KAEL POV
"She paid you?"
Marcus was staring at the stack of hundred-dollar bills on my desk like it was a dead animal.
I picked up the money and flipped through it, one thousand dollars exactly, crisp and new.
"Yeah," I said.
"For what?"
I just looked at him.
His eyes went wide, then he started laughing, the kind of laugh that made his whole body shake.
"No way, Kael Maddox got paid for sex, this is the best thing I've heard all year."
"Shut up," I said, but I was almost smiling.
Marcus was the only person in the world who knew everything about me, my lawyer, my friend, the only one who'd seen my face in the last five years without a mask between us.
"So who was she?" he asked, dropping into the chair across from my desk.
"I don't know."
"You don't know, you just slept with a random woman who paid you?"
"That was the deal," I said, "no names, no past, no future."
Marcus shook his head, still grinning.
"Man, you really commit to this disappearing act thing. What did you do, take off the mask and everything?"
I didn't answer, which was answer enough.
His smile faded a little, replaced by something that looked like concern.
"Kael, you never take off the mask, not with anyone. What made this different?"
I touched the stack of money again, remembering how she'd looked at me across that bar, desperate and defiant and so damn real.
"She needed me to be nobody," I said quietly, "and I needed to be seen."
Marcus was quiet for a moment.
"That's deep, man."
"Get out of my office."
He laughed again, standing up and straightening his expensive suit.
"Seriously, though, throw that money away; it's weird keeping it."
"Maybe I like weird," I said.
After he left, I sat alone in my office, the mask I always wore sitting on the corner of my desk.
Medical grade, black, the kind sick people wore in crowded places, it covered everything from my nose down, and I'd been wearing it for five years, ever since I took over the company at twenty.
The official story was allergies, severe ones that required constant protection.
The real story was simpler. I didn't want to be recognized, I didn't want people looking at my face and seeing the billionaire, the CEO, the man they all wanted something from.
With the mask, I was invisible; people heard my name, knew I existed somewhere in the building, but they'd never seen me, never really looked at me.
Except her.
Last night I walked into that hotel bar as nobody, no mask, no guards, no empire, just a man who wanted to feel normal for a few hours.
And she'd touched my face.
She'd run her fingers along my jaw, kissed my mouth, looked into my eyes without fear or calculation or wanting anything except that one night.
I'd been touched by doctors, by Marcus when we shook hands, but never like that, never with desire, never with need.
My intercom buzzed, making me jump.
I grabbed the mask and put it on quickly, adjusting it over my nose and mouth before pressing the button.
"Yes?"
"Mr. Maddox, the quarterly reports are ready," my assistant's voice came through, professional and distant.
She'd worked for me for three years and had never seen my face.
"Leave them outside the door," I said.
"Of course, sir, also Elina Vale from legal called in sick today."
My hand froze on the intercom button.
Elina Vale.
The name hit me like a physical blow. I knew that name; I'd seen it on reports before.
"Which department?" I asked, keeping my voice steady.
"Legal department, paralegal, she's been with the company two years, very reliable, this is the first time she's called in sick."
Two years.
She'd been working in my building for two years.
I pulled up my computer, fingers moving fast across the keyboard, searching the employee database.
There she was.
Elina Marie Vale, twenty-three, law degree, was hired two years ago.
Her photo stared back at me, professional, hair pulled back, eyes that looked tired even in the picture.
And next to her name, emergency contact: Damien Cole, husband.
I searched for Damien Cole.
Finance department, mid-level analyst, hired three years ago.
So her husband worked here too, in my building, on my payroll.
I sat back in my chair, processing this.
Last night she'd taken off her wedding ring and paid me for sex, and she had no idea I was the man who owned the company where both she and her husband worked.
My door opened without warning.
I looked up sharply, my hand automatically touching the mask to make sure it was in place.
Marcus walked back. He, he never knocked, the privilege of being the only friend I had.
"Got something you need to see?" he said, dropping a folder on my desk, "financial irregularities in the Cole account."
I opened it slowly.
"What kind of irregularities?"
"The embezzling kind, Damien Cole has been skimming money for months, small amounts, but it adds up to about forty thousand dollars."
The room went very cold.
Cole.
Damien Cole.
Her husband.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Completely, the evidence is solid. Do you want me to handle it legally or let security deal with it first?"
I stared at the file, at the name printed across the top.
The woman from last night had taken off her ring, walked into a bar, and paid a stranger for one night of feeling alive.
And her husband had been stealing from me.
"When did this start?" I asked.
"About six months ago, gradual at first, then more frequent in the last two months."
I thought about her eyes in that bar, the way she'd looked like someone who'd been carrying weight for too long.
"Pull everything you have on both of them," I said quietly, "Damien Cole and Elina Vale, employment records, performance reviews, everything."
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"Both of them, why?"
"Just do it."
He nodded and left.
I sat alone again, touching the mask that covered my face.
Last night, Elina Vale had touched me like I was real.
This morning, I discovered her husband was a thief.
And she still had no idea that the stranger she'd paid for one night was about to destroy her husband's life.