Chapter 12
PROFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES NOT INCLUDED
VICTOR
It's the day of the Grandview Hotel opening. My and Harper’s first official public appearance as a married couple. Which means everything needs to go according to plan.
The photos. The story.
The optics.
Rachel has sent me twenty-one emails in the past hour alone, each one more detailed than the last about photo angles and talking points and "couple behavior patterns."
The November sky is that particular shade of grey that suggests snow but won't commit.
It's 3 PM and already getting dark, the city wrapped in that pre-winter gloom that makes everyone walk faster and complain louder.
The G-wagon I sit in now is warm, insulated from the chaos outside, but I can feel the pressure building like a physical weight.
My phone buzzes. Again.
ROMAN: Dude. Bachelor party. December 15th. You're coming.
ROMAN: Christian already confirmed.
ROMAN: Don't make me call your wife.
CHRISTIAN: He's right. I did confirm. Also, "wife" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
ROMAN: FAKE wife. Whatever. She seems cool. Bring her.
CHRISTIAN: To the bachelor party?
ROMAN: Why not? Calli's bringing her friends to the bachelorette thing.
I stare at my phone, trying to formulate a response that doesn't involve explaining the intricacies of my fake marriage arrangement.
ME: I'll check my calendar.
ROMAN: That's code for "I'm going to avoid this conversation."
CHRISTIAN: Accurate.
ROMAN: Victor. It's my wedding. You're one of my best men. You're coming.
ME: I said I'll check my calendar.
CHRISTIAN: He's going to check his calendar. Give the man space.
ROMAN: Fine. But if you bail, I'm telling your scary grandmother that you're being difficult.
ME: That's a low blow.
ROMAN: I'm desperate. Also, she loves me now. We're Instagram friends.
I close my eyes. Of course they are.
Another buzz. Different contact this time. Dmitri.
DMITRI: FoodFirst is really going on for the kill. Seems like not only are they going after Richard Francis’s company for the acquisition, but word on the street is that they just made an offer to three of our on-air talent. Including two from the cooking vertical.
My jaw tightens.
ME: Who?
DMITRI: Can't say yet. They signed NDAs. But I'm hearing rumors.
ME: Find out. And see if we can counter.
DMITRI: Already on it. Also—board meeting Monday. Patricia’s pushing for a vote on the acquisition strategy.
ME: Let her push. I have it under control.
DMITRI: Do you?
Fair question.
Another message appears before I can respond.
DMITRI: Also something else you should know.
DMITRI: Richard Francis resurfaced.
My entire body locks.
Richard Francis.
The recently-disgraced CEO of CulinaryVision. The same man who has been conveniently unreachable while FoodFirst and StreamEats fight over his company like vultures.
ME: Where?
DMITRI: Vegas.
DMITRI: He's doing a surprise TED Talk next week. Hospitality innovation conference.
I stare at the screen.
Vegas. Again.
The city apparently refuses to let me escape it.
DMITRI: Looks like his first public appearance since his recent arrest and the CulinaryVision drama started.
DMITRI: Press will be there.
DMITRI: Investors too.
The wheels in my head start turning before Dmitri even finishes typing. Because if Richard Francis is stepping into the spotlight again, it means one thing…
He's testing the waters.
ME: When exactly?
DMITRI: Thursday afternoon keynote.
DMITRI: Why?
I don't answer right away. Because something is already forming in my mind.
A conversation or a negotiation, but definitely an opportunity.
If Francis is going to be in Vegas, away from his board, away from FoodFirst's corporate lawyers, away from the entire circus surrounding his food-streaming company’s acquisition…
Then maybe I can get five minutes alone with him. Five minutes might be all it takes.
ME: Send me the event details.
DMITRI: Again, why?
ME: Because if Richard Francis is finally showing his face again…
I type the next message slowly.
ME: I'm going to be there when he does.
DMITRI: Victor…
DMITRI: Are you about to fly to Vegas to corner CulinaryVision’s CEO at a TED Talk?
ME: I’d prefer to think of it as a friendly conversation
DMITRI: Of course you do.
DMITRI: The board is going to lose their minds.
ME: Only if they find out first.
I pocket my phone and look out the window. We're crawling past Rockefeller Center, where they're setting up the Christmas tree even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet.
Tourists everywhere, taking photos, looking happy and carefree and completely unaware that somewhere in this traffic jam, a CEO is having fucking meltdown.
Vegas.
The word sits in my brain like a loaded gun.
Mere weeks ago, it gave me a fake wife and the biggest PR gamble of my career. Now it might give me the one opportunity I have left to salvage the CulinaryVision deal.
