My Husband Cheated With My Best Friend, I Married His Billionaire Boss

CHAPTER 10: THE FOUR HOUR RULE

The door clicked shut behind Eleanor Sterling.

For a full minute, Emma just stood there, staring at the three garment bags like they might bite her.

"Four hours," Sophie whispered, her voice thin. She was still holding the zipper of the gala dress from last night. "Mrs. Sterling wasn't joking. When she says four hours, she means three and a half."

Emma turned to her. "Is she always like that?"

"She's like that when she's scared," Sophie said, unzipping the first bag. "And right now, she's terrified."

The first bag fell open. Inside wasn't a dress. It was armor.

A black, structured dress. Not soft. Not romantic. The kind of dress that had a spine. The tag said Alexander McQueen.

"The wife?" Emma repeated what Sophie had said earlier. "What did you mean, 'the wife?' I thought you worked for him?"

Sophie didn't look up. She laid the dress on the massive bed. "I work for the family. There's a difference. Mr. Alexander pays me. Mrs. Sterling... she decides if I keep my job." She finally met Emma's eyes. "And you, Mrs. Alexander, you need to decide if you want to keep yours."

Emma swallowed. The penthouse didn't feel cold anymore. It felt like a stage.

"Rule number two," Sophie said, her tone shifting into something clipped and professional. "An Alexander wife never explains. She never apologizes for who she married. You were crying in a Target toothbrush aisle two weeks ago, Emma. If you walk into the Tokyo call looking like that girl, they will eat you alive."

Emma's hands clenched. "How do you know about the toothbrush aisle?"

"Because Alexander told his mother. And his mother tells me everything." Sophie gestured to the bathroom. "Shower. Now. You have four hours to become someone Mark would regret losing, and someone the board will fear."

The shower was bigger than Emma's old college apartment. As the hot water hit her, the last year replayed - Mark laughing with Jessica in their bed, Mark saying "you're just too... emotional, Em," the divorce papers she signed on her lunch break, the interview with Sterling Corp where Alexander Sterling had looked at her resume for ten seconds and said, "You have honest eyes. Don't lose that."

She hadn't lost it. She'd buried it.

When she stepped out, Sophie was already waiting with a robe and a battle plan.

What happened in the next two hours was not a makeover. It was an erasure and a rebuilding.

Sophie didn't ask what Emma liked. She told her what an Alexander wears. The black McQueen dress was pulled up, zipped, and suddenly Emma's soft curves had architecture. The waist cinched. The shoulders were sharp. She looked taller. Colder. More expensive.

"Sophia... the tall woman..." Emma remembered Eleanor's words.

"My sister," Sophie said. "She's the stylist for the family. Eleanor called her from the car."

Makeup was next. No pink. No glitter. "Botox doesn't move, so you need to let your eyes do the talking," Sophie muttered, blending something smoky and brutal across Emma's lids. "Eleanor is frozen, yes, but she can silence a room with a look. You need to learn that before dinner."

Hair was pulled back into a low, severe bun. Not cute. Powerful. The kind of bun that said 'I have a lawyer on retainer.'

When Emma finally looked in the mirror, she didn't see herself. She saw the woman from the gala - the one who was borrowed.

"Oh," she breathed.

"Oh is not a word Alexander women use," Sophie said, but she was smiling for the first time. "Now. Shoes. And then, Rule number three."

The shoes were Louboutin. Red bottoms. Four inches. Emma wobbled.

"You will not fall," Sophie said. "Alexander wives never fall in public. They fall apart in private, after the doors close. Do you understand?"

Emma nodded, gripping the dresser.

"Good. Rule number three: You never, ever let them see you in the pajamas with the price tag still on."

Emma flushed red. "You saw that too?"

"Eleanor sees everything. She knew you bought them for Mark. On sale." Sophie zipped the second bag - a charcoal silk blouse and wide-leg trousers for later. "She threw them away. I put them in the trash chute."

From downstairs, the elevator dinged.

Sophie's face went white. "He's early. He's never early. He's early by two hours!"

Emma's heart slammed against the McQueen dress. "Who?"

"Who do you think?"

The bedroom door was still open. Emma could hear keys. A coat being thrown. Alexander's voice, low and irritated on the phone.

"...no, mother, I told you not to... I don't need you to vet my wife like she's a merger..."

He stopped mid-sentence when he saw her.

Alexander Sterling stood in the doorway of his own bedroom, phone still to his ear, and forgot how to speak.

He was in a full suit, tie loosened, hair slightly messy from the wind on the rooftop helipad. He looked exhausted and furious - until he saw Emma.

His eyes traveled. Slowly. From the severe bun, to the smoky eyes, to the sharp shoulders of the dress that clung to her like it had been made for her, to the red-bottomed shoes that made her legs look endless.

He ended the call without saying goodbye.

"Emma," he said, his voice rougher than usual.

Sophie vanished. One second she was there, the next she was gone, closing the bedroom door behind her with a soft, knowing click.

"Your mother..." Emma started, her voice shaking. She tried to stand straight like Sophie taught her. "Your mother was here. She said I have four hours to become..."

"I know what she said," Alexander said. He walked into the room, each step deliberate. This was how you walk when you own half of Manhattan. Emma remembered Eleanor's lesson. "She called me the second she left. She said 'I fixed your problem.'"

"I'm not a problem to be fixed."

"No," he said, and he was now right in front of her. Close enough that she could smell his cologne, something dark and expensive. "You're not."

He reached out, and for a second Emma thought he was going to touch the dress. Instead, his finger traced the edge of her jaw, tilting her chin up.

"Do you know what Rule Number One actually is, Emma?" he whispered.

"You... you told me to look at it, at breakfast..." she stammered.

He smiled, and it was the first real smile she'd seen from him all day. Not the boardroom smile. The one he had given her when he asked her to marry him for a year.

"Rule Number One is: Never wear last night's clothes to breakfast. Especially not when the press thinks you spent the night negotiating the Tokyo merger in the conference room." He leaned in, his forehead almost touching hers. "Rule Number Two, the real one, is: My mother is always wrong about the women I choose."

Emma's breath caught. The dress was too tight. The shoes were too high. And Alexander Sterling was looking at her like she wasn't a contract, or a pity hire, or a girl with a Target toothbrush.

Like she was his wife.

"Eleanor said she wants to save you from me," Emma whispered. "And save you from me."

Alexander's hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, his fingers warm against her skin, undoing all of Sophie's cold architecture in one touch.

"Then let me give you Rule Number Four," he said, his lips brushing her ear. "An Alexander never lets anyone else decide who his wife is. Not his mother. Not the board. Not even his wife herself, when she's scared."

The elevator dinged again downstairs. Sophie's panicked voice: "Mrs. Sterling! You forgot your..."

Eleanor was back.

Alexander didn't move away from Emma. In fact, he pulled her closer, his hand firm on her waist, the McQueen dress creasing under his grip.

"Four hours is up, Emma," he whispered. "Are you ready to show her who you are?"

Outside the bedroom, Eleanor Sterling's heels clicked against the marble, coming to inspect her work.

Emma straightened her spine, let her eyes do the talking, and slipped her hand into Alexander's.

"Yes," she said. "I'm his wife."