Chapter 5
CEO OF BAD DECISIONS
VICTOR
Monday morning hits like a freight train made of regret and overpriced coffee.
It's been an entire thirty-six hours since Vegas, thirty-six hours since I put Harper on my plane and sent her back to New York with strict instructions to stay off social media and away from the press.
And somehow, despite returning to Manhattan—my natural habitat—I still can't get the image of Harper Beaumont, tangled in my sheets, out of my head.
I drag my focus back to reality, back to where the October air is sharp enough to cut and the skyline looks like a warning instead of a welcome.
Back to the things that actually matter.
Like the fact that I'm married.
Like the fact that while I was getting married, my life was falling apart in other ways—the kind of ways where Richard Francis, the CEO of the company I've spent the last two years trying to acquire, didn't just leave the club after meeting Harper.
No. That would have been too simple.
Instead, his "I have an early meeting tomorrow" excuse was actually "I'm heading to a Vegas brothel where I'll take too many packets of sex enhancement drugs, freak out because my dick won't go down, and then have the cops arrest me while wearing the world's shiniest man-thong."
No big deal.
Except for the fact that my board will lose their shit when they find out.
As Richard's first phone call after the debacle, I'd had my assistant Gina handle the whole thing as quietly as she could, but still…
Something's bound to leak to the press.
And when it does, I'll be doubly fucked.
Which is why I arrive to the StreamEats offices in downtown Manhattan at the eye-watering hour of 4:43 AM.
And as I expected, Gina is already at her desk, coffee in hand, expression calibrated to "we're about to have a very bad day."
"Morning, sir."
In corporate English? "Let's pretend like our lives aren't actively on fire."
"Morning, Gina. Give me the run-down."
She doesn't hesitate. "Conference room. Eight AM. Full board. Patricia Franklin called for an emergency meeting."
Fuck. Of course she did.
"Rachel called six times," Gina adds, falling into step beside me as we head toward my office. "Says you're ignoring her."
"I'm not ignoring her," I say, pulling out my phone. "I'm prioritizing."
Twenty-three unread messages.
All from the world's weariest public relations agent.
I scroll.
RACHEL (PR): The chapel video has 3.1 million views.
RACHEL (PR): You're trending on three platforms
RACHEL (PR): Someone made a TikTok edit of you set to Frozen. The Ice Prince narrative is everywhere
RACHEL (PR): Good news: Harper is silent. No press. No posts. Very controlled.
RACHEL (PR): Bad news: That makes her more interesting.
RACHEL (PR): VICTOR. RESPOND.
I almost smile. Because I've met Harper Beaumont. And in the short time I've known her, I can only guess as to how difficult it must be for the walking, talking hazard sign to keep quiet about something this huge.
Gina clears her throat as I unlock my office door. "There's one more thing, sir."
I pause, hand on the doorknob. "What?"
"Your brother has been trying to reach you. Three emails over the weekend. Four phone calls yesterday. Two more this morning."
My jaw tightens. "And?"
"I filtered them as instructed. But he's… persistent."
"Keep filtering."
"Sir, one of the emails mentioned—"
"I don't care what it mentioned, Gina. My brother doesn't exist as far as this office is concerned. Clear?"
Her expression doesn't change, but I see the slight hesitation. "Yes, sir."
"Good." I push open the door. "Anything else?"
"Just the board agenda. Patricia called it an 'emergency evaluation of executive conduct.'"
I stop in the doorway. "Her words?"
"Yes, sir."
I pinch the bridge of my nose almost to the point of pain.
Because StreamEats executive Patricia Franklin has been waiting for this moment, waiting to stab me in the back, since the day I refused to give her wayward nephew a title at the company that he didn't earn.
And I just handed her the knife.
I step into my office, breathing in the bergamot-scented air. A glass-encased sanctuary fifty floors above midtown Manhattan, my corner office is cathedral-like—just the way I like it.
With a view designed to remind visitors exactly who signs their paycheck, the charcoal walls are bare, the air chilled as I shrug off my coat and hand it to Gina, noticing that everything inside my space is exactly where it should be.
Unlike the rest of my life.
I move to my desk, my mind already calculating.
The Francis situation. The board meeting. The acquisition that's hanging by a thread. And underneath all of it—Harper.
I need more time.
Time to think. Time to assess. Time to figure out what the hell I'm going to do about the fact that I'm married to a woman I barely know.
