MARRIED TO MY RUTHLESS BOSS

ONE; Cold CEO

The Mallik Empire didn't run on kindness. It ran on perfection.

Daniel Mallik arrived at his office before sunrise, like he always did. The city was still dark below him, New York sleeping while he was already planning how to make it bow. The penthouse office was his kingdom—all glass and steel and the kind of silence that cost money. Lots of it.

His assistant had already been here. Fresh coffee sat on his desk, the temperature perfect. Black. No sugar. She'd learned his preferences the way she learned everything else—by paying attention to things most people missed.

Daniel didn't even know her first name.

He pulled up the merger documents on his screen, the numbers swimming in his vision. This deal was going to change everything. Mallik Empire was already the world's leading luxury hotel corporation, but this merger would make it untouchable. Unstoppable. His.

His phone buzzed. Grandfather.

'Danny.' His grandfather's voice was thin, tired. The sound made something in Daniel's chest tighten, though he'd never admit it.

'Grandfather. You should be sleeping.'

'I sleep enough. Tell me you're not working.' There was warmth in his voice. The kind of warmth Daniel's mother never managed. The kind that made him feel like a grandson instead of a disappointment who'd chosen business over family obligations.

'Just checking a few things.' A lie. He was deep in the work, the numbers, the strategy. But Grandfather didn't need to know that.

'You work too hard. You know what you need? A wife. Someone to balance you out.'

Daniel didn't laugh. He almost did, but that would require more emotion than he was willing to spend. 'I'm fine, Grandfather.'

'That's what I'm afraid of.' Grandfather's sigh came through the phone like a ghost. 'Promise me you'll think about it? Before it's too late?'

Before it's too late. Daniel didn't like the weight of those words.

'I promise,' he said, and meant none of it.

After they hung up, Daniel sat in the dark, the city lights reflecting off the windows. Thirty years old. CEO of a billion-dollar empire. And somehow still alone in all that steel and glass.

He drank his coffee. It was still warm. His assistant was good at her job—efficient, invisible, exactly what he needed. Nothing complicated. Nothing that required feeling anything.

The sun started to rise, turning the sky pink and gold. By 8 AM, the office would be full of people. By 9 AM, he'd have destroyed someone's quarterly projections and made a VP cry. By 5 PM, he'd have made a deal that changed the market.

But that was later.

Right now, alone in his office with the sunrise, Daniel felt something that almost looked like loneliness. He took another sip of coffee and buried it.