Mr. C.E.O, Your Wife Is A Man!

CHAPTER 1

They said the safest place to hide was beside power.

I should have laughed. Instead, I adjusted the gloves, tugged the wig into place, and rehearsed the soft voice I had stolen from Isla. Every syllable, every tremor, every carefully measured laugh had to be perfect. One mistake, one falter, and I’d be exposed.

Death had followed me across continents. Shadows had claws. And now, here I was: a stranger in a borrowed life, about to step into a world that didn’t care about anyone’s history, except my own.

The agency’s woman smiled, an umbrella handed to a drowning person. “Side by side with a billionaire,” she said. “You’ll be untouchable.”

Her words mocked me. Untouchable? The idea of safety had always been a lie. It had teeth. It chased me through dark alleys, across hotel corridors, into cheap motels with cracked windows. But the billionaires, the corporations, the high society, they were walls I could slip behind. For a time.

Time. That’s all I had.

I stepped into the penthouse conference room for the contract signing. Glass walls rose from floor to ceiling, revealing the city drenched in rain. Storm clouds scudded across the skyline like predators. Security hummed, coffee steamed, assistants hovered. And there, behind the long mahogany table, stood Ethan Vale.

Steel-blue eyes. Jaw sculpted like someone had chiselled it from ice. He didn’t smile. He didn’t blink. He scanned me, all angles, all calculations, all threat. I flinched, just a little.

“Three months,” he said, sliding the contract across the table. His voice was low, cold, precise. “No touching. No interference. You perform. I protect. We both leave unscathed.”

Protection. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to curl into the floor. But I nodded.

“I understand,” I said. My voice cracked, borrowing Isla’s calm inflection.

The pen felt heavy in my hand. Each signature I wrote felt like erasing myself. Isla’s loops, her perfect R’s, her life I had memorized down to the smallest laugh, all on paper now, binding me.

He watched me like a predator measuring prey. Not curiosity. Ownership.

The first touch happened by accident.

My gloved fingers brushed his. He flinched. Not in anger, not in surprise, in recognition, maybe suspicion. I froze. And then he leaned back, expression unreadable. My chest hammered. Attention was a weapon, and he had just pointed it at me.

Dinner followed. Cameras, staff, assistants, the hum of opulence. I answered questions like Isla would. Smiled when required. Ate with precision. Breathed like someone who did not exist.

And Ethan watched.

“You’re very controlled,” he said softly over dessert. Not teasing. Not cold. Just observation that cut deeper than ice.

“Necessary,” I whispered.

“You’re trembling,” he noted, and for a heartbeat, I thought he’d see everything, the past, the lies, the scars beneath my borrowed skin.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

Afterwards, I retreated to the suite prepared for Isla. I let the wig fall to the bed like a dead thing. Undoing the corset, undoing the binder, I pressed my palms against my ribs, feeling the smoothness and hollowness of hiding. Shadows of scars, reminders of surgeries and past violence, ran beneath my skin. Every breath reminded me I was still alive, for now.

A knock at the door made my heart skip.

“Come in,” I said, voice too high, too fragile.

Ethan entered. No smile. No small talk. Just a shadow filling the doorway. He didn’t sit. He didn’t linger unnecessarily. He measured, like he always did.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” he said.

I tried confidence. “I’m fine.”

His eyes narrowed. He stepped closer, the space between us thickening with unspoken rules and dangerous intent. Fingers hovered near the collar of my robe, casual, professional, but tinged with something else. Desire? Curiosity? A threat? I couldn’t tell.

“Don’t hide from me,” he said.

I wanted to obey. I wanted to vanish. I wanted to fight. I could do none of it.

Then his hand brushed a faint scar on my collarbone, something no one should see.

For one heartbeat, his steel-blue eyes faltered.

“You’re lying,” he whispered.

I froze. Not from fear of discovery, but from a darker, more complicated thought: maybe I didn’t want to hide anymore.

Thunder rolled over the city. Rain lashed against the glass. The penthouse felt like a trap, a gilded cage.

He stepped back, closing the door with a quiet click.

I sank to the floor, robe in disarray, heart hammering. The city outside roared like a predator. Inside, I was a secret, fragile and dangerous.

Then my phone buzzed. One message.

From an unknown number:

“We know where you are. Move carefully, or you die tonight.”

I stared at the screen. My chest constricted. The agency, the contract, Ethan’s vigilance, none of it would protect me if they found me now.

And worse… Ethan’s gaze had already discovered the first c***k in my disguise. If he realized the rest, my secret, I wouldn’t survive the fallout.

The penthouse felt smaller, suffocating. My breathing ragged. My hands shook. I pressed them to my chest, trying to steady the storm inside me.

Tomorrow, I would marry Ethan Vale.

Tonight, I had no allies, no escape, and a secret that could kill me.

And someone was coming.