Chapter Six
ARIA
The next morning, I come out of my apartment to find that Kauffman's driver is already here.
The driver doesn't introduce himself.
He opens the rear door of a black sedan that costs more than my apartment and waits while I slide in like I belong there.
I don't. The leather is soft enough to make me feel guilty for sitting on it, and the interior smells like cedar and the expensive aftershave that Everett wears—the kind of aftershave that only exists behind locked cases.
We pull away from my building, and I watch the familiar blocks of my neighborhood slide past through tinted glass.
The coffee shop where I used to study. The laundromat with the broken neon sign.
The corner store where the owner calls me sweetheart and slips extra fruit into my bag when he thinks I'm not looking.
None of it looks the same from behind windows this dark.
The drive to the Kauffman Enterprises tower takes twenty minutes, and I spend every one of them trying to remember how to breathe like a normal person.
Yesterday, I kissed Everett Kauffman on the steps of the Hawkeyes Arena in front of cameras while barefoot and running on spite and champagne.
Today, I'm being driven to his penthouse to sign a contract that makes me his wife.
My life has officially gone off the rails.
The building hits you before you're ready for it—a wall of glass catching the morning sun.
I've seen it from the outside—everyone in Seattle has.
But seeing it from the back of a car that's pulling into a private entrance beneath the lobby is a different experience entirely. My throat tightens. My palms go damp.
The driver stops. Opens my door. "Jeremy will meet you inside."
I nod like this is perfectly normal. Like I'm a woman who gets escorted through private entrances on a Tuesday morning.
Inside, the lobby is marble and silence—the hum of climate control, the absence of traffic, the muffled nothing of a space built to absorb sound. Security cameras I can't see are probably watching me right now, running my face through databases, archiving my arrival.
Jeremy is waiting by the elevator bank.
He doesn't look up.
His phone is in one hand, his other thumb swiping across a tablet balanced against his forearm. He's mid-email—or mid-twelve-emails—and my arrival registers somewhere around priority number fourteen on his current list.
"Ms. Taylor." He says it the way you'd acknowledge a calendar reminder. Present and noted. "This way."
We walk. He still doesn't look up.
"You'll use the back access entrance going forward," he says, thumb still moving. "The code for the residential elevator is seven-seven-one-nine. You'll get a fob by end of day. Don't share it."
"Okay."
"Security runs twenty-four-seven in the lobby and garage levels.
If paparazzi breach the perimeter, alert the front desk—don't engage.
If they are there for a purpose, you'll hear from me or Everly's team in advance.
We'll give you talking points but you always pretend that their presence is unwanted and a surprise.
Got it?" A notification pings on his phone.
He glances at it, types something with one thumb, and keeps walking without breaking stride.
"Mr. Kauffman prefers that personal guests use the east corridor after nine p.m. to avoid foot traffic from the business floors. "
He rattles off the rest of it—mail delivery protocols, concierge access, parking validation—and I absorb approximately forty percent because my brain is too busy processing the fact that I now need security protocols.
The elevator doors open. We step inside. He presses a button that says PH1 and I watch the numbers climb while Jeremy answers another email without looking up.
"PH1 stands for Penthouse 1. That is Everett's penthouse. PH2 through 8 are the penthouses for the other Kauffman heirs. You are not to disturb them unless they invite you."
He hasn't made eye contact with me once.
The man operates like he's running a small government from his phone while simultaneously navigating physical space through some kind of internal GPS that doesn't require his eyes.
The doors open.
Jeremy steps out and moves through the penthouse like it's his second home. Drops a tablet on the kitchen counter. Adjusts something on the island. Keeps walking.
I stop.
The penthouse is… I don't have a word.
Floor-to-ceiling windows. The entire Seattle skyline spread out like someone painted it in real time.
The Puget Sound shimmering in the distance, ferries cutting white lines across gray-blue water.
The space is enormous,clean and modern and flooded with morning light that makes everything look like it's been dipped in gold.
