Chapter 1
My husband and I had one rule:
Do not fall in love.
Three months later, I broke it.
So I took a job at his company to make him fall for me first.
The problem?
I didn’t know he’d been in love with me for years.
There are mistakes you make at work.
Then there are mistakes you make in front of twelve senior executives, the CFO, the legal director, and your extremely attractive husband—who also happens to be your boss.
Monday morning, Julian Whitmore glanced down at his notes and said, in the same calm voice he used for billion-dollar acquisitions,
“Next, we need to strengthen our pubic relations strategy.”
Silence.
Complete silence.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Nobody even blinked.
Except me.
I laughed.
Not politely.
Not quietly.
I actually made a sound.
A very unfortunate one.
Julian slowly looked up from the head of the conference table.
Everyone else immediately became fascinated by their laptops.
His gaze settled on me.
“Chloe.”
I straightened.
“Yes, Mr. Whitmore?”
“Repeat the phrase I meant to say.”
My smile disappeared.
“Public relations.”
“Again.”
“Public relations.”
“Ten times.”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
The entire executive team pretended not to listen while I repeated public relations ten humiliating times.
That night, the power structure changed.
Julian was sitting on the rug beside our bed.
I stood in front of him with my arms folded.
“Julian Whitmore.”
He looked up.
“Yes?”
I handed him a sheet of paper.
At the top, in my handwriting, were the words:
RULES FOR BEING A GOOD HUSBAND
I pointed to Rule Four.
Do not publicly humiliate your wife.
“Copy it ten times.”
He looked from the paper to me.
Then back to the paper.
“You’re serious.”
“Very.”
He sighed and picked up a pen.
That, in summary, was my marriage.
At work, Julian Whitmore was the CEO of Whitmore Group.
I was a junior employee in his executive office.
At home, he was my husband of three months.
And almost nobody at the company knew.
Julian and I had what people politely called a marriage of convenience.
Less polite people would probably call it a merger with wedding rings.
His family was wealthy.
Mine was wealthy.
Whitmore Group was rising aggressively in private equity, infrastructure, and real estate.
Bennett Holdings, my family’s company, had legacy assets, land, hospitality interests, and a name old enough to open doors.
Our families were already negotiating a major partnership when someone eventually pointed out the obvious.
Julian was single.
I was single.
Both families wanted stability.
A marriage would make everyone feel very secure.
Romantic?
No.
Efficient?
Extremely.
The actual prenup took weeks.
Assets.
Trusts.
Inheritance.
Shares.
Confidentiality.
Exit conditions.
My hand almost cramped from signing.
But the document that eventually caused my real problem was not drafted by lawyers.
It was one sheet of paper.
Written by me.
Julian and I had been sitting at the bar in his apartment before the wedding.
I had a glass of wine in one hand and a pen in the other.
“Private rules,” I announced.
He looked amused.
“We already have a prenup.”
“This is different.”
I wrote:
One: No scandals.
Two: No messy private lives.
Then I added the most important one.
Three: Absolutely no falling in love.
Julian read it.
His expression changed for half a second.
So quickly I almost missed it.
Then he asked, “You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
“Love complicates things.”
“Exactly.”
“We live together. We show up when the families need us. We behave like functional adults. Nobody gets emotionally weird.”
Julian looked at me for a long moment.
Then took the pen.
“Fine.”
He signed.
At the time, I thought I was brilliant.
Three months later, I was sitting on our living room sofa staring toward his study and realizing I had become an idiot.
Because I liked my husband.
Possibly a lot.
This was not entirely my fault.
Julian had a deeply unreasonable face.
A face that did not belong in a practical marriage.
A face designed to create poor decisions.
Especially at night.
He would come home, remove his suit jacket, loosen his tie, leave the top button of his shirt undone, put on his silver-framed glasses, and sit in his study reading financial reports like he had no idea what he was doing to the female population.
The female population currently being me.
I had lasted three months.
Frankly, I deserved a medal.
The problem was Rule Three.
I had written it.
I had insisted on it.
If I now walked into Julian’s study and said, “Hello, remember that rule about no feelings? I broke it first,” I would never emotionally recover.
So there was only one acceptable solution.
Julian needed to fall in love with me.
Preferably first.
And preferably very obviously.
My best friend Sophie listened to this plan over lunch.
Then stared at me.
“How often do you see your husband?”
“Every morning.”
“And?”
“At night.”
“And?”
“That’s basically it.”
She put down her fork.
“Julian works ten-hour days.”
“I know.”
“You spend your afternoons shopping, going to Pilates, having coffee, and occasionally pretending you care about charity committees.”
“I care.”
“You care about the dessert table.”
“Still counts.”
Sophie leaned closer.
“So your strategy is what?”
I hesitated.
She continued.
“You expect Julian to be sitting in a board meeting and suddenly think, God, I miss my wife so much I must immediately violate Clause Three?”
“That would be ideal.”
“You need to go to his company.”
I blinked.
Oh.
That was actually good.
That evening, I made Julian coffee.
I carried it into his study and placed it beside his laptop.
He removed his glasses.
“Do you need something?”
“No.”
He waited.
I thought about it.
“Actually, yes.”
He leaned back.
“Go on.”
“I want a job at Whitmore Group.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“Life experience.”
He looked at me.
“Try again.”
“I’m bored.”
More believable.
“Any particular department?”
I smiled.
“What about being your personal assistant?”
Julian choked on his coffee.
Actually choked.
I stared.
He coughed once, put the cup down, and said far too quickly,
“No.”
“Why not?”
“No.”
“That wasn’t an explanation.”
“You have no experience.”
“I can learn.”
“No.”
Suspicious.
Very suspicious.
He thought for a moment.
“Executive office.”
“What would I do?”
“Administrative coordination.”
“That sounds important.”
“It isn’t.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What exactly am I coordinating?”
“Whatever people give you.”
“So I’m doing errands.”
“Essentially.”
I considered my dignity.
Then considered how close his office would be.
“Fine.”
His mouth twitched.
I chose to believe it was victory.
