcement drops tomorrow, I don't want the paparazzi catching you in public. Order room service. Read a book. Just don't touch anything in my study."

With that, he disappeared into the penthouse. Minutes later, she heard the quiet chime of the private elevator carrying him away.

Once the PR team and the stylists finally packed up and left, the silence of the massive apartment rushed back in. Elara changed out of the expensive silk dress, throwing on her own faded vintage jeans and an oversized cashmere sweater.

She walked into the center of the cavernous living room. It was painfully sterile. Black leather, brushed steel, gray walls. Everything arranged in perfect, aggressive symmetry. A showroom, not a home.

Elara smiled. It was a wicked, dangerous smile.

Don't touch anything in my study, he had said. He hadn't said a word about the living room.

She found the building's ultra-exclusive concierge directory on a sleek tablet resting on the kitchen island. She had his black card. She had six hours. And she had a score to settle.

At exactly eight o'clock, the private elevator chimed. The steel doors slid open.

Julian stepped out, loosening his tie, his mind still running over the quarterly projections. He looked up—and froze.

His pristine, perfectly symmetrical living room was gone.

In its place was a jungle. Dozens of enormous, vibrant potted plants—ferns, broad-leafed monsteras, and wildly blooming orchids—were clustered around the room. His severely angled black leather sofas had been dragged out of alignment and pushed together to form a chaotic, cozy U-shape. Draped over his three-thousand-dollar minimalist armchair was a violently yellow knit blanket.

Sitting in the middle of his ruined showroom, with her feet kicked up on the glass coffee table, was Elara. She was eating a slice of greasy pepperoni pizza from a cardboard box and reading a paperback novel.

Julian stared. A muscle in his jaw ticked. Once. Twice.

"What," he asked, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly quiet whisper, "is this?"

Elara casually turned a page in her book. She didn't bother looking up. "It's called oxygen, Julian. Your apartment was suffocating. I thought it could use some life."

"You dragged my furniture across the hardwood."

"I pushed it," she corrected, finally meeting his murderous glare. She took a slow bite of her pizza. "And I bought plants. You told me to order room service and read a book. I'm following orders."

Julian slowly walked toward her, navigating around a towering fiddle-leaf fig tree that now blocked his path to the kitchen. The sheer audacity of it was paralyzing. No one defied him. No one touched his things.

He stopped in front of the coffee table, looking down at her scuffed sneakers resting on the glass. "Remove these weeds. Put the furniture back. Now."

Elara wiped her mouth with a napkin and sat up, her eyes flashing with defiance.

"No."

"You wanted a wife to make this arrangement look real to your investors," she said, her voice steady and unapologetic. "Well, wives redecorate. If you wanted a silent ghost to haunt your East Wing, you should have bought one. But you bought me. And I take up space."

Julian stared down at her, the scent of her pizza mixing with the earthy smell of damp soil from the ridiculous plants. He wanted to rage. He wanted to call his staff and have it all thrown in the incinerator.

But looking at the defiance blazing in her eyes, he understood, with grim clarity, that putting the furniture back wouldn't solve anything. Elara Vance had just declared war on his perfect world. This was only day one.