Chapter 8 Archer
By midnight, I have a name.
Evan Rusk.
Forty-two. Former private intelligence contractor. Expensive. Quiet. The sort of man wealthy cowards hire when they want dirty work done without fingerprints on their cuffs.
The file sits open on my desk, one photograph glowing on my laptop screen. Rusk has forgettable brown hair, forgettable eyes, a forgettable jaw. That is the point. Men like him build careers out of being difficult to describe after they ruin your life.
Marcus stands across from me in the study, arms folded, face carved from professional calm.
“Payment routed through a shell account in Delaware,” he says. “Two layers, sloppy enough to find if you know where to look, clean enough to deny if you don’t.”
“Conrad wanted me to find it.”
Marcus nods once. “That’s my read.”
Of course it is.
My father has never been satisfied with simply pulling a trigger. He likes the victim to see the gun first. He likes anticipation. Fear. The insult of knowing exactly who arranged the damage and still not having enough legal ground to make it stop.
I scroll through the photos Marcus pulled from the park security footage.
Harper stepping in front of Milo.
Harper’s arm around his shoulders.
Harper’s mouth open, eyes bright with fury as she tells a grown man to stop photographing a child.
The image should make me proud.
It does.
It also makes me want to put my fist through my desk.
“They knew her name,” I say.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Still confirming.” Marcus’s voice remains even. “Possible agency leak. Building staff. Someone followed from the school. Or Rusk had her identified after Conrad saw her this morning.”
My hand closes around the edge of the desk.
After Conrad saw her.
Five minutes in my executive suite. One look at Milo’s hand near hers. One twitch of my self-control when my father leaned too close.
That was all it took.
I gave her away.
The thought is a blade and a verdict.
I look toward the closed door of the study, though there is no reason to. Harper is down the hall in Milo’s room, because Milo woke twice after the park and would not settle unless she sat in the chair by his bed. She is probably curled there now with one leg tucked under her, pretending she is not exhausted, pretending the headline did not put her face in front of millions of strangers.
CEO’s “New Nanny” Spotted—Is Milo Safe?
My son’s fear turned into content.
Harper’s protection turned into suspicion.
My household turned into bait.
“Where is Rusk now?” I ask.
“Unknown. Last confirmed location near Midtown an hour ago. We’re tracking.”
“Track faster.”
Marcus does not react to the edge in my voice. “I have two men on Harper’s neighborhood address and one watching BrightStart’s office. Extra team downstairs. No one gets near this floor without clearance.”
“Not enough.”
“It’s a start.”
“A start is what people call failure when they want it to sound productive.”
His gaze holds mine. “A start is what keeps you from making a move Conrad can use before we know the full board.”
I go still.
Most people do not correct me. Marcus does when it matters. That is why he still has a job.
I lean back in my chair, forcing my hand to open. “Say it plainly.”
“If you go after Rusk tonight without proof tight enough for court, Conrad gets exactly what he wants. A reckless reaction. A story about you using private security to intimidate people after a nanny article embarrassed you.”
“She was targeted.”
“Yes.”
“My son was targeted.”
Marcus’s voice drops. “Yes.”
The room goes silent.
That is the only reason I do not explode. Marcus does not minimize it. He does not dress this up as optics or strategy. He knows what happened today.
A child at a park became a move on a chessboard.
A woman who should never have been pulled into my father’s orbit is now standing in the center of it because of me.
My phone vibrates on the desk.
Jonah.
I ignore it.
It vibrates again.
Celeste.
I ignore that too.
A third message comes through, this one from Tessa.
Milo asleep. Harper still with him. She says she’s fine, which seems statistically unlikely.
Despite everything, a breath that is almost a laugh leaves me.
Marcus raises an eyebrow.
“Nothing.”
But it is not nothing.
Harper says she is fine.
