I Can’t believe he suggested a Honeymoon.
I barely even know him!
This was my thought process as I walked into my office at eight in the I morning.
I had only one plan today and that was to work.
I didn’t want to think about the honeymoon suggestion, carrot cake, white lilies or the way Zane said everything like he knew everything that was going to happen and I knew nothing.
I am just going to work.
The plan lasted four minutes.
My desk had a folder on it that hadn’t been there the night before.
As I was trying to figure out what it contained, Maya came in, hovering near the door with an expression that clearly communicated that she had bad news to deliver and wasn’t sure how I’d take it.
That expression alone told me everything before I’d opened a single page.
Inside the folder were fourteen printed screenshots, Industry blogs, a shareholder forum thread I recognized and two opinion pieces from publications that called themselves neutral but clearly weren’t.
All of them asking the same question.
Was the Reed-Della-Ross marriage legitimate?
I closed the folder.
“How long has this been circulating?” I asked, my voice came out steady.
“Since yesterday evening,” Maya said.
“It escalated overnight.” I set the folder down and moved to my chair.
Veronica had been busy.
I’d known she would be when she walked out of that meeting like a woman with a plan but I’d underestimated her reach.
Industry blogs didn’t run opinion pieces on their own, someone had to have paid for placement or fed a contact.
Because she was Veronica, she’d done both.
Mornings were for meetings.
Right now, I was on number three back to back, each one more uncomfortable than the last.
No one said anything directly but it was in the pauses before responses.
The way they looked at my hands when I spoke instead of my face.
I sensed too as straightforward questions took on a second layer that required me to answer something that hadn’t technically been asked.
I answered everything without flinching.
I’d been performing certainty since I was nineteen.
At noon, my PR lead knocked on my door.
She sat across from my desk with a tablet and acted carefully like she was trying not to offend me and that meant she was about to say something I wasn’t going to want to hear.
“We’ve been monitoring the online footprint since yesterday,” she said.
“Some of the images circulating, ” She turned the tablet toward me.
I looked.
They were photos of me and Zane, more than a dozen.
I saw the press photo from the announcement, us walking toward a car and a candid outside his building.
In every single one, we were side by side.
We didn’t touch each other and didn’t look at each other either.
Oh God!
We really look staged, we are so bad at this!
We looked exactly like two executives walking to a meeting.
“Our recommendation,” she said carefully, “is to create content that changes the visual narrative.” “We need to do something that shows the marriage is real.” Then she paused so I could digest it before she continued.
“A honeymoon would be the most effective, ” “No.” I said point blank.
“You can leave now.” I added and looked away.
She left without pushing it.
But the look she gave me at the door said the same thing Zane had said last night.
You don’t have a choice.
The last meeting was at four o’clock.
It started off normally, like a regular quarterly review, numbers I already knew, projections I’d already approved.
Then, about twenty minutes in, a board member named Walsh set down his pen.
“I want to raise something,” he said.
“Regarding the change in Miss Reed’s marital status.” I looked at him.
“There’s a concern among some members that the timing of this marriage, given the specifics of Mr.
Reed’s will suggests it may have been arranged primarily to satisfy an inheritance clause rather than represent a legitimate union.” The room went very quiet.
My jaw tightened which I felt and made a conscious effort to release it.
“Are you asking me whether I married my husband because I love him, Mr.
Walsh?” He held my gaze.
“I’m asking whether there’s reason for the board to have confidence in the permanence of this arrangement.” I leaned forward.
“The marriage is legal, verified, and registered with the state of Washington.
My husband is Zane Della-Ross, whose family has maintained a professional relationship with Reed Industries for two decades.
The board will have every reason to trust its permanence.” He didn’t argue, even though he also didn’t look entirely convinced.
Neither was anyone else at that table.
Nice play, Veronica, You’ve been working hard to plant seeds of doubt everywhere she can.
I came home that evening with my heels in one hand and my patience gone.
Zane was in the living room, seated and waiting for me.
He had no dramatic pose to his posture and was just sitting with a glass in his hand, the city dark behind the windows, looking like a man who’d expected me at exactly this hour.
One would think he truly cared in this moment and this wasn’t all just a contract.
He reached forward and placed a folder on the coffee table.
I crossed the room, sat across from him, and opened it.
In it was a very comprehensive compilation of everything that was out there about us.
It had every article, shareholder post and quote Veronica had fed to a journalist.
Printed in order, timestamped, annotated in Henry’s neat hand.
I read it slowly because I needed to understand the full shape of what she’d built in less than forty-eight hours.
This is much wider than the folder Maya had shown me this morning.
Veronica hadn’t just questioned the marriage.
She’d been quietly working specific board members and had reached two of my father’s oldest friends.
She also planted a rumor in a financial publication that Reed Industries was operating under contested leadership.
I closed it.
The room was quiet.
“One vacation and proper PR would end all of this.
I promise.” Zane said quietly.
“Two weeks,” I said.
It sounded more like a question.
“Two weeks,” he confirmed.
I set the folder down.
“And we stay in separate rooms.
In private, we are exactly what the contract says we are.
But in public, in front of cameras is another thing.” “Agreed.” He nodded.
“I don’t want to be worried about you overstepping or pretending this is something it isn’t.” “That’s also fine.” His tone was too smooth and too easy.
HMM “And when we come back, Veronica has to have been discredited enough that the board moves on.
That’s the goal.” “Of course.” I stood and picked up my bag and shoes, already running through what I’d need to pack, who I’d need to brief before we left, whether Maya could manage two weeks.
“Sloane.” I stopped and turned to him.
“We leave tomorrow morning.
Six AM.” I turned.
“You said three days.” “I said three days last night.
You took twenty-four hours to agree.
The situation has moved up.
It’s more urgent now.” He shrugged.
I stared at him.
He smiled with just the corner of his mouth, lifting in a way that made me feel, just maybe I shouldn’t just entirely trust this.
I turned and climbed the stairs without another word.
My stomach had dropped.
I didn’t know if it was from the idea of six AM tomorrow, or from the fact that Zane Della-Ross had just smiled at me like I’d done exactly what he’d planned all along.
Was I supposed to trust this?