The morning sun poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a soft golden glow across the penthouse. Emily blinked against the light, briefly disoriented.
She wasn't in the guest room.She was in Alexander's bed.Fully clothed.Wrapped in warm sheets and something dangerously close to comfort.
She turned to find the space beside her empty, but faintly warm.
Then the smell of coffee reached her, followed by the buzz of a phone.
She slid out of bed, padded barefoot into the kitchen, and froze.
Alexander stood by the kitchen island, phone pressed to his ear, brows drawn tight, jaw tense.
"No comment," he said coldly. "Pull the story. Now."
A pause.
"If you don't, I'll pull every ad deal Knight International has with your publication. Do we understand each other?"
He hung up without waiting for a reply.
Emily stepped forward. "What happened?"
He turned slowly. His phone was still in his hand, the screen locked. But his eyes… they held fury.
"They found us."
On the front page of a major gossip site:
"Reclusive Billionaire Alexander Knight Caught in Rainy Makeout with Mystery Woman — Wife?"Spotted in Central Park: a steamy kiss under a thunderstorm between Manhattan's most elusive CEO and a woman believed to be socialite-turned-ghost, Emily Ross.
A zoomed-in, blurry but unmistakable photo sat just beneath the headline. Her face tilted up, his hands on her waist. Rain. Fire. Proof.
Emily's stomach twisted. "That picture…"
"They've already syndicated it to four outlets. By noon it'll be on breakfast shows and TikTok edits."
She took a shaky breath. "So what now? You cancel it all? Pretend it never happened?"
Alexander stared at her. "No."
She blinked. "No?"
His voice was calm, but sharp as glass. "We control the story. Before they write our ending for us."
Two hours later, Emily sat on a velvet chair in Alexander's office downtown, facing his PR team.
A screen displayed a polished headline mockup:
"Inside the Secret Romance of New York's Most Private Power Couple"
She glanced at Alexander. "You're really going through with this?"
He nodded. "This was going to come out eventually. Better we make the first move."
One of the PR staff, a sharp-eyed woman named Marla, smiled. "Honestly, the public's already obsessed. You're trending on Twitter under #KnightedByLove."
Emily grimaced. "That's… horrifying."
Marla chuckled. "It's also brilliant branding."
Alexander leaned forward. "We'll host a charity event next week. You'll be seen together. A public statement, a few curated interviews, then silence."
Emily folded her arms. "So now I'm not just your wife on paper. I'm your PR campaign."
He looked at her, gaze unreadable. "You're my partner. And I protect my partners."
Her heart kicked. Just once. Hard.
She turned away. "Fine. Let's play your game."
That evening, the first wave of media chaos began.
Her phone wouldn't stop buzzing.
Friends she hadn't heard from in years texted.
Some congratulated her.
Some accused her of scheming.
Her mother called.Three times.
And through it all, Alexander didn't leave her side.
When the online hate started — tweets calling her a gold digger, others mocking her fall from grace — she broke.
She shut the laptop. Sat on the floor. Covered her face.
"I can't do this," she whispered. "I thought I could, but I can't be this… lie."
Alexander knelt in front of her. Gently pulled her hands away from her face.
"You're not a lie," he said. "They don't know who you are."
"I don't even know who I am anymore."
"You're the woman who took a broken name and still walked into that ballroom with her head high. You're the woman who survived when the world walked out."
She stared at him.
He didn't flinch. "And you're the woman I kissed in the rain. Not for the cameras. Not for the contract. For me."
Her breath caught.
He stood and offered his hand. "Get up, Emily. The world can watch, but only we decide what they see."
That night, she posted her first photo on her long-dead Instagram account.
📸 A black-and-white shot: her hand holding his in the back of the SUV. No faces. Just intimacy.
Caption:
We never asked to be seen. But we won't hide either.#KnightedByLove
Within an hour, the post had 12,000 likes.By midnight: 100,000.
And by morning, every article had changed its tone.From scandal... to obsession.