Of course she does. She has spent the evening calming my son, insulting paparazzi under her breath, and pretending she did not flinch when Jonah showed her the article analytics. She smiles when cornered. Jokes when afraid. Sets her shoulders like she can out-stubborn fear if she just refuses to give it a chair.
Sunshine with teeth.
Conrad will mistake the sunshine for weakness.
Rusk already has.
They will regret that.
My phone lights up again.
This time, a text from Celeste fills the screen.
Legal. Jonah. Me. Conference room. Now.
A second message follows.
This is no longer only about the nanny.
I stare at the words until the screen dims.
Marcus watches me. “Want me in the meeting?”
“Yes.” I close Rusk’s file. “And Marcus?”
“Sir?”
“If Evan Rusk gets within fifty feet of Harper or Milo, I want to know before he finishes the step.”
Marcus nods.
“And if he gets closer than that?”
His expression does not change.
“Then he won’t get another step.”
The conference room looks different at midnight.
During the day, it is all glass and power: polished table, skyline view, screens glowing with market data and controlled ambition. At night, with most of the tower dark around us, it feels less like a boardroom and more like an interrogation chamber someone decorated with money.
Celeste is already there when I arrive.
So is Jonah, tie loosened, sleeves rolled, tablet in hand, looking like he has personally aged three years since the park article went live. Andrew Vale sits beside him with two junior attorneys and a stack of documents that tells me this conversation will be worse than I want.
Marcus takes position near the door.
No one wastes time on pleasantries.
Good.
“Where are we?” I ask.
Jonah taps the table screen. The headline appears again.
CEO’s “New Nanny” Spotted—Is Milo Safe?
My son’s blurred face. Harper’s unblurred one. Her body angled in front of him like a shield.
I look away before the anger becomes visible.
Jonah notices anyway. “The original post has been picked up by six gossip aggregators, two finance blogs, and one parenting forum that is currently debating whether billionaires should be allowed children.”
“Charming,” I say.
“It gets worse.”
“It usually does when you speak.”
He ignores that. “The story is mutating. The first version was curiosity. The second was concern. The third is speculation.”
Celeste steps forward. “Speculation about your judgment.”
I turn my attention to her. “Say what you mean.”
“I always do.” She slides a printed brief across the table. “Conrad’s people are circulating questions. Not accusations. Questions. Is Milo’s home stable? Why has Archer Blackwell cycled through multiple nannies? Who is Harper James? Why is she living in the penthouse? Is she qualified? Is she involved with Archer?”
The last question hangs in the air longer than the rest.
I keep my face blank.
Jonah does not.
Andrew clears his throat. “Questions like that create grounds for further scrutiny if paired with a custody concern.”
The room goes silent around one word.
Custody.
My hands remain flat on the table. “There is no custody dispute.”
“Not formally,” Andrew says. “But Conrad does not need one to create pressure. If he can convince the right people that Milo’s welfare is at risk—through instability, inappropriate household relationships, media exposure—he can push for evaluation. Temporary oversight. Court involvement. Even if he loses, the process becomes public enough to damage you.”
A coldness settles over me that has nothing to do with the room temperature.
“He is not taking my son.”
“No,” Celeste says. “But he can make you look afraid he might.”
I stand because sitting still has become impossible. “He sent paparazzi after a child.”
“We know,” Jonah says.
“Then write that story.”
“With what proof?” He gestures toward Marcus. “A shell payment and suspicion? If we accuse Conrad publicly before the chain is airtight, he claims you’re unstable and paranoid. Which, inconveniently, is the story he wants.”
I hate that he is right.
I hate everyone who is right tonight.
Marcus speaks from the door. “Rusk was not sloppy by accident. The trail is meant to suggest Conrad without proving him.”
“Bait,” I say.
“Yes.”
Bait for me.
Bait using Harper.
I pace to the window. Below, Manhattan continues glittering as if my world is not being taken apart by a man who shares my blood and none of my limits.
“What are my options?”
