Who Are You

DARIAN

“Where’s that bastard?”

My eyes snapped to the woman who barreled into the room like a gust of wind.

“I couldn’t hold her, Mr. Darian!”

I waved the man away with a hand and gave the disheveled woman—who’d clearly fought her way up here—an inquisitive look. My brothers weren’t any different from me in that moment.

“Which bastard?”

“The bastard who’s supposed to be my husband! Where is Darian Freeman?”

At her words my two brothers exploded into laughter as if they’d just seen the punchline of the century. I, for one, saw nothing funny. Not a thing.

She smoothed her hair and fixed those hazel eyes on me.

“Tell me where he is. I swear I won’t kill him. I just want to shove these papers up his ass,” she said, waving the documents in my face.

“There must be some mistake,” I said, still trying to make sense of this whole mess.

“Don’t read me fairy tales! Where is that little son of a bitch?”

“Are you crazy, woman? There’s a mistake! I’m Darian Freeman, but I am one hundred percent certain I am not your husband!”

“Where?” she asked again. “Where did you hide him?”

“Who are you?” I asked the woman who looked as though a bomb had gone off in the middle of the room. She was so furious she didn’t even hear me.

“Where is he? Tell me!” I stepped toward her and grabbed both her arms to stop her from spinning around like a madwoman.

“I’m Darian Freeman,” I repeated slowly, as if explaining to someone slow. “But I’m not your husband,” I added, my brows knitting. What the hell was going on?

“Stop playing games with me! You aren’t my husband.”

“I am telling you exactly that. I’m not your husband.”

“I am married to Darian Freeman!” she said again. For a second I wondered what hole in the earth this woman had crawled out of while God was handing out common sense.

She stared up at me with eyes blown wide. Short as she was, she dared me like she could swallow me whole. Her anger made her look like a tiny fireball.

Her hair—a mix of red and black, slightly wavy—fell around her face.

She was beautiful. Dangerous beautiful.

“I am Darian Freeman! My name is Darian, my surname is Freeman. There is only one Darian Freeman in this company. That’s me. But I am not your husband.”

She stared at me and stared, and then finally—right there in the middle of the office—she sat down and sobbed until she hiccupped.

Seriously. What on earth was happening here?

Luke and Marcus eventually dragged their asses over and the three of us knelt around the woman.

She made incomprehensible pleas—“what does this mean? how can this be? are you joking?”—and sobbed like someone whose world had just been dug out from under her.

When someone cried, my feet always went a little numb.

My eyes found my two brothers.

“If this is one of your pranks,” I said, pointing at them with a finger.

Both of them shook their heads quickly.

“Not us!” Luke said, though for some reason I didn’t want to believe him. They loved to play stupid practical jokes on me since I’d never been one for them.

“Cross my heart,” Marcus echoed, backing him up.

So where had this woman—claiming she was my wife—fallen from, right into the center of our company?

---

“Can you calm down now?” I asked the woman. Her crying had taken me off guard at first, but now she was fraying my nerves.

“If you’re Darian Freeman, then who was my husband?” she demanded. Her hazel eyes, reddened from crying, looked almost green. The whites were bloodshot; her makeup had streaked down her face in dark tracks.

“I don’t understand you,” I said, impatient.

“I was married to Darian Freeman. To the bastard who owns this company!”

Luke snorted. I had to sit on my patience.

“I own this company! I’ll say it for the hundredth time: I am not your husband.”

“But how? He ran off, conned me, left me with five million in debt! I’ve been searching for him for days and the man I find is the wrong man?”

“All will be clear soon,” Luke said as he stood and reached out his hand to the woman.

He guided her to a chair. “Can I see your ID?” he asked.

“What are you going to do?” she squealed. I was still trying to figure things out.

“I’ll check. We’ll see who you’re married to.”

The woman nodded and handed her ID to Luke. “Nice to meet you, Belinda Freeman,” she said as she glanced at me.

So her name was Belinda.

“Mind your job,” I said, my voice taut.

Luke sat at the computer. Hands in my pockets, I turned my back on the woman and watched him type in the ID details.

Ten minutes later the same sentence escaped both our mouths simultaneously:

“Fuck.”

I was actually married. To a woman I didn’t know.

“What the hell is going on?” I muttered.

“I don’t know yet,” Luke said, stunned. “I’ll figure it out within an hour.”

---

Half an hour later Belinda had calmed, had drunk her coffee, and told us the whole story.

“Who the hell is this?” I asked in a voice that bounced between anger and disbelief. “Wouldn’t the asshole have a single photo? What kind of marriage was this?”

“Would I have kept a photo of the man who cheated me and ran off?” she snapped back.

“Easy. Recovering deleted documents won’t be hard,” Luke said.

“My phone is new,” Belinda added.

I narrowed my eyes and examined her. Had she been lying since morning? Could her ‘con job’ story be fabricated? Was she part of the scheme?

“What did you find?” I asked.

“Other stories that resemble Belinda’s. Nothing concrete,” Luke replied, scratching his chin. “We’re dealing with a big con gang. I found a few news items—women like Belinda filing complaints.”

“So?” I said, feeling increasingly like an idiot. My brain was lagging.

“Meaning — congrats, you’re married,” he said, teasing.

“Screw your marriage! Do I have to deal with this? If my signature isn’t on the marriage certificate it’s easy to prove. We’ll sort it tomorrow,” I said, turning to Belinda.

“And what about me?” she shouted. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Not my problem, girl! Who married you—go find them! Don’t look at me.”

“You are the one I found!”

“I am not your husband.”

“But you look like him!” she cried. “How could I find the man who appears as you on the ID? Gangs are after me. They saddled me with five million. I was thrown out, fired. What am I supposed to do?”

Her words softened even the hardest among us.

“Yeah,” Luke said. “What is she supposed to do alone?”

“Not my business! Where was your head when you got married? You should have checked who you were marrying! That’s not my problem.”

“I don’t have five million!” I snapped.

Her shameless, unashamed tone pushed my temper to the edge.

“You lived with some man for three months, spent your days enjoying yourself, and now you want me to pay your debt?”

“I don’t know,” she said, flipping her hair and looking at me.

“If you planned to rid yourself of me with a signature, then I’ll go and report you for collusion with a con artist. I’m the victim here!”

My eyes widened. A woman I didn’t know a few hours ago was now not only claiming to be my wife but was threatening me.

I laughed, an edge of cold amusement. I ran my fingers through my hair and leaned toward her.

“Are you threatening me?” My voice was ice. Part of me hissed to strangle her, pin her against the wall. But she wasn’t worth the effort.

“Call it whatever you like,” she said, drawing back as if trying to distance herself. “I have nowhere to go. Men are after me. Should I throw myself into their arms to get murdered? Do you want a headline: Woman Killed? That will be on me?”

She was good at playing the victim.

I stared into her eyes, picked up my phone, and dialed security.

“There’s trash that needs to be thrown out here. Come and take it away.”