CEO IN COMA

001: Mrs. Mathially

You know how people say, "What you don’t know won’t hurt you?" Yeah, well, that’s a lie. A fat, gloriously wrapped, red-velvet-sized LIE.

Because here I am—inside St. Lucia Memorial, Room 907—blinking at a comatose man with cheekbones sharp enough to slice my dignity, and I’m being told he’s my husband.

Yes. Husband. As in: lawfully bound, in sickness and in health, husband.

I don’t even remember his last name.

“My apologies, ma’am,” the man in a black suit, all MI6-looking and mysterious, bows slightly, placing a thick folder on the table beside me.

“But according to the signed marriage contract, you are legally Mrs. Hyacinth M. Mathially. As per the CEO’s will, only his wife is permitted to be his guardian.”

My jaw drops. “I’m sorry, did you just say Mathially? Like… the Mathially?”

He gives me a look like bless her clueless heart, and nods solemnly.

“Yes. Dark Demetrecov Mathially, CEO of Mathially Conglomerates, tech tycoon, investor, and heir of the Ravis line.”

I blink again. My mouth opens. Closes. Opens.

“Wait. Hold on. Back it up. Six months ago, I had—well, I had a moment, okay? A totally wine-inspired, mistake-of-a-lifetime, moment. But I did not marry that man.”

The man in the bed doesn’t move.

Of course he doesn’t.

He’s in a coma.

Still, his face looks like it was sculpted by God on a really good day.

The kind of good day where angels had nothing better to do but sprinkle perfection on a jawline.

Tousled jet-black hair, a faint scruff like he planned the coma to look that good, and lips—

Okay, pause.

Those lips. I remember those lips.

That night is a blurred mess, like one of those movie scenes where the lights spin and music gets louder and BAM—fade to black.

The only thing I could remember is him saying, “I miss you so much…”

But also another one clear memory—him, shirtless, smirking, offering me a paper with his stupidly sexy voice saying, “Just sign it, babe. It’s for the room service.”

Room service, my a—

“You’re telling me,” I snapped at the suited man, “that room service was actually a marriage contract? Who does that?!”

“Mr. Mathially,” he replies without blinking, “is a man who prepares for everything.”

I want to scream. Or sob. Or maybe both at once.

But I don’t, because I’m Hyacinth, granddaughter of a fierce and loving grandmother that peels banana using her teeth and taught me how to balance spreadsheets and slap a boy with one breath.

Also, I’ve already maxed out my monthly meltdown quota.

“I didn’t agree to be anyone’s wife,” I hiss, pacing the floor.

The scent of antiseptic and overpriced lilies mix in the sterile air.

Machines beep softly behind me, one of them recording the very faint heartbeat of the man who, for all I know, is faking this whole thing just to get me in this building.

“You signed the paper,” he reminds me gently.

I throw my hands up. “I SIGN EVERYTHING when I’m drunk! I once subscribed to goat yoga and paid six months in advance! That doesn’t count!”

He sighs. “Mrs. Mathially, please understand, this is more than just legal. It’s personal. Mr. Mathially made it very clear—only his wife could be entrusted with his care. No board member, no ex, not even his own father.”

Ex?

Wait—EX?

“Hold up. Did you say ex? You mean he has a—?”

“A son,” the man says, flipping open a folder and pushing it toward me.

“And yes. A former partner. But the boy is missing. And Mr. Mathially believed… someone would come for him. So he chose you.”

Of all the reasons I expected—you’re a great cook, you love dogs, you make me laugh—being chosen because his enemies are hunting his child is… not one of them.

“Chosen me? Why? I’m a marketing assistant with a caffeine addiction and commitment issues. He doesn’t even know me.”

The agent—and I’ve decided he is an agent, because no ordinary assistant walks like Jason Bourne—stares at me hard. “He remembered you.”

He remembered you.

It felt like something deeper. I shrug it off.

I sat down.

I have to.

My knees are failing me, and not in a romantic way.

More like, my life is spiraling into a legally-binding nightmare kind of way.

My eyes drift to him again. Dark. Demetrecov. Mathially.

The man who took my first kiss.

The man who took my first everything.

And now, apparently, took my last name.

The weirdest part? Despite the chaos, despite the shock, a tiny, traitorous part of me wonders—what if I wasn’t just a one-night stand to him?

What if I meant something?

Minutes later, I found myself in the so-called “my husband’s mansion”.

The iron gates opened with an unnecessarily dramatic hum, the kind you'd hear in movies where billionaires secretly run the government or fund rebellions just for fun.

I squinted up at the looming estate as the car purred its way up the hundred-meter driveway.

"Okay," I muttered under my breath, arms folded across my chest.

"So this is what generational wealth looks like when it flexes.”

I walked past a curved hallway with glass walls that offered a view of the mansion’s internal zen garden, complete with koi fish the size of toddlers and a waterfall that sang.

Not flowed.

Sang.

I’m not even joking.

“You ever heard a waterfall harmonize with wind chimes?” I said to no one. “Me neither. But here we are.”

A voice spoke beside me. Soft. Polite. Disembodied.

“Miss Hyacinth, your room is ready.”

I jumped slightly, spun, and saw no one. “Great,” I murmured. “Haunted too. That’s nice.”

Still, I followed the path laid out for me, noting how the light dimmed and brightened just right, how every door was engineered to open exactly three seconds before I reached it, and how the air itself adjusted—cooler in sunlit spots, warmer in the shadows.

When I finally reached the room—my room, apparently—I had already made peace with the fact that this entire place was basically Tony Stark’s mansion if Tony had an interior decorator with a God complex.

So expensive, beautiful, luxurious, that I couldn’t believe this place existed.

I stepped in and exhaled.

Gold-threaded linens, wall-to-wall windows overlooking a garden that made Versailles look like a public park, a walk-in closet that could be a boutique, and—of course—a rain shower that came with mood lighting and spa music controlled by a whisper.

I stood in the center of it all, arms akimbo, chin raised.

“Alright,” I said. “You may have money. But I have attitude.”

| Next door, unseen |

A soft chuckle echoes through the private surveillance room, where another suited man sips on espresso and watches the hospital monitor feed.

“She’s exactly how I remember her,” Dark says with a smirk, dragging a finger across her paused image on the screen. “Fiery. Loud. And entirely mine.”