Andrew opens the folder in front of him. “Legally? Tighten security. Document everything. Send cease-and-desist notices to outlets using Harper’s name in connection with Milo’s safety. Prepare for possible welfare inquiries before Conrad initiates them.”
“PR?” I ask.
Jonah grimaces. “We stop the nanny rumor before it becomes the only narrative.”
“How?”
He hesitates.
I look at him. “If the next words out of your mouth are impossible, say them anyway.”
Celeste answers instead.
“Stable family structure.”
The phrase lands carefully.
Too carefully.
I turn from the window. “No.”
Jonah lifts a hand. “We haven’t even—”
“No.”
Celeste’s gaze sharpens. “You don’t know what I’m suggesting.”
“I know the shape of it.”
And I do.
I can see the path they are circling. The optics. The clean story. The way a dangerous rumor can be smothered under a more acceptable one. Not nanny. Not scandal. Not inappropriate. Something respectable. Something stable.
Something I swore I would never use as a strategy.
Andrew says quietly, “A public relationship would neutralize certain angles.”
“She is my son’s nanny.”
“Exactly,” Jonah says. “Which is why the current story is dangerous.”
I step back to the table slowly. “Harper James is not a press release.”
“No,” Celeste says. “She is a woman Conrad has already turned into bait. The question is whether you leave her dangling there.”
The words hit exactly where she aims them.
Through the glass wall, the hallway beyond is dark. Somewhere on the private floor above us, Harper is sitting beside my sleeping son because he trusts her enough to rest.
Conrad saw that trust and sharpened a knife.
I look at the headline again.
New Nanny.
Is Milo Safe?
The story is already being written.
And for the first time tonight, I understand that stopping it may require doing the one thing I cannot undo.
“No,” I say again.
This time, the word has less force behind it.
Celeste hears the difference. So does Jonah. So does legal, judging by the way Andrew suddenly stops rearranging the same three pages and looks at me like I have become a liability with a pulse.
I hate them for hearing it.
I hate myself more.
“A public relationship is not an option,” I say. “A fabricated one is worse.”
Jonah leans back in his chair. “No one said fabricated.”
My gaze cuts to him.
He lifts both hands. “I’m not suggesting we invent a romance out of thin air. I’m suggesting we give the press something stable enough to chew on that doesn’t involve the words hot nanny scandal.”
“Don’t call it that.”
“That’s what they’ll call it if we don’t get there first.”
The room goes quiet.
I look at the screen again, at the photograph of Harper in the park. Her shoulders squared. Her body between Milo and the cameras. Fury on her face because strangers made my son afraid.
She did not run.
She did not call me first and wait for rescue.
She stood there.
That should make this easier. She is capable. Strong. Clear-eyed. She has already proven she can hold her own under pressure.
Instead, it makes the idea of using her feel obscene.
“I won’t make her part of this.”
Celeste’s voice is calm. “She already is.”
“Not by choice.”
“No,” she says. “By Conrad’s.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw.
Jonah taps his tablet, and the headline disappears. In its place, a list of responses appears, each more useless than the last.
Deny romantic involvement.
Confirm nanny placement.
Issue privacy request.
Threaten legal action.
Ignore.
I scan them once. “These all fail.”
“Yes,” Jonah says.
“Then why are they on my screen?”
“Because I wanted you to see that I did my job before suggesting the thing you’re going to hate.”
Celeste folds her hands on the table. “A denial makes the press dig harder. Confirming her as a nanny reinforces the rumor. Legal threats make you look defensive. Silence lets Conrad define the story.”
“And your better solution is what? Date the woman publicly? Parade her beside Milo and call that stability?”
“No,” Andrew says carefully. “Dating may actually worsen the risk. A girlfriend can be framed as temporary, impulsive, inappropriate, especially given her role in Milo’s care.”
Temporary.
Impulsive.
Inappropriate.
Every word belongs in someone else’s mouth. Not near Harper.
I push back from the table and pace again. “Then remove her from the house.”
