Married By Mistake To My Ruthless Boss

Call me trouble

(Zara)

Two days had passed since I walked out of that mansion, and I still hadn't told anyone but Mia what happened.

Saturday I spent on my couch eating cereal out of the box and ignoring every call from Ryan. Sunday I cleaned my apartment until it was spotless, like scrubbing counters could scrub the memory of Sebastian's hands on my waist. Neither worked.

Now it was Monday, my first day at Wolfe Enterprises, and I wasn't about to be late because of one reckless weekend.

I showered fast, pulled my hair into a low bun, and put on the navy suit I'd bought weeks ago for this exact day. No wig. No glasses. Just me, Zara Morgan, trying to look like a woman who had her life together.

I did not have my life together.

I grabbed coffee on the way and sat in my car outside the building for five extra minutes, breathing through the nerves. New job. New start. No Ryan. No Chloe. No mansion, no stranger, no note I probably shouldn't have left.

I checked my phone one last time before going in.

Three missed calls from Ryan.

Two texts from Chloe I refused to open.

Nothing from Sebastian, obviously, since he had no way to reach me.

Good.

I turned my phone off and walked inside.

The lobby of Wolfe Enterprises looked exactly like I expected. Glass walls, marble floor, people moving fast with coffee cups in their hands. I checked in at the front desk, got my visitor badge, and waited by the elevators with my heart going faster than it should.

"Zara Morgan?"

A woman in a gray blazer approached me with a tablet in her hand and a tight smile.

"That's me," I said.

"I'm Priya, HR coordinator. I'll walk you through onboarding today." She looked at her tablet. "You're joining the marketing team under the executive office. Big first day. There's a leadership meeting this morning and you'll be introduced."

"Introduced to who?"

"The department heads. And the CEO, if he's around." She said it like it was nothing, like she hadn't just made my stomach turn.

I forced a smile. "Great."

We rode the elevator up together while she explained benefits, badge access, and where the break room was. I nodded along, but my mind kept circling back to one thought.

The CEO, if he's around.

It was fine. Sebastian didn't strike me as the type to run a marketing meeting. He probably had a hundred people under him who handled things like that. I was overthinking this. Rich men in mansions did not automatically mean CEO of the one company I happened to get hired at.

That would be ridiculous.

I almost laughed at myself for even worrying about it.

Priya led me down a long hallway lined with glass offices and stopped outside a large conference room. Through the glass, I could see a table full of people already seated, coffee cups and laptops in front of them.

"They're just finishing up the last agenda item," Priya said. "We'll wait for a break."

I stood there trying to look calm while my heart did something uncomfortable in my chest. I told myself it was just first day nerves. Everyone gets like this. It didn't mean anything.

Then the door opened, and a man stepped out to grab something from a side table.

I recognized the suit first.

Then his face.

Then the way he looked at me and went completely still.

No.

No, no, no.

Sebastian stood there in the hallway of Wolfe Enterprises like he belonged there, because apparently, he did. His eyes moved over me, the navy suit, the neat bun, the visitor badge clipped to my jacket. Recognition crossed his face, fast and unmistakable.

I wanted the floor to open and take me somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Neither of us said anything for a second.

Priya glanced between us, confused. "You two know each other?"

"No," I said, at the same time Sebastian said, "We've met."

Priya's eyebrows went up.

I forced my voice to stay even. "Briefly. Once."

"Once," Sebastian repeated, and something in his tone told me he found this whole situation entertaining. Of course he did. He had woken up to a note that said try not to miss me too much and no name to go with it, and now here I was, standing in his building with a visitor badge and nowhere to hide.

"Mr. Wolfe," Priya said, "this is Zara Morgan, our new marketing coordinator. She's joining us today."

Mr. Wolfe.

Sebastian Wolfe.

CEO.

Something shifted in his expression when he heard my name, there and gone before he covered it. Trouble had a name now. I could see him filing it away.

I felt my whole face go warm. I had left a note for my new boss. I had climbed into a car with my new boss, gone home with my new boss, and snuck out of my new boss's mansion before sunrise like it was some kind of crime scene.

This was not happening.

"Welcome to Wolfe Enterprises," Sebastian said, holding out his hand like we'd never met before, like his mouth hadn't been on mine two nights ago.

I shook his hand, keeping my face as blank as I could manage. "Thank you."

His hand held mine a second longer than it needed to. "Zara," he said, like he was testing the sound of it. "I hope your first day goes well."

"I'm sure it will," I said, pulling my hand back.

He looked at me for one more moment, and I caught the smallest curve at the corner of his mouth before he turned back toward the conference room. "Priya, bring her in when the room clears. I'd like to meet the new hires personally."

"Of course, sir."

He walked back inside without another glance in my direction, and I stood there trying to remember how to breathe normally.

Priya leaned closer to me once he was gone. "He never does that. Meeting new hires personally, I mean. You must have made an impression somewhere."

"Lucky, I guess," I said, my voice tighter than I meant it to be.

She didn't push, thankfully, and went back to checking her tablet.

I stared through the glass at the back of Sebastian's head and thought about every version of that night I'd tried to convince myself didn't matter. One reckless night. One mistake. One stranger I'd never have to see again.

Except now he was my boss, and I was standing in his building on a Monday morning, wearing a visitor badge and praying nobody could tell my hands were shaking.

I thought I'd left that mansion behind me for good.

I was wrong.