Flash Marriage to My Billionaire Boss

Chapter 4: Mrs. Sterling

Sunlight woke me, streaming through the garden windows.

For a disoriented moment, I didn't know where I was. Then the monogrammed S on the pillow brought everything back. Last night. The rules. His hands catching me. The three seconds that felt like three hours.

I touched my arm where he'd held me. The warmth was gone.

A knock on the door snapped me upright. A woman in her thirties breezed in — sleek black bob, measuring tape draped around her neck like a scarf. Behind her, two assistants rolled in racks of clothing. Dresses. Blouses. Shoes in boxes stacked to waist height.

"Good morning, Mrs. Sterling," she said. "I'm Celeste. Your stylist."

Mrs. Sterling. I almost looked behind me to see who she was talking to.

"I'll be handling your wardrobe for public appearances." She pulled a cream silk blouse from the rack, held it up against me. "Twenty-four hours' notice per event, as per Mr. Sterling's instructions. Today's your first — a charity gala at the Grand Sterling Hotel. We have six hours."

Public appearances. The contract. Right.

I stood like a mannequin as Celeste and her team worked. They measured, pinned, adjusted. I let them. The woman in the mirror looked like a stranger — hair swept into soft waves instead of my usual ponytail, silk instead of thrift-store cotton, heels instead of scuffed flats.

The only thing that hadn't changed was my mother's ring. Cheap silver on the same finger. I twisted it under the sleeve of a cashmere sweater. I wouldn't take it off. No matter what else they dressed me in.

I descended the grand staircase in a cream silk blouse and tailored navy trousers. The heels made me three inches taller, and I walked carefully, one hand on the banister. The clothes fit my body perfectly, but they still felt like a costume.

Ethan was waiting at the bottom.

Charcoal suit. Phone in hand. He looked up when he heard my footsteps — and paused. Just a beat. His grey eyes traveled from my hair to my shoes and back again. Something shifted in his expression. Not a compliment. Not warmth. But he noticed.

"Ready?"

I nodded.

"The car is waiting."

No "you look nice." No acknowledgment at all. But that pause — he hadn't paused yesterday. I filed the memory away. Told myself it didn't mean anything.

The black car pulled up to Sterling Tower.

Ethan exited first. Then he turned, offered me his hand. The touch was brief — businesslike. But as I stepped onto the pavement, I felt every pair of eyes in the lobby latch onto us.

The security guard who'd never learned my name froze mid-sip of his coffee. The receptionist's mouth fell open. The morning crowd parted around us like water around a stone — suits and heels and coffee cups all stopping to stare.

"Is that the temp? From Floor 3?"

"She married him? When did—"

"No way. No way."

I kept my eyes straight ahead. My mother's ring twisted under my sleeve — back and forth, back and forth. Ethan's hand was at the small of my back. Barely touching, but there. I didn't know if it was for appearances or for me. I didn't ask.

The elevator doors closed. The lobby disappeared.

"Breathe," Ethan said. His voice was low. Not gentle — he didn't do gentle. But the word landed anyway.

I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath.

An hour later, I went back to Floor 3 alone.

The floor went dead silent the moment I stepped off the elevator. Every head turned. Every conversation stopped. The fax machine kept printing — the only sound in the room.

Debra, my former supervisor, stared at me with an expression I couldn't read. Not jealousy. Not anger. Something closer to awe, mixed with fear.

The copier on B-wing was still blinking red. Three days. No one had fixed it.

My desk had already been cleared. Someone had moved fast — my nameplate was gone, my files redistributed. As if I'd never existed here.

The middle managers who used to bark orders at me wouldn't meet my eyes. Coffee, black, no sugar. Miss, where are the Henderson files. Girl, the copier's jammed again. Three months of being invisible, and now they couldn't even look at me.

Mr. Calloway — the worst of them, the one who'd once snapped his fingers at me like I was a dog — actually stammered when I walked past.

"Mrs. Sterling. I — congratulations — I had no idea you were — "

I picked up my jacket from the back of my chair. The only thing left.

"The copier on B-wing still jams every third copy," I said. Calm. Not cruel. Just factual. "You should call maintenance."

And I walked out.

In the elevator, I finally exhaled. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding.

But god, that felt good.

The Grand Sterling Hotel ballroom was a cathedral of crystal and champagne.

Chandeliers dripped gold light from a ceiling three stories high. Waiters in white gloves carried trays of champagne flutes through a sea of diamonds and designer gowns. Every guest in this room had been born for this world — old money, old names, old alliances carved into their pedigrees like initials in oak.

I was a temp from the Southside in a midnight-blue gown and borrowed diamonds.

The whispers started the moment I walked in on Ethan's arm.

"That's her? The one from the tabloids?"

"I heard she was a maid."

"A temp. She was a temp. Can you believe it?"

Ethan's jaw tightened. I kept smiling — the smile I'd practiced in the mirror for twenty minutes. It felt like wearing someone else's face.

Then two socialites cornered me near the champagne tower. Elegant. Vicious. Smiles that didn't reach their eyes.

"So, darling," the taller one said, "how did you two meet? At the office, I heard."

"On Floor 3, wasn't it?" The other one tilted her head. "What exactly did you do there?"

I opened my mouth. No words came.

And then Ethan was there.

I didn't see him coming. Didn't hear him approach. His hand found the small of my back — firm, possessive. Claiming.

"She was the best analyst in the building," he said, voice smooth as glass. "I had to promote her to wife just to keep her from being poached."

The socialites laughed, charmed and defeated in the same breath. They drifted away like smoke.

Ethan leaned down, lips near my ear. "Breathe," he murmured. "You're doing fine."

His hand didn't move from my back. Protective. Present. And I realized with a sinking, terrifying feeling: I hated how much I liked the way he said "wife." I hated how much I liked the way his hand felt. I hated that this was supposed to be fake.

Late that night, I sat on the edge of my bed in the dark. The blue gown hung in the closet — too expensive, too beautiful, too much for someone like me.

I twisted my mother's ring. The old silver was the only thing that still felt like mine.

Three days ago, I'd been unjamming copiers and fetching coffee. Tonight, I'd drunk champagne and worn diamonds. And a man who called me "wife" had put his hand on my back like he meant it.

Her voice echoed in my head. Everything comes with strings.

But what if the strings were starting to feel like something else? What if I was starting to want things I had no right to want?

I lay back against the pillows. Outside, the garden lanterns glowed soft and gold. Somewhere in this mansion, Ethan Sterling was probably reviewing tonight's business contacts like it meant nothing. Like the hand on my back was just for show. Like "wife" was just a word on a contract.

But his pause at the bottom of the stairs. Those three seconds in the ballroom when his voice dropped low and his hand didn't move.

I hadn't imagined those.

Had I?