The words taste like ash.
Jonah’s eyes sharpen. “Is that what Milo needs?”
I stop.
Silence answers for me.
No.
My son woke twice tonight. Both times, he called for Harper before he called for me. That should have gutted me with jealousy, and maybe part of it did. But the larger part—the father before the ego—only cared that he called for someone. That he believed someone would come.
If I send her away now, Milo will learn exactly the wrong lesson.
People leave when he needs them.
I turn back slowly. “No.”
Celeste nods once, as if I have caught up to the obvious.
I dislike that almost as much as the situation itself.
“Then we need a structure,” she says. “Something that makes Harper’s presence in your home explainable, protected, and difficult for Conrad to weaponize.”
I know it before she says it.
My whole body rejects it before my mind can form the word.
“No.”
Jonah says, very quietly, “Marriage.”
The word hits the glass walls and stays there.
Marriage.
For a second, I am not in the conference room. I am in another room years ago, standing beside Elise with a ring in my hand and vows in my mouth, believing I could protect the life we were building because arrogance makes men stupid and love makes them stupider.
Marriage was never supposed to become strategy.
It was never supposed to become armor.
It was never supposed to become something I considered offering a woman I wanted too badly and trusted too little with the fragile remains of my family.
“No,” I say.
No one speaks.
My voice drops. “Absolutely not.”
Celeste watches me without flinching. “A wife is stable in a way a nanny is not. A stepmother figure, if carefully handled, is less scandalous than an attractive live-in employee. It blocks the improper relationship angle. It makes Conrad’s ‘chaotic household’ narrative harder to sell.”
“It also makes Harper a target with a ring on her finger.”
“She is already a target.”
The truth lands brutally.
I look toward the door, toward the private elevator, toward the floors above us where Harper sleeps or pretends to.
She will laugh in my face.
She should.
“You’re asking me to use her,” I say.
“No,” Celeste replies. “I’m asking you to give her enough truth to choose whether she wants to be used by Conrad or protected by you.”
Protected by me.
There it is. The temptation dressed as virtue.
Andrew clears his throat. “A private agreement could be structured with compensation, exit terms, custody protections, confidentiality, and independent counsel for Miss James. If she refuses, she refuses. But the option exists.”
I stare at him until he stops talking.
Harper James is not a contract.
But contracts are how men like me keep the world from swallowing what matters.
My phone buzzes.
A message from Tessa.
Milo asked if Harper will be here when he wakes. She told him yes.
I read it once.
Then again.
Something inside me goes very still.
Harper promised him tomorrow.
Conrad will make sure tomorrow costs her.
I close my hand around the phone.
“Draft the framework,” I say.
Jonah exhales.
Celeste’s face reveals nothing.
I look at each of them in turn. “No announcement. No leak. No one approaches Harper before I do. And if anyone in this room refers to her as an optics solution again, they’ll be looking for work by breakfast.”
No one argues.
Good.
I turn toward the door.
The decision is not made.
Not yet.
But the shape of it follows me into the hallway, heavy as a ring.
The penthouse is dark when I return.
Not silent. It is never silent now, not really. There is the low murmur of security in the service corridor, the faint hum of the climate system, the distant city pressing against the glass. But the worst of the crisis has been pushed behind closed doors and encrypted messages, which makes the quiet feel temporary.
Everything feels temporary tonight.
I move down the hall toward Milo’s room without turning on lights. I know this path by memory. Every corner. Every shadow. Every place my son has hidden when the world has asked too much of him.
His door is cracked open.
I pause outside it.
Harper is asleep in the chair beside his bed.
The sight stops me more effectively than any command could.
One leg is tucked beneath her. Her head rests awkwardly against the wing of the chair, curls falling loose around her face. She still wears the same soft sweater from earlier, one sleeve pushed up, her hand hanging over the armrest as if she reached for Milo even in sleep and forgot to pull back.
Milo’s hand is stretched across the blanket toward her.
