"My billionaire husband"

Chapter 4:The Morning After

Eliana didn’t sleep.

She spent the night staring at the ceiling of a room that cost more than her father’s house, wearing a borrowed t-shirt she found in Damien’s dresser. It smelled like him — whiskey, cedar, danger.

At 8:47am, her door opened without a knock.

Damien stood there in a charcoal suit, tie already knotted, looking like he hadn’t spent the night haunted by the ghost of her touch either. He lied.

“Board room. Now.” His eyes flicked to her bare legs. “And put on something that doesn’t look like you crawled out of my bed.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “I didn’t — we didn’t —”

“I know.” His voice was flat. “Everyone else won’t.”

The board room was glass and steel and ten men who looked at her like she was a spreadsheet error. Damien didn’t introduce her. He just sat at the head of the table and said, “My wife. She’ll be observing.”

Observing. Not participating. Not speaking. A decoration.

Eliana smiled. The kind of smile that promised blood. She took the empty seat to his right — the one meant for a COO — and crossed her legs slowly. The room went quiet.

Damien’s jaw ticked. Check.

The meeting was about a hostile takeover. Numbers, subsidiaries, leverage. Eliana understood half of it. The other half she figured out by watching Damien’s hands. When he was bored, he tapped once. When he was lying, he stilled completely.

“Vance Industries is weak,” one man said. “We bleed them dry in Q3.”

Eliana cleared her throat. Every head turned. “Vance’s daughter runs their socials. She’s got 2M followers. You bleed them publicly, she’ll turn this into a PR m******e. Your stock drops 8% overnight.”

Silence. Then Damien’s voice, low and amused: “My wife studied marketing.”

He didn’t thank her. He didn’t need to. The power shift was palpable.

After, in the elevator alone, he backed her against the wall. Not touching. Just close enough that she could count his eyelashes.

“Who told you about Charlie?” he demanded.

“No one. I have TikTok.”

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “Dangerous woman.”

“You have no idea,” she whispered.

The doors opened to the lobby. He stepped out, straightening his cuff. “Board dinner is Friday. Wear red. And Eliana?” He looked over his shoulder. “Try not to start another war before then.”

The doors closed.

She was still catching her breath.