CHAPTER 4

Elena's POV

The silence in the room became so heavy I could hear the faint, steady ticking of the clock on the wall. I sat frozen, staring at the man across from me as if he had just spoken a completely different language.

"Marry you?" The words finally forced their way out of my throat, sounding completely hollow. "You're joking."

Oliver didn't blink. He didn't smile, either. "I don’t joke about business, Miss Golding. Especially not when a million dollars is on the table."

"This isn't business," I stammered, my grip tightening on my notepad until my knuckles ached. "This is insane. You don't even know me. We had a five-minute argument in a stairwell."

"Which proves you have a backbone," he said, leaning back and lacing his fingers together over his chest. "That’s a quality my current situation desperately requires. I don't need a blushing bride, Miss Golding. I need a contract partner who can play a part convincingly. You need thirty thousand dollars immediately, and significantly more to keep your sister stable. I need an image overhaul to satisfy a board of directors. It’s a clean, mutually beneficial trade."

My mind scrambled, trying to process the sheer absurdity of the moment. Just yesterday, I was planning a future with a man who was cheating on me. This morning, I was terrified of being evicted. And now, the most notorious billionaire playboy in New York was offering to buy my life for the next year.

"I can't just... sell myself to you," I whispered, looking down at the sticky note with that impossible number written on it.

"You aren't selling yourself. You're signing a contract," Oliver corrected, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. "You will live in my apartment, attend corporate functions on my arm, and convince the media that I am a changed, committed family man. At the end of twelve months, we quietly file for divorce. You walk away independently wealthy, and your sister gets her life back."

He paused, letting the mention of Chloe hang in the air like a heavy weight. He knew exactly where to strike.

"I don’t expect you to sign right this second," Oliver continued, sliding the thick folder a fraction closer to my side of the desk. "Take the document. Read the clauses. I will expect your final answer in exactly twenty-four hours. If you decline, you keep your current assistant position, assuming you can maintain your professionalism. But the offer vanishes."

I reached out with a numb hand, my fingers brushing the cool plastic of the folder. "Twenty-four hours."

"Twenty-four hours," he repeated.

I stood up, my knees feeling dangerously weak. I clamped the folder against my chest, treating it like a shield as I prepared to turn and flee from the suffocating luxury of his office.

"Oh, and Miss Golding?"

Oliver's voice stopped me right as my hand touched the heavy brass door handle. I turned back, my heart doing a nervous flip. He hadn't moved, but there was a sharp, dominant glint in his dark eyes—a reminders of exactly who held every single card in this room.

"I take my coffee black," he said smoothly, a faint, mocking smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Every morning at eight sharp. Let’s see how well you handle the simple tasks before we move on to the complex ones."

The sheer arrogance of the comment hit me like a slap. He was letting me know that no matter what crazy proposal he had just thrown at me, right now, I was still just his assistant. He was still the man who could crush my livelihood with a single phone call.

"Black. Understood, Mr. Wyatt," I said, keeping my voice tightly locked down.

I pushed the door open and stepped out into the main suite, letting the heavy glass click shut behind me. The cool air of the outer office hit my face, and I took a massive gulp of it, trying to steady my racing pulse.

Frank looked up from his computer the moment he heard the door. He scanned my face, his eyes immediately dropping to the thick manila folder clutched tightly in my arms.

"Elena?" Frank asked, sliding his chair back as he stood up. He walked over to my desk, his brow furrowed with genuine concern. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

I forced a breath into my lungs, desperately trying to pull my professional mask back into place. I couldn't tell Frank. I didn't know how much he knew about Oliver's plan, but I couldn't risk revealing anything until I had actually read the papers.

"I'm fine, Frank," I said, managed a small, slightly shaky laugh. "Just... getting a feel for how demanding Mr. Wyatt can be."

Frank sighed, a sympathetic look crossing his features. "Did he give you a hard time about the stairwell encounter?"

"Not exactly," I said, setting the folder down on my desk and quickly covering it with a stack of standard onboarding paperwork. "He was just setting some firm boundaries. He wanted to make sure I knew his specific preferences."

"Preferences?"

"Yes," I said, looking over at the breakroom doors. "He made sure to let me know he likes his coffee completely black. Every morning at eight o'clock sharp."

Frank let out a hearty laugh, the tension instantly leaving his shoulders. "Ah, the classic coffee power play. He loves doing that to new executive staff just to see if they'll stumble or complain."

He stepped closer, leaning against the edge of my desk partition. "Don't let it get to you, Elena. I've watched a lot of assistants walk through those doors, and most of them look ready to cry after their first interaction with him. But you? You have a quiet strength in your eyes. I noticed it during your initial interviews, and I see it now."

I looked up at him, feeling a genuine wave of gratitude. "Thank you, Frank. That means a lot. Especially today."

"I mean it," Frank said warmly. "This place can be a shark tank, and Mr. Wyatt pushes people to their absolute limits. But you have a way of handling yourself—you're direct, you don't let the noise distract you, and you keep your focus exactly where it needs to be. I believe in you, Elena. Just keep doing exactly what you're doing. Keep it simple, stay grounded, and don't let his ego shake your confidence."

"I won't," I promised, though my eyes drifted back to the edge of the hidden contract sticking out from under my notebook. "I'll keep my head down and do my job."

"That's all anyone can ask for," Frank smiled, turning back toward his own station. "Take a few minutes to log into your terminal and look over the merger files. We have a long afternoon ahead of us."

"On it," I said.

As Frank sat back down, I sank into my chair and pulled the hidden folder onto my lap. My hands were still cold. I stared at the blank cover, knowing that inside these pages lay the power to completely cure my sister—and completely destroy any normal life I had ever hoped to have.

The clock above my desk clicked to 9:45 AM. The countdown had officially begun.