Not touching.
Close enough to know she is there.
Something in my chest caves in quietly.
This is what Celeste and Jonah do not understand. Or maybe they understand too well and that is the problem. Harper is not just a cleaner headline. She is not just a shield against Conrad’s poison or a structure that makes my household look steady on paper.
She is asleep in an uncomfortable chair because my son asked her not to leave.
She stayed.
No contract. No ring. No compensation package. No strategy.
She stayed because a frightened child needed her.
And I am standing in the doorway considering whether to ask her to sign away her name, her privacy, and possibly her peace because I failed to keep my father’s rot from reaching her.
I should send her home.
The thought rises again, clean and brutal.
Put money in her account. Terminate the contract. Assign six guards to her building. Let Milo hurt now rather than let Harper become another weapon Conrad can point at us.
My son shifts in his sleep.
“Harper,” he whispers.
She stirs instantly.
Not fully awake, not even close, but her hand reaches across the space and settles lightly over his blanket. “I’m here, buddy,” she murmurs, voice thick with sleep.
Milo relaxes.
Just like that.
I grip the doorframe.
No.
I cannot send her away.
Not tonight. Maybe not ever, and that realization is dangerous enough that I do not let myself look directly at it.
Harper blinks her eyes open.
For a second, she looks unguarded. Soft and exhausted and confused by the dark. Then she sees me in the doorway, and awareness slips into place.
Not fear.
Never fear.
Wariness.
“What happened?” she whispers.
Everything.
Instead, I say, “He asked for you.”
Her gaze drops to Milo, and the expression on her face is too gentle for the hour, too gentle for a woman I have no right to pull deeper into this.
“He had a rough day.”
“So did you.”
Her mouth curves, faint and tired. “Mine came with better snacks.”
I should smile.
I do not.
She studies me more closely. “Archer?”
The way she says my name makes the decision feel less theoretical and more unforgivable.
I step back from the doorway. “When he wakes, we need to talk.”
Her eyes sharpen. “About the photographers?”
“Yes.”
“And Conrad?”
“Yes.”
She looks at Milo again, then slowly untangles herself from the chair without waking him. She smooths the blanket once, checks the dinosaurs by the door, and steps into the hallway with me.
Barefoot. Tired. Brave.
I close Milo’s door until only a sliver of light remains.
Harper folds her arms. “Whatever you’re about to say, you’re wearing your terrible idea face.”
Despite everything, a rough breath leaves me. “I have a terrible idea.”
“Great. Love when rich men lead with honesty.”
“It may be the only way to protect Milo.”
Her humor fades.
That is the first blade.
“And you,” I add.
That is the second.
Harper goes very still.
In the dim hallway, with my son asleep behind one door and my father’s war waiting behind every other, I realize there is no clean way to ask this.
There is only the truth, and what it will cost her.
Harper does not look away.
That is one of the first things I noticed about her eight months ago. Most people glance off me eventually. They find somewhere safer to put their eyes—my watch, my tie, the floor, their own hands. Power makes people careful. Money makes them calculating. My name makes them either hungry or afraid.
Harper looks at me like I am a locked door and she has never met a lock she didn’t want to insult into opening.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “You have a terrible idea. It protects Milo. It apparently protects me. And it has you standing in a dark hallway looking like someone just asked you to eat glass.”
“That is a fair assessment.”
“Great. Love accuracy. Hate everything else.”
She rubs both hands over her face, then drops them and exhales. The movement is tired, human, unpolished. I hate myself for noticing how small she looks like this, barefoot in the hallway outside my son’s room, still trying to be sharp while exhaustion tugs at the corners of her mouth.
I should send her to bed.
I should lock this entire conversation in a vault until morning.
But morning belongs to Conrad now. Morning belongs to headlines, board calls, legal strategy, and the next move my father will make because he has already found the scent of blood.
“Evan Rusk arranged the photographers,” I say.
