POV: Aiden King
Aiden stood alone in the hallway, staring at Alina's closed door long after the sound of her lock clicking into place had faded into silence. Her words echoed in his mind like accusations he couldn't dismiss: "Tonight was you treating me exactly like what you think I am—a business transaction with feelings you don't have to consider."
He'd always prided himself on being honest about their arrangement. Clear boundaries, mutual benefits, no false promises. But standing there in the expensive silence of their penthouse, he couldn't shake the image of Alina's face when those reporters had torn into her, painting her as a woman who'd sold her dignity for his money.
His phone buzzed. Then again. And again.
By the time he reached his study, seventeen missed calls and forty-three text messages were waiting for him. His PR team, his business partners, board members, social media alerts—all reacting to whatever had happened since they'd left the gala.
The first call he returned was to Marcus Webb, his head of public relations.
"Jesus Christ, Aiden, where have you been?" Marcus's voice was sharp with panic. "We've got a full-scale media storm brewing."
"What are you talking about?"
"Check your phone. Check social media. Check anywhere with an internet connection." Papers rustled in the background. "The photos from Chicago are everywhere. Someone leaked them to every major gossip site, and now the reporters from tonight are running with the story about your 'fake marriage' and 'paid wife.'"
Aiden's blood went cold. He pulled up Twitter on his phone and immediately saw his name trending. The photos Marcus mentioned were indeed everywhere—him and Veronica at Le Bernardin, looking intimate over candlelight, her hand on his arm, both of them laughing.
"The board is in emergency session," Marcus continued. "King Technologies stock dropped three percent in after-hours trading. They want an immediate response."
Aiden scrolled through increasingly vicious comments about Alina. The headlines were brutal: "Tech Mogul's Sham Marriage Exposed," "The $50 Million Wife: Inside Seattle's Biggest Scandal," "King's Fake Queen."
Derek's voice came through on another incoming call. "Aiden, we need damage control now. The board is threatening a vote of no confidence if this isn't handled immediately."
"What do they want me to do?"
"Public statement. Clean, simple, decisive. You need to declare that Dr. Johnson is just a friend and that you're committed to your marriage. Kill the affair rumors before they kill the company."
Aiden felt his stomach twist. "A public statement declaring my commitment to Alina?"
"Unless you want to lose your position as CEO, yes. The board won't tolerate this kind of scandal affecting shareholder value."
His phone lit up with another call—this time from Anthony Collins, one of his oldest business partners.
"Aiden, I'm getting calls from investors. They're spooked. You need to get in front of this story and bury it, fast."
"How exactly am I supposed to do that?"
"Simple. You go on record stating that your marriage is real, that Dr. Johnson is just a family friend, and that you're committed to your wife. Make the romantic dinner look like innocent friendship."
The irony wasn't lost on him. To save his business reputation, he had to publicly claim devotion to the woman he'd been privately dismissing as temporary.
"I need to think about this," Aiden said.
"You have two hours," Derek replied. "The board meets at eight AM. If you don't have a statement ready by then, they're calling for your removal."
After hanging up, Aiden stared at his reflection in the dark window. In a few hours, he would have to stand in front of cameras and declare his love for a marriage he'd called a charade just hours earlier.
But what choice did he have? King Technologies was his life's work. The company employed thousands of people. His personal feelings couldn't matter more than that.
He called Marcus back. "Draft the statement. I'll do it."
"Smart choice. We'll have you on Good Morning Seattle at seven AM. Keep it simple: you love your wife, Dr. Johnson is just a friend, and you're committed to your marriage."
Two hours later, Aiden stood in the King Technologies lobby facing a wall of cameras and reporters. The statement Marcus had written felt like sand in his mouth, but he delivered it with the same confidence he brought to board meetings.
"I want to address the speculation about my marriage and my friendship with Dr. Johnson. Alina is the love of my life, and I've never been happier than I am as her husband. Dr. Johnson is a dear family friend—nothing more. The photos from Chicago show two friends having dinner, and I'm disappointed that innocent friendship has been twisted into something it isn't."
He paused, looking directly into the main camera. "My wife is an incredible woman who deserves better than having her character questioned by people who don't know her. I'm proud to be married to her, and I'll spend every day proving that she made the right choice in saying yes."
The words were perfectly crafted lies, but they rolled off his tongue with practiced ease. This was damage control, not truth-telling.
The reporters shouted questions, but Aiden walked away without taking any. The performance was over.
Back in his office, he felt hollow. He'd just publicly declared his devotion to a woman he barely knew while essentially erasing his actual feelings for Veronica. But the early market response was positive—King Technologies stock was already recovering.
His phone rang. Veronica's name appeared on the screen.
"What the hell was that?" Her voice was shaking with anger and hurt.
"Veronica—"
"You just humiliated me on national television. You made me look like some desperate woman chasing a married man. How could you do that to me?"
Aiden closed his eyes. "I had to protect the company. The board was threatening to remove me."
"So you threw me under the bus? You made our entire relationship sound like nothing?"
"It was the only way to stop the scandal. If I hadn't made that statement, the board would have voted me out this morning."
