Chapter 15: The Leak

The words hit the room like an explosion.

“The press has the documents.”

For a moment, nothing moved, not Jackson, not Savannah, not even the air itself. Everything froze as if the house had suddenly been plunged into ice. Grayson’s face was stark with urgency, pale beneath the dim study light. His fingers clenched the tablet so tightly his knuckles stood white beneath his skin.

Savannah felt her pulse slip, stutter, then accelerate with dizzying force. Her voice came out in a whisper she barely recognized.

“What… documents?”

Grayson looked at her with an expression hovering between pity and alarm. “Everything Delilah mentioned. The altered leases. The forged trust clause. Harrison’s signatures.” He swallowed. “And… the marriage contract.”

Savannah’s stomach dropped.

Not just the company’s dirty secrets.

Hers.

Her private, involuntary deal.

Her signature.

Her name tied to a billionaire in a contract that had never been meant for public eyes.

Jackson’s entire body went rigid, a man made of tension and fury. His jaw clenched so tightly a tendon pulsed along the side of his neck. “How long?” he asked, his voice low, deadly calm.

“Maybe twenty minutes,” Grayson replied. “Possibly less. We intercepted the first alert before it hit the main feeds, but once it breaks, ”

“Once it breaks, my father will bury us all,” Jackson finished coldly.

Savannah swallowed, a tight knot forming in her throat. “What exactly does this mean? For you? For the company? For, ”

For me.

For my name.

For my father.

For my life.

Jackson turned toward her, something dark, almost protective, sweeping across his face. “It means,” he said slowly, “that Harrison will use the scandal to call an emergency board vote. He’ll claim I violated trust ethics, manipulated clauses, used a marriage to regain control. It will look like fraud.”

Savannah felt the blood drain from her face. “But it wasn’t your fraud. It was his.”

“Do you think the public cares?” Jackson snapped, not at her, but at the monstrous truth of the situation. “Scandal doesn’t rely on facts. It relies on narrative. And right now? The narrative is damning.”

Grayson stepped forward. “We have maybe ten minutes before the smaller sites pick it up. Then the big ones won’t be far behind.”

A tremor ran through Savannah. Her heart hammered painfully, her breaths coming shallow.

Her entire world, already fragile, began to crack along invisible seams.

Jackson saw it.

And in one sharp movement, he crossed the room and reached for her hand.

Not forceful.

Not commanding.

Just… anchoring.

“Savannah,” he said, his voice lower now, tighter, like he was wrestling back control for both of them. “Look at me.”

She did.

He held her gaze with an intensity that pulled air back into her lungs.

“You did nothing wrong,” he said. “You didn’t forge anything. You didn’t manipulate anyone. I will make that clear.”

She swallowed. “But my name is in that contract.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “And now the world will know.”

Her chest twisted. The idea of strangers dissecting her life, her motives, her desperation… it made her skin crawl. She wasn’t built for this scrutiny. She wasn’t built for headlines, for cameras, for online vultures. She was built for small, quiet corners of the world, her family’s house, her father’s care center, the little desk where she designed logos between bills and panic attacks.

Not… this.

“What do we do?” she whispered.

Jackson’s grip tightened. “We fight.”

Grayson cleared his throat, stepping back into focus. “Jackson, we need to decide right now. Do we get ahead of the leak with a public statement, or do we deny until the board meeting? If we release something now, you maintain control of the narrative. But if we wait, ”

“If we wait,” Jackson cut in, “my father releases his version first.”

Savannah flinched as reality thudded into place. “What’s his version?”

Jackson met her eyes. And for the first time since she’d married him, she saw something like vulnerability flicker beneath the ice.

“That I forged marriage for power,” he said quietly.

“That I manipulated you.”

“That you were paid to marry me.”

“That you are nothing more than a contract bride in a corporate scheme.”

Savannah felt the world tilt.

“That’s a lie,” she whispered.

“Of course it is,” Jackson said. “But lies spread faster when they come from men like Harrison.”

Savannah stepped back, her throat tightening until breathing felt like swallowing glass. She pressed a hand to her stomach, willing it to stop churning.

“I can’t… I can’t have my dad seeing this,” she murmured. “The hospital, the nurses, the community, what will they think? What will they say? He’s already so fragile.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Jackson said, his voice low, deliberate.

“How?” she demanded. “How can you protect me from the entire world?”

Jackson stiffened, something flaring behind his eyes. “I will.”

“But how?” Her voice broke, pushing the question harder, louder. “By denying it? By telling the world I’m nothing? By telling them I don’t matter? That I mean nothing to you?”

Jackson inhaled sharply.

Savannah’s cheeks burned. Her heartbeat continued to spiral, wild and panicked.

“What am I supposed to be to you?” she asked, her voice trembling but resolute. “What role do you want me to play when the headlines hit? Am I your mistake? Your pawn? Your, ”

“My wife,” Jackson said suddenly.

The word slammed through the room.

Savannah blinked. “What?”

Jackson took a step closer. “You’re my wife. Legally. Publicly. And right now? The only thing that protects either of us is making the world believe we chose this marriage.”

Savannah stared, disbelief knotting in her throat. “You want me to pretend, ”

“No.” He cut her off, shaking his head once. “No pretending. Not a lie. The truth they need to hear.”

Her breath shuddered. “But it wasn’t, ”

“It is now.”

Savannah froze.

Grayson sighed in frustration. “Jackson, if you want to use that angle, we’ll need photos. A public appearance. Something intimate enough to convince the press, ”

Savannah’s pulse faltered. “Photos?”

“Of the two of you together,” Grayson clarified. “Not staged. Soft. Close. Believable.”

Heat crawled up Savannah’s spine. “People will think I, ”

Jackson gently cupped her chin.

A move that should’ve felt manipulative.

Calculated.

Cold.

But his thumb was warm.

And the look in his eyes… it wasn’t strategy.

“People will think you’re with me,” he said quietly. “That’s all.”

Savannah swallowed hard. “And is that what you want?”

Jackson held her face a second longer. Then he said something she did not expect.

“I want to protect you,” he murmured. “And the company. We’re in the same storm now. You and I.”

Grayson checked his watch. “We have maybe seven minutes before the first blogger posts it. Five before social media amplifies.”

Jackson straightened. “Then we move now.”

Savannah forced herself to find steadiness. “What… what do I do?”

Jackson took her hand again.

“Stay close to me,” he said. “No matter what happens. No matter what they say.”

Her breath caught.

He continued, voice lower. “If we walk out there united, we survive this. If we fracture now? My father wins.”

Savannah looked at him for a long moment. At his certainty. His urgency. His quiet fear. His resolve. She couldn’t yet tell if she trusted him, but she knew one thing for certain:

If she didn’t stand beside him tonight, everything she cared about would be swallowed.

Savannah nodded. “Okay.”

Jackson exhaled, the smallest sign of relief flickering over him.

Grayson pocketed his tablet. “I’ll draft a public statement. You two, be camera-ready.”

Savannah’s heart lurched. “Camera-ready?”

Jackson squeezed her hand. “It means we face them together.”

He led her toward the door. Before they stepped out, Savannah paused and forced him to face her fully.

“If I walk out there and they tear me apart,” she whispered, “you better not let me fall alone.”

Jackson’s eyes softened fiercely. “Savannah.”

A pause.

A promise.

A vow.

“You won’t fall.”

And then he opened the door.

And walked her out of the study, 

Straight into a storm waiting to devour them both.