The sarcasm leaves her face. “The man from Conrad?”
“Conrad’s fixer. We traced the payment to a shell account. It is not clean enough for court yet, but it is enough to know.”
She folds her arms tighter. “So the park was staged.”
“Yes.”
“To scare Milo?”
“To provoke me.”
Her eyes narrow. “By scaring Milo.”
The correction lands.
“Yes,” I say, quieter. “By scaring Milo. And by using you.”
She looks down the hall toward the faint light under Milo’s door. For once, she has no quick answer. Her face changes in the silence—anger first, then fear, then a kind of bright, stubborn resolve that makes my chest tighten.
“He asked about his mom,” she says. “Because they asked him if I was replacing her.”
“I know.”
Her gaze snaps back to me. “Do you? Because I don’t think anyone in your world understands what it feels like to be a kid and have strangers turn your worst hurt into a question.”
The blow is clean.
Deserved.
“You’re right.”
She blinks.
Apparently, she expected a fight. I would have given her one an hour ago. Maybe ten minutes ago. But standing outside Milo’s room after watching her sleep in a chair because he needed her, I find I have no appetite for defending my own failures.
“They will not get near him again,” I say.
“Good.”
“They will not get near you either.”
Her chin lifts. There it is—the line. “I’m not asking to be managed.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
No.
Not enough.
But I am learning the shape of the mistake before I make it, which is more than most men in my family ever did.
“I am not here to give you orders,” I say. “I am here to give you information.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“It is.”
Her humor flickers and dies again.
I tell her the rest. Not all of it—no names from the board, no legal jargon thick enough to hide in—but enough. Conrad is pushing instability. The headlines are mutating. The nanny rumor is already becoming a story about my judgment, Milo’s welfare, and her presence in my home. Legal is worried Conrad may try to force a custody evaluation if he can make my household look reckless.
Harper listens without interrupting.
That is how I know she is truly afraid.
When I finish, she turns away and presses her fingers to her lips. The gesture is small. Private. I want to take the fear out of her hands and crush it into something unrecognizable.
Instead, I stand still.
Finally, she lowers her hand. “So fire me.”
“No.”
The word is immediate.
Too immediate.
Her eyes sharpen. “It’s the logical move, isn’t it? Remove the suspicious nanny. Issue a statement. Pay me some insulting amount of hush money and send me back to my apartment with a security guard I didn’t ask for.”
“That would hurt Milo.”
“It would also solve your optics problem.”
“No.”
“Archer.”
“It would teach my son that people leave when he needs them. I won’t do that to him.”
Her face softens before she can stop it.
There. That is the danger. Not the heat. Not the memory of her body under mine. This. The way she looks at me when I say the one true thing in a room full of strategy.
“And you?” she asks.
The question is too quiet.
“What about me?”
“If I leave,” she says, “does it only hurt Milo?”
My control goes still.
She has no right to ask that.
She has every right.
“No,” I say.
The single syllable costs more than it should.
Her breath catches, barely.
For a moment, the hallway becomes too narrow around us. Too dark. Too full of the things neither of us can afford to want.
Then I force myself back to the point before honesty turns into something worse.
“There is another option.”
Her eyes flicker. “The terrible idea.”
“Yes.”
“Scale of one to billionaire, how terrible?”
I look at her bare feet. Her folded arms. The tired defiance in her face. The woman Conrad will not hesitate to ruin if it gives him leverage over me.
“Billionaire,” I say.
Her mouth tightens. “Naturally.”
I draw one breath.
Then I say it.
“Marry me.”
Harper stares at me.
Not a blink. Not a twitch. Not even one of her devastating little sarcastic breaths.
Just silence.
For the first time since I met her, Harper James appears to have no words.
It lasts three seconds.
Then she laughs.
Once.
Sharp. Disbelieving. Almost bright enough to pass for amusement if her eyes did not look like I had just insulted every ancestor she has ever had.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I hallucinated from sleep deprivation. It sounded like you said marry me.”
