Chapter 4

Teddy didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Didn't even glance at me before he dropped it like it was the most casual thing in the world.

"I can't marry Mabel Harrigan," he said, his tone maddeningly calm. "Because I already have someone. Someone I love. And I intend to marry her."

The table went quiet. Not the kind of polite, delicate hush you get when someone drops their fork at a formal lunch. This was the silence of glass cracking. Of tectonic plates shifting under expensive Italian marble.

Then, the follow-through. He turned his head, slow, like a man in no hurry to deliver the punchline everyone was about to choke on. And his eyes landed on me.

Me. The Executive secretary. The woman who fetched his coffee and kept him from forgetting where he parked his car. The woman who had zero business being the next sentence out of his mouth.

"Jill," he said, and my name rolled out of him like a hand sliding a loaded gun across the table. "I love Jill."

My spine locked. My mouth went dry. I think my heart actually forgot how to beat for a second, then overcompensated by trying to punch its way out of my ribs.

In my head, I was saying what the actual fuck on repeat, like some broken neon sign. Out loud? Nothing. I couldn't find my voice. Not while the Fox family was staring at me like I'd just climbed up on the table and started tap-dancing.

The young man, Teddy's younger brother, probably... let out a short, disbelieving laugh, the kind you use when someone says something so outrageous you almost admire the audacity. The woman next to him, flawless in that I woke up in a trust fund way, just stared. Her fork hovered mid-air, eyes darting between me and Teddy like she was waiting for the punchline.

His father's face was a study in shock and calculation, both fighting for first place. His mother... now, she was something else. No wide eyes. No gasp. Just that smooth, unshaken composure of a woman who'd seen far worse and learned long ago that control was a weapon.

It was Teddy's eyes that snapped me out of the freeze. He was watching me. Not just watching—commanding. A look sharp enough to slice through the chaos in my brain.

Play along.

The message was clear. And it pissed me off. Because I had no idea what game he'd just dropped me into, and no time to say no.

His father's voice came again, harder now. "Is that true, Jill?"

The table tilted. That's what it felt like. Tilted toward me, every gaze pinning me down. I could feel my pulse in my ears. I could feel Teddy's silent order like a hand on the back of my neck.

"Yes," I said, the word catching in my throat before it came out. I made myself look at his father when I said it. "It's true."

The young man leaned back in his chair with a low whistle, like he'd just witnessed a car crash and couldn't decide if it was tragic or beautiful. The woman beside him shook her head slowly, lips curling in disbelief.

His mother's eyes flicked between us once, and there, just for a second... I thought I saw it. The faintest curve at the corner of her mouth. Approval? Amusement? Hard to tell with that poker face.

Teddy reached for his napkin, folded it once with deliberate precision, and set it beside his plate. "Well," he said, "if that's all, we'll be going."

It wasn't a request. He pushed his chair back, the sound of the legs against the marble making everyone flinch. Then he stood, came around behind me, and... without hesitation, rested a hand on my shoulder. Warm. Firm. Possessive in a way that made my stomach do something I wasn't proud of.

"Come on, Jill."

And just like that, I was standing too, my chair scraping back, my brain still trying to catch up.

We walked out together, his hand a steady pressure between my shoulder blades. The moment we cleared the dining room, I realized my knees had been locked the entire time. Out in the corridor, the air felt cooler. Quieter. But it was just an illusion. The tension followed us like a shadow.

By the time we reached the front doors, a black car was already waiting. Of course it was. Teddy Fox didn't "wait" for anything. The driver jumped out, opened the back door, and we slid in. The door shut with that expensive, satisfying thump that says you're insulated from the rest of the world.

For all of five seconds.

"What the hell was that?" I said, turning on him the second we were moving.

"That," he said, completely unfazed, "was a counter-move."

"A counter...?" I broke off, because my voice was already climbing into that pitch it only reached when I was about to say something that could get me fired. "You just announced to your parents that you're in love with me. At a formal family lunch. With no warning. You can't just...."

"I can," he said, like that was the end of it.

"No. No, Teddy, you can't just throw me into some billionaire soap opera without telling me the plot."

He looked at me then. Really looked. The kind of look that pressed the air out of your lungs. "I can't marry Mabel Harrigan," he said, each word deliberate. "And I won't."

"So you thought—what? You'd just... point at me?"

"I didn't just point at you," he said, leaning back, one arm stretched along the seat like he owned the whole car, the whole city, maybe the whole damn world. "I chose you."

The words hit me in some place I didn't want to acknowledge. "Why?"

"Because you're the only person in my life who doesn't want something from me I'm not willing to give," he said simply. "And because you're smart enough to pull this off."

"Pull what off?"

He turned toward me fully now, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that made people say yes before they even knew the question.

"Act like my lover. In public. Enough to convince my parents, the Harrigans, and the press that this is real. Enough to make it impossible for them to go through with the arrangement. Enough to make them call it off themselves."

I stared at him. "You want me to fake a relationship with you."

"Yes."

"Why not just tell them no?"

He actually laughed. "Because that's not how my family works. You say no, they work around you. You make it impossible, they have no choice but to walk away."

I shook my head, half-laughing because it was so insane. "You realize how crazy this is, right?"

"I realize exactly what this is," he said, and now he was leaning in, the scent of his cologne threading into my head like a slow drug. "It's a job. One you're perfect for."

I opened my mouth to argue, but he wasn't done. "You play the role. The dates, the appearances, the press leaks... everything. You do it for as long as it takes. And when it's over..."

He paused just long enough to make me want to punch him for the suspense. "When it's over, you walk away with enough money to change your life forever. Set you up for the rest of it."

My mouth went dry again. "How much?"

"Enough," he said. And the way he said it, I believed him.

The car was silent except for the sound of the city outside. My brain was a riot... half of it screaming to run, the other half calculating just how much "enough" could mean coming from Teddy Fox.

I looked out the window, but my reflection was there, staring back at me with wide eyes and a pulse you could see in my throat.

It was insane. It was reckless. It was career suicide. And yet...I turned my head slowly, meeting his gaze again. He didn't blink. Didn't break. Just waited.

And I realized I had about three seconds to make a decision that could rewrite the entire rest of my life.