Episode Three
1385 Words
**Chapter 3: The Boardroom & The Breadsticks**
The Meridian Group board of directors did not *request* to meet the new Mrs. Hart.
They *summoned* her.
The email arrived at 9:02 a.m. Subject line: *Welcome Dinner - Mandatory*. From: Richard Albright, Chairman. Translation: *We need to see if she’s real or if Daniel finally bought a subscription to a wife service.*
Daniel read it over Claire’s shoulder while she was trying to type a proposal one-handed. His coffee breath hit her cheek. She did not shiver. That would be unprofessional.
“Decline,” she said.
“We can’t.”
“Counter-offer: I’ll send them a PowerPoint titled *Why I’m Tolerating Your CEO*.”
“No.”
“Fine. But I’m wearing the hair tie.”
He looked at her left hand. The black hair tie was still there, triple-looped, leaving a permanent indent. His silver paperclip was on his desk, holding a stack of contracts together. Practical. Infuriating.
“You look like you’re engaged to a middle schooler,” he said.
“You look like you’re engaged to your stapler. We match.”
The plan was simple. Daniel’s words: *In. Out. Ten minutes of small talk. No personal questions. No one touches the breadsticks. We leave.*
Claire’s plan: *Absolutely not.*
---
The restaurant was the kind of place that didn’t have prices on the menu. Everything was white. The tablecloths, the chairs, the faces of the board members when Claire walked in wearing all black and a smile that said *I’ve read your Q3 earnings and I have questions.*
Richard Albright stood. “Daniel. And you must be…”
“Claire,” she said, shaking his hand with her good one. “Former Creative Development. Current thorn in your side. Contractual wife.”
Daniel choked on air. The oldest board member, a woman named Eleanor who’d been on the board since fax machines were new, actually laughed.
“Contractual?” Eleanor repeated, delighted. “Daniel, you romantic.”
Daniel’s jaw did the thing. The micro-tick. “Claire is joking. She was in an accident. The pain medication—”
“I’m not on pain meds,” Claire said, taking the seat he pulled out for her. “They make me say what I think. This is just me.”
Dinner was a blood sport.
Richard: “So, Claire, how did you two meet?”
Claire: “He fired me. Then I bled on his car. It was very meet-cute, if your cute is corporate manslaughter.”
Daniel: “We met at Meridian. We reconnected recently.”
Claire: “He raised my rent. I called him a spreadsheet. He bought my building. Now we share a fridge. Romance is dead.”
Eleanor was having the time of her life. “Daniel, you never mentioned she was funny.”
“I wasn’t aware,” Daniel said, staring at his water glass like it had betrayed him.
The questions got personal. That was Claire’s fault. She answered Richard’s *“What do you love about him?”* with a stat.
“According to his 2018 profile in *Business Weekly*, Daniel Hart had not taken a vacation day in four years. I love that for him. I also love that he knows the fire code for every floor of his building and can recite it. At parties. If he went to parties.”
The table went quiet.
Daniel looked at her. Really looked. She’d memorized a profile on him. From six years ago.
Eleanor turned to him, eyes sharp. “And you, Daniel? What do you love about Claire?”
It was a trap. The whole dinner was a trap. He was supposed to say something generic. *Her smile. Her drive.* Something safe.
Daniel set his fork down.
“She color-codes her to-do lists but ignores them if a better idea shows up,” he said. Quiet. Not boardroom voice. Just… him. “She sent me a blank notebook and called it my personality, and she was right. She remembers how I take my coffee. She argued with a doctor at 2 a.m. because he called her a ‘confectioner.’ She fights. Even when she’s losing. Especially when she’s losing.”
Claire forgot how to breathe.
Richard coughed. “Well. That’s… thorough.”
“And,” Daniel added, like he couldn’t stop now, “she leaves sticky notes on water glasses. With agendas. For sleep.”
Eleanor was beaming. “Oh, to be young and full of annotated hydration.”
Claire needed to derail this immediately before she did something stupid like reach for his hand. She grabbed a breadstick.
“So,” she said, too loud. “Who else here has a contract marriage? No? Just us? Weird. Pass the butter.”
The butter was passed. By Daniel. Their fingers brushed. The hair tie versus the missing paperclip. Static.
The rest of dinner was a blur of Eleanor asking invasive questions and Claire answering them with a mix of truth and tactical chaos.
Eleanor: “What’s your favorite thing to do together?”
Claire: “Argue about the definition of ‘schedule.’ He thinks it’s a noun. I think it’s a cage.”
Daniel: “She’s wrong.”
Claire: “See? Date night.”
Eleanor: “Where was your first kiss?”
Claire, without missing a beat: “On his cheek. At the municipal office. He’d forgotten rings, so I used a hair tie, and there were cameras. He smelled like panic and very expensive soap.”
Daniel went still. Because it was true. And because she remembered the soap.
Eleanor turned to him. “And you, Daniel? What do you remember?”
Daniel’s eyes found Claire’s. The restaurant, the board, the white tablecloths, all of it went fuzzy at the edges.
“I remember,” he said, “that she wasn’t afraid of me. Even when she should have been.”
Claire’s throat went dry. That was not in the contract. That was not in any version of the plan.
Richard clapped his hands. “Well! This has been… illuminating. We should let you two get home. You know. Newlyweds.”
The drive back was silent. Not angry silent. Charged silent. Like the air before a storm.
In the elevator up to the penthouse, Daniel finally spoke.
“You memorized my profile.”
“You recited my coffee order from three years ago.”
“I pay attention.”
“So do I.”
The elevator doors opened. They walked to their separate suites. Stopped.
“Claire.”
“Daniel.”
He looked at her hand. At the hair tie. His paperclip was still on his desk.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “Tonight. Cover for me.”
“I wasn’t covering for you,” she said. “I was telling the truth. You’re just not used to it.”
He took a step closer. Not touching. But close enough that she could see the flecks of darker gray in his eyes. Close enough to see the scar.
“The contract says no unannounced visitors,” he said.
“This isn’t a visit.”
“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”
He didn’t move. She didn’t move.
Then he reached out, slow, giving her time to stop him, and took her injured hand. Just held it. His thumb didn’t brush the bandage. It rested beside it, on her wrist. His skin was warm. Calloused from years of pens and stress balls and nothing else.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. And she wasn’t talking about her hand.
He exhaled. Like he’d been holding his breath since the breadsticks.
“Goodnight, Claire.”
“Goodnight, Daniel.”
He let go. Went into his suite.
Claire stood there for a full minute. Then went into hers, closed the door, and slid to the floor.
She pulled her phone out. Opened the calendar.
New event.
*Subject: Clause 7 Discussion*
*Time: TBD*
*Location: TBD*
*Agenda: We need to talk about the fact that I don’t hate you anymore and that’s a problem.*
*Attendees: You. Me. No sticky notes.*
She hovered her thumb over *Send*.
Then deleted it.
Not yet.
Understanding first. The rest would come when one of them finally broke. And it wouldn’t be her.
Probably.
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- Writer
