Married By Mistake

Chapter Twenty-One: What Regina Actually Wants

Elena's POV

I picked up before the second ring, stepping into the kitchen, putting a wall between me and whatever had almost happened on that couch.

"Regina. I was going to call you tomorrow with an update."

"I did some reading instead of waiting." Her voice had none of the sharp irritation from our last call. If anything, she sounded pleased with herself. "Your husband has quite a story, Elena."

My whole body went cold.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Don't do that. I've built a career reading people who don't want to be read. Jackson Romero. Piano prodigy, spectacular public collapse, complete disappearance from public life. It took my assistant forty minutes to find it, and she's not even particularly good at this."

I closed my eyes, pressed my back against the counter, aware of Jax sitting twelve feet away on the other side of a wall, unaware of exactly how thin that wall had just become.

"That's a private matter," I said. "It has nothing to do with Amanda's wedding."

"On the contrary. I think it has everything to do with it." A pause, the sound of ice against glass, Regina taking her time with this the way she takes her time with everything. "A tragic prodigy story, a secret marriage, a society planner caught in the middle. That's not a scandal, Elena. That's a narrative. And narratives, handled correctly, sell tickets."

"I'm not following."

"I want him at the wedding. Not hidden. Not managed quietly in a back room somewhere. I want him seated, visible, and I want it known, discreetly of course, exactly who he is. It elevates the entire event. My daughter's wedding becomes the place where this story resurfaced. Every outlet covering weddings this season will want the details."

I felt something hot and protective rise up in my chest, fast and unfamiliar.

"Absolutely not."

"Excuse me?"

"He spent six years rebuilding a life specifically so nobody would ever do exactly what you're describing to him. I'm not going to hand him over as entertainment for your guest list."

Regina's tone shifted, cooling several degrees in an instant. "Elena, I don't think you understand the position you're in. My business is the difference between your firm having a strong quarter and a very bad one. I am asking for one evening. One appearance. That's a small price for the exposure this could generate for your entire company."

"It's not a small price for him."

"That's not really your decision to make, is it? It's his life, but it's your business on the line. I'd think carefully about which one you're more willing to protect."

The words landed exactly where she meant them to land, precise and cold, and I understood in that moment that Regina hadn't called to threaten me. She'd called to offer me a trade, dressed up as a favor, and she was patient enough to let me sit with how ugly it felt either way.

"I need to think about it," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

"Think quickly. I have a call with another firm tomorrow afternoon, just in case this doesn't work out." A pause, softer now, almost kind, which was somehow worse. "I'm not trying to be cruel, Elena. I'm trying to solve a problem you handed me the moment your face ended up on a stranger's phone in a public park. This is simply the version of the solution that benefits both of us."

She hung up without waiting for anything further.

I stood in my kitchen for a long moment, phone still warm in my hand, staring at nothing. Somewhere behind me, on the other side of a wall that suddenly felt paper thin, Jax was sitting on my couch with no idea that a woman he'd never met had just tried to turn his worst memory into a marketing opportunity.

I thought about walking back out there and telling him everything. I thought about the six years he'd spent building a life exactly so this couldn't happen to him, and how close I'd just come to being the reason it did anyway.

I also thought about my firm. About Priya's salary, about the three other weddings on the books this quarter that all depended on Regina's approval trickling down through her circle of equally demanding friends.

I hated that I was thinking about that at all.

I walked back into the living room. Jax looked up at me, and whatever he saw on my face made his own expression shift immediately from soft to alert.

"What happened," he said.

I opened my mouth to tell him everything.

Then I closed it again, because I genuinely did not know, in that moment, which version of the truth I was actually going to choose.