The ceilings are high enough to echo. The kitchen island could seat eight. There's a dining table long enough for twelve, and beyond it, a living area with furniture that looks like it was chosen by someone who understands that real luxury is knowing when to leave space empty.
This is where Everett lives.
This is where I'm about to live.
My chest does something complicated—half awe, half terror, half the feeling of being a fish that just leapt out of its bowl into the Pacific Ocean.
That's three halves. Math was never my strong suit. I was born to be a painter, or... at least I thought I was.
Then I hear voices.
Everett's—low, measured, the cadence I recognize from six months of conference calls. And another voice, precise and even. Legal.
A head pops out from a doorway down the hall. Blonde, long, perfectly curled hair, bright smile, and big blue eyes. Everly. The only Kauffman with a real smile.
"Get in here!" She waves me forward like we've been friends for years, and her warmth makes my legs actually move.
I walk down the hall and into what can only be described as a conference room.
The massive table, the one built for twenty—is covered in papers. Binders. Flagged pages. Legal folders arranged like someone expected a judge to walk in.
Christian Kauffman is bent over one end of the table, pointing at a clause with one hand and holding a pen in the other. He's tall, sharp-featured, and radiates the energy of a man who has read every word of every document in this room and could recite them backward if challenged.
Everett stands across from him with his arms folded. Dark suit. White shirt. Expression locked in place. He looks exactly like he always does, controlled, composed, and approximately as warm as a marble countertop.
His eyes flick to me when I walk in.
His eyes narrow, barely, just at the corners, and then his face is smooth again.
"Sit down," he says. Not unkind. Just efficient.
I sit.
Christian walks me through the trust requirements first.
This is where I learn exactly what Conrad Kauffman demanded of his children from beyond the grave—and it's worse than I imagined.
Legal ceremony within the specified timeline.
Cohabitation for a minimum of one year. "Reasonable demonstration of affection" in public, which Christian explains means the marriage must appear genuine to anyone watching, including the board, the press, and the trust's oversight committee.
Joint appearances at key Kauffman events.
No romantic outside relationships for the duration.
Christian explains each condition and its legal implications with the patience of a man who understands exactly what these clauses cost all of us.
Probably because one day, he'll be sitting on this side of the table too, trying to protect the rest of the Kauffmans from losing everything.
I ask questions because I can't help it. The assistant in me apparently didn't die when Everett fired me.
"What counts as a reasonable demonstration?" I ask. "Is there a minimum number of appearances we have to make? What happens if one of us is photographed in a way that could be misinterpreted?"
Christian answers each one without a trace of condescension, which I appreciate more than he probably realizes.
"A reasonable demonstration would include public affection," he says. "Holding hands. Kissing. Appearing physically comfortable with one another. The board needs to believe this marriage has a real romantic and physical element to it, not that it's simply a legal arrangement."
"So we act like a real couple in love," I say.
"Exactly." He nods once.
There's a steadiness to Christian that isn't mirrored in Everett. A kind of quiet patience that makes me understand why he's the one handling the legal side of this family's chaos.
Then Christian flips a page.
"One more thing," he says. "An annulment can be granted if the marriage was never consummated or considered fraudulent. This is one thing that the trustees could move on if they have just cause."
My stomach dips.
"Fraudulent how?"
"If they believe the marriage was never consummated," he says evenly, "or that the two of you have maintained separate lives in a way that strongly suggests the relationship is a sham."
Heat floods my face.
"Consummated?" I echo. "You mean Everett and I have to..."
I can't finish the sentence. Not sitting here surrounded by three Kauffmans and Jeremy.
"Sleep together," Christian says, because apparently he has no issue saying it for me. "Yes. If you want to eliminate one of the cleanest arguments they could use for annulment."
Across the table, Everett's posture changes. Not dramatically, but enough that I feel it.
"How could they prove that if we didn't?" he asks, his gaze fixed on Christian and very deliberately not on me.
"They'd have to challenge the marriage formally," Christian says. "That means court involvement, testimony under oath, and potentially a polygraph if they can establish reasonable grounds to suspect fraud."
Everly straightens in her chair. "They can actually do that?"