“I did.”
Another laugh, colder this time. “Wow. Okay. So we are skipping right past workplace boundaries and into felony-level audacity.”
“It would be a legal arrangement.”
“Oh, good. Romance is alive.”
“Harper.”
“No, don’t Harper me in that voice like I’m the unreasonable one. You just proposed in a hallway outside your sleeping child’s room while wearing the expression of a man negotiating a hostile merger.”
“That is not what this is.”
“Really? Because I’m not hearing violins.”
I deserve every word.
Possibly more.
Still, I force myself to continue because if she only hears the insult and not the strategy, she cannot make a real choice. “A marriage would make your presence in this home explainable. Protected. It stops the nanny rumor before it becomes the narrative. It gives Milo a stable household structure Conrad cannot dismiss as easily. It limits the appearance of impropriety and gives legal more ground if Conrad pushes welfare concerns.”
Her mouth falls open a fraction.
Then closes.
“Oh my God,” she says softly. “You have bullet points.”
“I have reasons.”
“You have lost your mind.”
“Possibly.”
That earns a flicker from her. Not humor. Not quite. Something pained and startled.
I step closer, then stop when her shoulders stiffen.
Good. Learn, Blackwell.
I keep the distance.
“You would have independent counsel,” I say. “Your own attorney. Full compensation, no restrictions you don’t agree to, an exit clause, protection for your job status, housing, security, and privacy. I would fund anything necessary to restore your life afterward.”
“My life afterward.”
The words come out flat.
I realize the mistake a second too late.
Her eyes shine, not with tears. Anger. The kind that has been hurt first.
“So I’m temporary,” she says. “Just with paperwork.”
“No.”
“Emergency nanny. Temporary wife. Convenient woman. You really know how to make a girl feel cherished, Archer.”
The name hits harder without Mr. Blackwell attached.
“That is not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
I mean I cannot think when my father’s people know your name.
I mean my son slept because you stayed.
I mean I have wanted you since a hotel bar and hated myself for failing to find you.
I mean this is the only way I know to put walls between you and the wolves without admitting that some reckless part of me already thinks of you as mine to protect.
I say none of that.
Because this is already unforgivable enough.
“I mean this protects Milo,” I say. “And it protects you.”
She looks at me for a long moment.
Then she nods slowly, like something has become painfully clear.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“You keep saying protect like it’s magic. Like if you put enough money, contracts, and security guards around a thing, you don’t have to ask whether the person inside the walls wants to be there.”
The words land exactly where I do not want them.
“My father will not stop with an article.”
“And your solution is to make me your wife?”
“On paper.”
Her laugh is quieter this time. Worse. “That does not make it better.”
“It makes it safer.”
“For who?”
“For Milo.”
That stops her.
I hate that I used his name. I hate more that it is true.
Harper looks toward his door, and the fight in her face fractures. Not gone. Never gone. But Milo is the crack in both of us. Conrad knows it. The board knows it. Now Harper knows I know it too.
“If I say no?” she asks.
“Then you say no.”
“And what happens?”
“I find another way.”
“Is there one?”
I do not answer quickly enough.
Her face changes.
The hallway stretches around us, filled with every sound we are trying not to make. Milo’s quiet breathing behind the door. The city whispering against the glass. My own pulse, steady only because I have trained it to lie.
Harper wraps her arms around herself, but her chin stays lifted.
“Let me get this straight,” she says, voice low and sharp. “Your father sends paparazzi after your son, paints me like some kind of threat, and now your brilliant plan is to hand me a ring and tell the world I’m not the nanny problem, I’m the wife solution?”
The phrasing is brutal.
Accurate.
“Harper—”
She steps closer, and this time I am the one who stills.
Her eyes are bright, furious, and wounded in a way that makes me want to tear apart the entire night and start again with better hands.
“You want me to marry you,” she says, each word deliberate, “for PR?”