Chapter 1

CLARA MYLES

The curtains of the VIP lounge were the only thing keeping the noise of the Las Vegas casino at bay.

I leaned my head back on the booth, staring up at the low chandelier as the alcohol burned warm and slow in my chest. Across the small table sat Leo Drake.

He was my boss, the notoriously cold CEO of Drake Enterprises, and the man who had made my life a living hell for the past three years. Back in Chicago, Leo was a machine. He worked sixteen-hour days, never smiled, and fired analysts for minor formatting errors. But right now, his expensive suit jacket was thrown over the back of the seat, his top two shirt buttons were undone, and he was holding a half-empty glass of high-end whiskey.

"Don't stare too much, Clara," Leo said, his voice lower and rougher than usual.

"I'm staring because you're actually acting like a human being," I replied, taking another sip of my drink. "I didn't think you knew how to loosen up."

A faint, rare smirk touched the corner of his lips. "It takes a four-hundred-billion-dollar merger and three shots of tequila to get me to relax. What's your excuse?"

"My excuse is that I just spent six months running financial risk assessments for you," I said, leaning forward and setting my glass down with a quiet click. "I earned this."

He watched me for a long moment, his dark gray eyes calm and unreadable. For the first time since I was hired on as his lead risk analyst, he wasn't looking at me like an employee. The air between us felt dangerous, and entirely too warm.

"You did," Leo agreed quietly. He reached out, his long fingers picking up his glass. "To surviving the company."

"To surviving you," I corrected, clinking my glass against his.

One drink turned into three, and three turned into a hazy blur of neon lights, loud music, and warm hands.

I remembered laughing, really laughing for the first time in years. I remembered Leo holding my waist to guide me through a crowded street, his touch sending an unsettling spark right through my coat. And then, I remembered the bright, tacky pink sign of a twenty-four-hour chapel.

"We shouldn't do this," I had giggled, leaning on his chest as the smell of his expensive cologne wrapped around me.

"Why not?" Leo had murmured near my ear, his breath warm on my skin. "You calculate risk for a living, Clara. For once in your life, take one."

~

The next morning, the haze vanished instantly.

I woke up on a plush sofa in the living room of Leo's private Vegas penthouse, my head throbbing. I sat up, my eyes falling straight to the silver ring sitting on the ring finger of my left hand.

Panic hit me like a bucket of ice water.

I scrambled off the couch, grabbed my purse, and dug through it until my hands wrapped around a piece of paper. A marriage certificate. Signed in messy, drunken ink by Clara Myles and Leo Drake.

"I need you to sign this off before the vodka wears off, or I swear to God I am walking out that door," I said, marching into the kitchen and slapping a hastily drafted annulment form to the table.

Leo did not even look up from his tablet. He sat in a crisp white shirt, calmly taking a sip of his black coffee as if he hadn't just legally bound himself to his subordinate six hours ago.

"You are acting hysterical, Clara," he said in that flat, smooth tone that usually made junior analysts break out in a cold sweat. "Sit down and drink some water."

"I am not being hysterical, I am being legally proactive!" I shouted, pacing aroud the place. "We got married. In a drive-thru chapel. By an Elvis impersonator. If the board finds out, I will be fired!"

Leo slowly set his cup down. He looked at me, his dark gray eyes tracking me calmly. The relaxed man from last night was completely gone. He was back to being the impossible CEO.

"Nobody is firing you," Leo said, sliding the paper toward himself. "And I am not signing this today."

I stopped dead in my tracks. "What do you mean you're not signing it? You said last night was a mistake!"

"Last night I was drunk, and so were you," he replied, leaning back in his chair.

"This morning, I am looking at our schedule. The merger with the Sterling Group closes in three weeks. Their chairman thinks bachelor executives are unstable. If news leaks that I got a secret weekend marriage and an immediate annulment, the stock drops instantly."

"That is your problem, Leo! Not mine!" I walked up to the island, leaning over to glare at him. "I have worked three years for my promotion to senior vice president. I am not letting this ruin my career!"

"Then help me fix it," he said, his voice dropping low and calm. "We keep the marriage quiet. In four weeks, after the deal is finalized, we file the papers quietly in another state. No drama, no risk to your position."

I stared at him, my jaw tight. He was a man who calculated every move three steps ahead, and his calm reaction made my stomach twist.

"Four weeks," I bargained, my voice tight. "Not a single day more. We live in separate apartments. You do not touch me, and you sign the formal agreement my lawyer prepares by tomorrow.”

Leo watched me for a long moment before giving a single nod. "Agreed. Get changed, Clara. The car is downstairs. We have an eight o'clock briefing, and you are late on your risk report."

Twenty minutes later, we were in the back of his black town car heading to the airport, trapped in complete silence. Leo was already buried in his phone, typing emails as if nothing had happened.

By Monday morning, we were back in the tower in Chicago. I stepped out of the private executive elevator and marched straight to my desk at the end of the hall, desperate to focus on work and pretend Vegas was a bad dream.

I opened my private cloud drive on my computer to pull up my legal templates for the non-disclosure agreement. But as the system synced with my old personal archives, a folder popped up from my high school days, a backup file I hadn't opened in ten years.

I accidentally clicked it, and a scanned newspaper clipping expanded over my screen.

My heart stopped.

It was a local news report about a teenager who had run away from an abusive family estate during a rainstorm, saved from the highway bridge by an anonymous classmate.

Attached to the article was a blurry photo of the young boy's face, bruised, bleeding, and staring at the camera with desperate eyes.

The blood drained from my face as my hands began to shake over the keyboard.

No it couldn't be him. It couldn't be Leo Drake.