"Gina," I say, not looking up from my phone. "When Harper Beaumont arrives this morning, send her directly to my office. Before orientation. Before anything else."
Gina's eyebrows rise slightly. "She's scheduled for nine, sir. HR has an entire onboarding—"
"The second she walks through that door, I want to know. Clear?"
"Yes, sir."
She leaves, and I stand there for a moment, staring at the city spread out below me.
I'm not making a decision yet.
That's the decision.
I'm not annulling this marriage until I know what the right move is. Until I understand the full scope of the damage. Until I figure out what Harper Beaumont actually wants—and more importantly, what I can control.
Because the one thing I learned in Vegas—besides the fact that drunk-me has terrible judgment—is that Harper doesn't do anything the way I expect.
Which makes her either the most dangerous person in my life right now.
Or the most valuable.
I'm still trying to decide which when there's a sharp knock on my office door.
Before I can respond, it swings open.
My publicist sweeps in like a storm wrapped in designer labels. Leopard-print coat flaring behind her, sunglasses still on despite the depressingly gray Manhattan morning, Rachel Stone steps inside, heels clicking across the floor before she comes to a stop.
"So," she says, peeling off her sunglasses and tossing them onto my desk, "quick question: would you prefer to ruin your reputation slowly… or go for a dramatic, career-ending implosion before lunch?"
I don't look up immediately, flipping through the acquisition reports. "Good morning to you too, Rach."
She drops into the chair across from me, crossing one leg over the other. "I leave you alone for one weekend—one—and you come back legally married with a viral video and a scandal-adjacent CEO arrest tied to your acquisition target."
"Efficiency is one of my strengths."
"Self-sabotage, apparently, is another."
I close the file, finally meeting her green eyes. "We're not doing this."
"Oh, we are absolutely doing this. Vegas was supposed to be a soft-touch weekend. You charm Francis, keep him out of trouble, sell him the vision. That was the assignment."
"I was there."
"Were you? Because from where I'm sitting, you managed to miss the 'don't marry a stranger in a gaming chapel' portion of the agenda."
I exhale slowly, standing and moving toward the windows. "Let's get to the point, Rach. What do you want?"
"I want to stop you from making another mistake."
"Which would be?"
“Annulling your marriage.”
“You’re against me annulling this drunken Vegas marriage?” I turn back. "Explain."
Rachel rises, pacing now, energy coiled tight. "You cannot annul this marriage right now. Not this week. Not while this story is still hot and your board is already questioning your judgment."
"That's ridiculous."
"No, Victor," she says, voice dropping into something colder. "What's ridiculous is thinking you can drunkenly marry a woman in Vegas and then quietly erase it forty-eight hours later without consequences."
"It happens all the time."
"You're not 'all the time.' You're you." She gestures at me like I'm a walking liability. "In case you've forgotten, the press calls you 'the Ice Prince of Food Media.' You don't get to be messy or impulsive or even human."
My jaw nearly works itself into a knot at that last part.
"And now," she continues, relentless, "you've given them a narrative. The ruthless CEO who made one reckless, emotional decision… and immediately discarded the woman involved."
"That's not what happened."
"Isn't it? Because that's exactly how it will look when TMZ runs with it."
I don't respond, and she presses the advantage.
"You can survive scandal," she says. "You can survive Francis. You can even survive a viral wedding video. What you cannot survive is looking cruel."
I resist the urge to grind my teeth.
Rachel walks back to the desk, placing both hands on the surface. "There's another option."
"I'm not interested in options."
"You should be. Because this one fixes your board problem, your Francis problem, and your reputation problem in one move."
I say nothing, and she holds my gaze.
"You stay married."
The silence that follows is immediate.
"No."
"Victor—"
"No. Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know her," I snap. "I don't know who she is, what she wants, or what she's capable of."
And there it is. The real problem.
Rachel studies me. "You're not worried about optics. You're worried about her."
"I'm worried about risk."
"That doesn't sound like business."
I ignore that.
"She's a stranger," I continue. "For all I know, this entire thing could be—"
"A setup?"
I don't answer, and Rachel exhales. "Let's assume for a moment she's not a con artist orchestrating a long game to infiltrate your company."
"Generous."
"Let's assume she's exactly what she looks like—a smart, capable woman who got caught in the same disaster you did." She tilts her head. "In which case, staying married might be your best move."
"I don't need relationship advice."