"And that's more important than my reputation? My career?" Veronica's voice cracked. "Do you know what it's like to watch the man you love declare his devotion to another woman on television?"
The words hit him like a punch to the chest. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you."
"But you did it anyway. You chose your company over me. You chose her over me."
"That's not... it's not that simple."
"Isn't it? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you just picked your fake wife over the woman you supposedly love."
"Veronica, please—"
"No, Aiden. I'm done. I can't do this anymore. Watching you play house with someone else while I wait in the wings like some dirty secret. I deserve better than this."
"Just give me time to figure this out—"
"You had time. You've had months to figure this out, and instead you married someone else." Her voice was getting stronger, more resolved. "I'm moving to Boston. Johns Hopkins offered me a position, and I'm taking it."
"Don't make any hasty decisions. We can work through this."
"There is no 'we' anymore, Aiden. You made that clear this morning when you chose your reputation over our relationship."
The line went dead.
Aiden sat in the silence of his office, staring at his phone. He'd just lost Veronica to save a marriage that wasn't real and a company that suddenly felt less important than it had an hour ago.
A soft knock on his office door interrupted his thoughts. "Come in."
It was Alina. She stood in the doorway wearing a simple dress, her face carefully composed but her eyes red-rimmed.
"I wanted to thank you," she said quietly. "For what you said this morning. I know it wasn't easy."
Aiden studied her face, looking for sarcasm or anger, but found only genuine gratitude mixed with something that looked like sadness.
"You don't need to thank me. It was necessary for both of us."
"I heard part of your phone call," she said, her voice even quieter now. "With Dr. Johnson. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but..."
Aiden's stomach dropped. "Alina—"
"I understand how hard this must be for you. Having to choose business over personal feelings. Having to hurt someone you care about to protect... this." She gestured between them.
She thought he'd chosen duty over love. Chosen her over Veronica out of obligation rather than necessity. The misunderstanding made something twist painfully in his chest.
"It's not that simple," he said.
"Isn't it?" She gave him a sad smile that reminded him uncomfortably of Veronica's words. "You sacrificed your relationship with her to save face for both of us. I know that can't have been easy."
She was making him sound noble when he felt anything but. He'd thrown Veronica under the bus to save his company, not to protect Alina. But looking at her now, seeing the weight she was carrying, he couldn't bring himself to correct her.
"I should let you get back to work," she said, moving toward the door. "I just wanted you to know that I appreciate what you did, even if it cost you something important."
After she left, Aiden sat alone in his office, surrounded by the evidence of his successful damage control campaign. The stock price was up, the board was satisfied, and the media storm was calming.
But he'd lost Veronica, possibly permanently. And worse, Alina now saw herself as a burden he'd chosen out of duty rather than someone deserving protection in her own right.
Later that evening, back at the penthouse, Aiden heard Edward's words echoing in his mind: "You're becoming exactly like your father—a man who destroys good women to protect his own comfort."
Standing outside Alina's closed door, he could hear the soft sound of her crying again—not the broken sobbing from the night before, but quiet tears that somehow sounded even worse.
She was crying not because he'd hurt her, but because she thought she'd hurt him. Because she believed she was the reason he'd lost someone he loved.
For the first time since this whole arrangement began, Aiden realized that the person suffering most from his choices was the one person who deserved it least.
His phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: "Check your email. Tomorrow's story is going to be much worse. - A Friend"
Aiden's blood turned to ice as he opened his laptop. In his inbox was a message from Jennifer Walsh, the reporter who'd ambushed them at the gala. The subject line read: "Preview - Tomorrow's Exclusive."
The attached article made his stomach drop:
"THE KING MARRIAGE SCANDAL: Inside Sources Reveal the Truth About Seattle's Fake Power Couple"
Sources close to the King family confirm that Aiden King's sudden marriage to unknown student Alina Maxwell was arranged to satisfy inheritance requirements, with the bride receiving substantial financial compensation for playing the role of devoted wife while King continues his relationship with Dr. Veronica Johnson...
The article went on to detail their contract marriage with information that only someone very close to the family could have provided. Details about Edward's inheritance ultimatum. Quotes about Alina being a "temporary solution" until Veronica was available. Even speculation about the exact financial terms of their arrangement.
Someone had sold them out. Someone with intimate knowledge of their situation had given the press everything they needed to destroy both of their reputations completely.
Aiden scrolled to the bottom of the article and felt his world tilt. The source was identified as "a close family member who wishes to remain anonymous but felt the public deserved to know the truth about this deception."
A family member. Someone who knew about the inheritance requirement, about Veronica, about the three-year timeline he'd discussed with Derek.
His mother. It had to be Amy.
As he stared at the screen, Aiden realized that everything he'd carefully constructed was about to come crashing down. His public statement this morning would look like a desperate lie. His business reputation, his family relationships, his arrangement with Alina—all of it was about to be exposed in the most humiliating way possible.
But more than that, he realized that the person who was going to be hurt most by this exposure was the one person who had done nothing to deserve it.
The sound of Alina's quiet crying continued through her door, and for the first time since their wedding, Aiden found himself thinking not about how this situation affected him, but about how it affected her.
And for the first time, he realized that he actually cared.