Chapter 13
Kinsley sat in the classroom, half-listening to the lecture and half-listening to Emma’s incessant whispering.
Driving herself felt liberating, but she couldn’t stop her mind from drifting back to the way he had kissed her in the car over the past two days.
She doodled aimlessly on her notebook, her thoughts as chaotic as the messy lines on the page.
Is he in a meeting right now?
For someone as cold as he is, does he yell at his staff?
When he looks at me, there’s often a deep, hidden warmth in his eyes—like a secret happiness he refuses to voice. Am I overthinking this, or is he really like this?
As she lost herself in the speculation, Emma suddenly gasped in a low voice.
“The world of the ultra-rich is so disgustingly dramatic.”
“What is it?”
Kinsley asked, barely paying attention.
“The new Chairman of Visto Corporation used a fake marriage to seize power.”
Kinsley’s heart jolted.
“Where did you see that?”
Emma handed over her phone.
“It’s trending. These rich people and their twisted games, honestly.”
Kinsley’s eyes scanned the screen, latching onto the keywords that made her heart hammer against her ribs.
“Maybe... maybe it’s just someone’s wild speculation?”
She could already see herself surrounded by media, being interrogated and hounded.
“No way, this info came from someone inside his own family. Someone who’s a rival for the position.”
“Other people’s drama... let’s not stress over it...”
Kinsley desperately wanted to shut down the conversation, but Emma was savoring every second.
“That woman must be so mysterious—the family hasn’t even acknowledged her.”
Emmarose her voice.
“Let me see if I can find a picture of her.”
“Shh—lower your voice. We’re in class.”
Kinsley stopped her, fighting the urge to snatch the phone away and turnitoff.
What would happen if she found out the person she’s mocking is sitting right next to her?
Emma acted as if she had finally found something interesting to do in class, absorbed in digging up online gossip.
Kinsley ran through every possible scenario in her head, feeling so desperate she could barely breathe.
“It’s just gossip. Don’t take it to heart.”
After a while, Emma finally put the phone down.
“He’d hidden her so well. There’s only a wedding photo, and even then, she doesn’t show her face.”
Kinsley’s heart gave another wild leap before slowly settling.
She had a sudden urge to stifle her words right there, but Emma was already too far gone in the scandal to notice.
“Aaron Hoffman is so handsome it’s almost criminal. Whoever snatched him up got the deal of a lifetime. Just wait, though—he’s clearly just using her. He’ll toss her out as soon as he’s done.”
Every word felt like a blade carving into Kinsley’s heart.
It was true—in six months, she would lose everything she had now.
Though the terms were explicitly laid out in the contract, hearing them voiced by Emma cut like a blade, leaving her heart riddled with wounds.
Finally, unable to help herself, Kinsley clicked on the webpage to read the commentsone by one.
While the post focused on the family power struggle, the discourse had veered off course entirely:
Aaron’s legion of looks-obsessed fans had descended, turning their vitriol toward Kinsleywith a barrage of insults and accusations.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and she felt the strength drain from her body, leaving her hollow.
She was no gold digger, and certainly no club girl.
She was simply a girl who had taken a short-term assignment, never imagining she would be dragged into the center of a corporate storm.
The only silver lining was that there were no photos of her and Aaron together.
With trembling fingers, she took a screenshot of the article and sent it to him.
Have you seen the news online? I’m terrified someone is going to track me down.
She waited for a reply.
In this moment, the one thing she craved more than anything was a simple message from him:
“Don’t worry. I’ll handle everything.”
But five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Then the class bell rang.
Her phone remained as silent as the grave.
Kinsley hadn’t taken in a single word of the professor’s lecture.
In the hallways, hushed whispers of his name followed her like static.
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
She picked up her phone, hovering between a call and a text for an eternity, before ultimately blacking the screen and shoving the device back into her bag.
~ ~ ~
The air in the Visto Corporation’s President’s Office was thick with tension.
Albert tossed a stack of documents onto the desk after a quick scan.
“You’re right,”he said, “it’s a damn good thing you didn’t file for divorce immediately. Otherwise, they’d have an open target with this ‘fake marriage’ narrative.”
Aaron didn’t respond.
He was staring unblinkingly at Kinsley’s message on his phone.
He typed out a reply, then deleted it—a cycle he repeated several times before finally tossing the phone aside in a fit of irritation.
“Draft a legal notice. We need to suppress the media backlash.”
“That’s a bad move, Aaron. The harder you clamp down on the press, the higher the rebound. You’ll end up doing more damage to your public image.
“Just let it sit for a few days. The heat will die down naturally. A little online noise won’t kill us.”
Aaron shot him a look of pure disdain.
“It’s unfair to the girl.”
“What does that matter? Your priority right now is to pacify Ethan so he stops stirring the pot.”
Aaron acted as if he hadn’t heard him.
“Do it immediately. Sue any media outlet that doesn’t comply, one by one.”
“Get a grip, Aaron. That woman is just a tool. Don’t let her jeopardize the bigger picture. Besides, you paid her. It was a fair trade.”
A tool?
A trade?
Aaron’s hand clamped down hard on the arm of his chair.
Albert was right, of course.
Silence was the best PR strategy.
Let them guess and speculate; as long as he handled Ethan, none of it mattered.
But now? She was afraid of this whirlwind.
Being just a simple girl, she couldn’t handle this kind of pressure.
At that moment, a sharp pang tightened in Aaron’s chest.
He hadn’t expected things to spiral so far beyond the initial plan.
The memory of that single tear on her face at the wedding had burned an imprint into his mind.
No. I can’t let her cry again.
He hated this loss of control.
He grabbed his pen, signed the executive order on the documents, and buzzed for his assistant.
“Deal with the PR fallout immediately. If the team handling this fails to clean it up, they’re fired.”
Albert waited until the assistant left before shouting at him.
“Have you lost your mind? You’re going to take a risk like this over a woman? If the public gets provoked—”
“I’ll handle the backlash myself.”
His voice remained eerily calm.
“And what about Ethan? Your uncle is going to have you in his office within the hour.”
Aaron’s phone vibrated.
He held it up to Albert with a thin, humorless smile.
“Your intuition is as sharp as ever.”
He calmly smoothed out his suit and adjusted his tie knot.
“Time to go see the old fox.”
He strode out of the office.