MY HUSBAND CHEATED WITH MY BEST FRIEND, I MARRIED HIS BILLIONAIRE BOSS

CHAPTER 8: THE RULES OF BEING AN ALEXANDER

When Alexander left, the penthouse didn't feel bigger.

It felt colder.

Eleanor Sterling didn't sit. She stood in the middle of the living room that cost more than my parents' entire neighborhood, and looked at me the way a judge looks at a resume full of typos.

Sophia, the tall thin woman, had already unpacked. Three garment bags. Not bags — sarcophaguses. She unzipped the first one and my stomach dropped.

Inside was not a dress. It was architecture.

"Rule number one," Eleanor said, without looking at me. "An Alexander never wears last night's clothes to breakfast. Especially not when the press thinks you spent the night negotiating the Tokyo merger in the conference room."

"I was—"

"I know what you were doing." She finally looked at me. Her eyes were the same color as Alexander's, but where his were winter, hers were an ice age. "My son told me you needed a place to stay after your... unpleasantness with your ex-husband. He said you were a friend. Friends don't leave toothbrushes in my son's penthouse."

Sophia pulled out the second garment. Cream. No. That was not a color. That was a warning.

Emma, the old Emma, would have cried. The Emma who found her husband Mark in bed with Jessica, her best friend since college, who laughed when she walked in holding grocery bags. That Emma would have apologized and left.

But that Emma died three weeks ago when Alexander Sterling — Mark's boss, Mark's billionaire boss, the man Mark called 'sir' and feared — looked at me across the divorce mediation table and said, "Marry me for a year. I'll make sure he never works in this city again. And I'll make sure you never have to worry about rent again."

This Emma, the Emma in his too-big pajamas, lifted her chin.

"I'm not just a friend, Mrs. Sterling. I'm his wife."

Silence.

Sophia's hand froze on the zipper.

Eleanor's perfect, Botox-smooth forehead did not move. But something flickered behind her eyes. Amusement. Or respect. I couldn't tell.

"His wife," she repeated slowly. "Alexander Sterling got married without telling his mother. To a girl in his pajamas who still has the price tag of a Target toothbrush in his trash can."

She walked to me. Every step was a lesson. This is how you walk when you own half of Manhattan.

"Do you know why I came here, Emma?"

"To judge me?"

"To save you. And to save him from you."

She clapped once. Sophia moved like she had been shocked.

"Undress."

"What?"

"Rule number two. If you are going to pretend to be an Alexander wife, you will look like one. That dress from last night — the blue one you wore to the gala — that was borrowed. This," she gestured to the bags, "is who you have to become in four hours."

"What happens in four hours?"

"Your first press conference as Mrs. Alexander Sterling. The board thinks my son married a ghost. The press thinks he married a gold-digger. Your ex-husband and your ex-best-friend are giving interviews right now to Page Six saying you trapped him."

My blood went cold. Mark. Jessica.

Eleanor saw it. She nodded.

"Oh yes. They are saying you cheated on Mark with Alexander for months. That you are pregnant. That you—"

"I'm not pregnant!"

"Obviously. You're too thin. But the lie sells." She stepped closer. "So you have two choices. You can run back to your one-bedroom apartment, file for divorce from Alexander tomorrow, and let Mark and Jessica win. Or you can let me dress you, teach you how to speak, how to walk, how to make every woman in this city hate you and every man want to be Alexander, and you stand next to my son at 3 PM and make Page Six eat their words."

It wasn't a choice.

It was a contract. Just like the one I signed with Alexander.

Sophia pulled out the cream dress. Then the pale pink. Then the light blue. Three options.

"This is not Pretty Woman, dear," Eleanor said, reading my mind. "I am not here to make you pretty. You are already pretty. That is the problem. Pretty girls get eaten in this family. I am here to make you expensive."

She pointed at the cream.

"Try this."

I took it to the bathroom. My hands were shaking. The tag said Alexander McQueen. $4,900. More than my rent for three months when I was married to Mark.

When I came out, Sophia made a small noise. Not approval. Assessment.

Eleanor circled me.

"Turn."

I turned.

"Posture. Shoulders back. Chin — not too high, you are not arrogant. You are confident. There is a difference. Arrogant girls get sued. Confident women get board seats."

She fixed the sleeve. Her hands were cold but gentle.

"Rule number three. An Alexander never explains. You do not say 'I'm sorry, I was late because...' You say 'Thank you for waiting.' You do not say 'I don't know much about stocks.' You say 'My husband handles our portfolio. I handle our legacy.' Do you understand?"

"My husband handles our portfolio. I handle our legacy," I repeated. My voice was small.

"Louder."

"My husband handles our portfolio. I handle our legacy!"

For the first time, Eleanor smiled. A real smile. It changed her entire face.

"Good. Now rule number four. The most important one."

She leaned in, so close I could smell her perfume. Something old, expensive, French.

"Never, ever fall in love with my son."

My heart stopped. Literally stopped.

"What?"

"You heard me. This is a contract marriage. I know. Alexander tells me everything. Even when he thinks he doesn't. You married him for revenge. He married you to make his board stop setting him up with 22-year-old models. It's business. But business gets messy when feelings get involved. And my son — my son has never been in love. If he falls in love with you, he will ruin you to protect you. It's what Sterling men do. So don't let him."

She stepped back and looked at her watch. A Patek Philippe that cost more than a car.

"You have three hours and forty minutes. Sophia will do your hair and makeup. I will teach you the names of all 12 board members, their wives, their mistresses, and their children's allergies. And at 3 PM, you will walk into that press conference in this $4,900 dress and you will lie like your life depends on it."

"And if I fail?" I whispered.

Eleanor picked up her Birkin. She was already walking to the door.

"Then you were never an Alexander. And my son will have to find another wife by next quarter. The board likes married CEOs."

She opened the door. Alexander was there. He had been standing there the whole time. Listening.

He looked at me in the cream dress. His face — that cold, unreadable, billionaire face — did something. His jaw tightened. His eyes darkened.

"Eleanor," he said quietly, but his eyes never left me.

"She'll do," Eleanor said to him. "But she needs shoes. The Louboutins. The ones with the red bottom. She has to be taller than Jessica when we run into her. Which we will."

She left. The door closed.

Alexander and I were alone. Me in a $4,900 dress, him in a suit that cost more than my divorce.

"Emma," he said. His voice was rough. "You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do," I said. And for the first time since I married him, I meant it. "Mark is out there telling everyone I'm a cheater. Jessica is wearing my wedding dress, probably. I'm not letting them win."

He walked to me. Slowly. He stopped a foot away. Close enough that I could feel the heat of him.

"Rule number five," he whispered, echoing his mother, but his eyes were on my lips. "An Alexander wife never wears that dress without letting her husband zip it up."

My breath caught.

"The zipper is already up," I whispered.

"I know," he said. "I just wanted to see if you'd let me."

And then his phone rang. He didn't answer. He just kept looking at me, in his penthouse, in his mother's chosen dress, as his wife.

Outside, Manhattan was waking up. And in four hours, it would know my name.