As if he weren’t this way already, since his Vegas arrest, Richard Francis has become even more private, stubborn, and impossible to schedule.
But Vegas? Vegas is chaos.
And chaos is where rules stop applying.
And if I can get Richard Francis alone for ten minutes in Vegas, I might still save this deal.
Which means my fake marriage might accidentally turn into the most useful business decision I've ever made.
The car finally pulls up to the boutique on Madison Avenue—the kind of place that doesn't have prices in the window because if you have to ask, you can't afford it.
My assistant Gina’s arranged everything: the appointment, the stylist, even the "suggestion list" of appropriate evening wear for the wife of a tech CEO.
I'd approved it all without thinking.
Now, standing outside the shop, I'm second-guessing everything.
This is excessive. Harper can dress herself. She doesn't need me micromanaging her wardrobe like some kind of controlling—
My phone buzzes.
HARPER: Your stylist is terrifying. She just called my current wardrobe "charming but insufficient."
HARPER: I think that was an insult?
HARPER: She's making me try on dresses expensive enough to trade for livestock
HARPER: I clearly can't afford any of this.
ME: You're not paying. I am.
HARPER: That's not how this works.
ME: It's exactly how this works. You're doing me a favor by attending this event. Consider it compensation.
HARPER: Compensation is a paycheck. This is Pretty Woman territory.
ME: Pretty Woman had a happy ending.
HARPER: Pretty Woman was a movie about a sex worker. Are you calling me a sex worker?
HARPER: Because if you are, my rates are much higher than a dress.
I stare at my phone, torn between exasperation and something that feels precariously close to enjoyment.
ME: I'm coming inside the boutique
HARPER: Why??
ME: To ensure the stylist isn't traumatizing you.
HARPER: She's not traumatizing me. She's just very enthusiastic about "statement pieces."
ME: I'm already here.
I push through the boutique doors before she can argue further.
The shift from November cold to boutique warmth is immediate and jarring, a wave of soft amber lighting, cream and gold fixtures, and soft piano music hitting me from every corner.
I’m barely inside two feet, when a woman in head-to-toe black approaches—Simone, according to Gina's notes, the personal stylist to Manhattan's elite.
"Mr. Kade." She extends a perfectly manicured hand. “A pleasure to see you. Welcome in. Your wife is in the fitting room. We're just finalizing options."
"How many options?"
"Seven. She's narrowed it down beautifully."
Seven. For one event.
This is excessive. This is absolutely—
"Victor?"
I turn.
Harper emerges from behind a curtain, and every coherent thought in my head evaporates.
She's wearing a dress. Obviously, she's wearing a dress—that's why we're here. But this isn't just a dress.
This is a deep silky lavender that makes her skin look like cream, with a neckline that's professional enough for a business event but low enough to make my mouth go dry.
It fits her perfectly—skimming her curves, falling to just below her knees, the kind of elegant simplicity that costs a fortune and looks effortless.
Her light chestnut hair is pulled back loosely, showing off her neck and shoulders. She's barefoot, standing on the raised platform in front of a three-way mirror, and she's nervously smoothing down the fabric like she's not sure she's allowed to look this good.
"Too much?" she asks, and her voice is uncertain in a way I've never heard it. Not even that first day in my office when I forced her into this arrangement.
I realize I'm staring.
My brain is completely offline. All I can process is the way the dress moves with her breathing, the nervous way she's biting her lower lip, the way the boutique's soft lighting makes her look like something out of a painting that even my overly wealthy ass would never be able to afford.
"No," I half-cough. "It's... appropriate."
Simone makes a sound that might be a suppressed laugh.
Harper's brow furrows. "Appropriate? That's the word you're going with?"
"Professional."
"Still not better."
"It looks fine."
"Fine." She turns to Simone. "He said fine. I think we can do better than fine."
“Hold on—“ I start, but Harper's already disappearing behind the curtain again.
Simone turns to me with an expression that lets me know she deals with idiots all day and I'm just another one. "Mr. Kade, when a woman asks how she looks, 'fine' is never the right answer."
I blink. “Then what is?”
"Try 'beautiful.' Or 'stunning.’” She coughs lightly. “Or literally anything else.”
My phone buzzes before I can respond. I pull it out.
CHRISTIAN: Where are you? You're late for the venue walkthrough
ME: Delayed. Handle it.
CHRISTIAN: This is your job, fellow Best Man
ME: You've been to a thousand of these. You know what to do
CHRISTIAN: Are you with Harper?
I hesitate too long.
CHRISTIAN: You're with Harper. At the dress fitting you told us about