Adam Bennett used to think the worst part of grief was the silence it left behind. The way a house could be full of furniture and still feel like a missing limb. The way a six-year-old could ask, in the middle of brushing her teeth, if Mom could see her from heaven, and your throat would close like a door you didn’t have the key for.

But grief had roommates.

Debt moved in with it. Exhaustion. Shame. The constant low-level terror that life was one flat tire away from disaster.

So Adam had learned to live pinned against the wall, breathing in short, careful increments. He worked too late, slept too little, smiled when his daughter looked at him like he was unbreakable, and quietly counted the days until the next bill arrived.

He thought he had gotten used to it.

Then, on a Monday night at 8:45, his phone buzzed at the corner of his desk and reminded him that getting used to something didn’t mean it stopped hurting.

Miss Carter’s voice came through the speaker, tired and apologetic, the voice of someone who’d made this call too many times to too many parents.

“Mr. Bennett? It’s Ella. She has a fever. If it doesn’t break overnight, she’ll need to be picked up early tomorrow.”

“I’ll be there,” Adam said automatically.

He always was.

He ended the call and rubbed his eyes until the office lights blurred. He was hunched over his laptop in the dim glow of Sterling Marketing Solutions, typing another bland tagline for a product nobody would remember. His job was to make things sound important. His life was everything but.

He saved the document, shut down his computer, and grabbed his jacket.

The office was nearly empty. Most people had left hours ago, their lives neatly arranged around dinner plans and gym classes and spouses who asked how their day went. Adam moved through the quiet hallways like a shadow with a time card.

He turned the corner too fast and collided with someone coming the other way.

A leather portfolio slipped from her hands and hit the floor. Papers scattered across the polished tile like startled birds.

Adam dropped to his knees immediately.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, already gathering the documents before the apology finished leaving his mouth.

The woman crouched across from him, movements precise and controlled, as if even her knees had been trained to behave. Adam looked up and recognized her instantly.

Luna Sterling.

Vice president. The woman with the 36th-floor office and the kind of silence that made people stand straighter. She was twenty-nine, cold in the way powerful people often were, and she rarely spoke to anyone below the executive floor unless absolutely necessary.

Their hands reached for the portfolio at the same time. They didn’t touch, but the air tightened anyway, like the building was holding its breath.

Adam handed her the folder and stood quickly, as if standing could erase the fact that he’d been on the floor in front of her.

Luna straightened, expression unreadable. She said, “Thank you,” without warmth and turned to leave.

That should have been the end of it.

But Adam’s eyes caught something near the wall, half-hidden under a filing cabinet: a sealed envelope, cream-colored and embossed like it belonged in a world that didn’t worry about overdue rent.

“Ms. Sterling,” he called out.

Luna stopped and turned back.

Adam jogged toward her, holding the envelope out like it might explode if he held it too long. “You dropped this.”

She took it, opened her purse, and pulled out five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. She held them toward him.

Adam stared at the money, then at her.

He shook his head. “I’m just returning something that isn’t mine.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed slightly, like she’d found a puzzle she hadn’t expected.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes,” Adam said simply.

Then he walked away, leaving her standing there with the money still in her hand, looking faintly offended by the existence of someone who didn’t have a price.

Adam didn’t see the moment her gaze sharpened, the way it did when she was making a decision.

He didn’t know she went back to her office and opened the employee directory like a surgeon selecting a scalpel.

Adam Bennett. Copywriter. Lower tier.

Single father. Financial history: strained.

No corporate alliances. No connections to her brother, Derek.

Clean.

Controllable.

Useful.

And, apparently, allergic to bribery.

Seven days later, Adam received an email from human resources: he was being summoned to the 36th floor at 9:00 a.m. No explanation. No context. Just a meeting request with Luna Sterling’s name attached like a warning label.

Adam read it three times, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong.

He showed up at 8:55 wearing the only suit he owned that still fit, the one that made him look like a boy playing dress-up in his father’s clothes. The 36th floor was glass and steel, sharp edges and cold light. The air smelled like money and decisions.

A receptionist directed him to a conference room at the end of the hall.

Adam walked in and found Luna sitting at the head of a long table, hands folded, posture perfect. She gestured to the chair across from her.

Adam sat, trying not to fidget.

Luna didn’t waste time.

“I reviewed your employment record,” she said. “You’re competent. Reliable. Unremarkable.”

That was not a compliment. It was a label.

Then she said something that made his stomach drop.

“I need you to do something for me. Something unrelated to your job.”

Adam’s mouth went dry. He prepared for humiliation, for a quiet firing, for the corporate version of being pushed off a cliff.

Instead, Luna looked him straight in the eye and said, “I need you to pretend to be my husband for one year.”

Adam froze.

He blinked once. Twice. As if extra blinking could rewrite reality.

“You want me to…” His voice caught. “Pretend.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Adam managed.

Luna’s gaze didn’t waver. “My father’s will.”

She explained it like she was reading a quarterly report. Sterling Marketing Solutions had been left to her, but with a clause: control of the company required her to be married. If she wasn’t married before her thirtieth birthday, control would transfer to Derek.

Adam stared at her, trying to process the absurdity. “When is your birthday?”

“Eleven months,” Luna said.

She leaned back slightly. “I need a husband. Not a real one. A contract. Twelve months. No emotion. No complications. Just… performance.”

Adam’s brain tried to catch up. “Why me?”

Luna’s answer landed like a hammer.

“Because you have no reason to refuse.”

Then she laid out the numbers of his life like she’d been living it with him.

Over $120,000 in medical debt from his wife’s illness.

Two months behind on rent.

His daughter’s daycare barely covered.

Luna could erase his debt, double his salary, provide health insurance, and set up an education fund for his daughter.

“All you have to do,” she said, “is play the role.”

Adam felt heat rise in his face. Not embarrassment. Something sharper.

“What does ‘play the role’ mean?” he asked.

Luna’s voice remained calm. “Move into my penthouse. Attend family dinners. Pose for photographs. Convince my brother and the board that we are a real couple.”

Adam’s throat tightened around the question that had been sitting there since the moment she opened her mouth.

Half-joking. Half desperate. Completely necessary.

“So,” he said, “we’re sharing a bed.”

Luna’s expression didn’t change.

“Only when necessary,” she said. “Only when we need to convince someone who matters.”

Adam leaned back, feeling like the chair might vanish beneath him. This wasn’t just a job. This was an auction with his dignity on the block and his daughter’s future as the highest bidder.

“I need twenty-four hours,” he said.

Luna nodded. “Fine.”

She slid a folder across the table, terms written in legal language dense enough to sink a ship.

Then she stood, walked him to the door, and left him there with a contract and a life-altering choice tucked under his arm like a bomb.

That night, Adam sat in his daughter’s room and watched her sleep.

Ella was small for her age, her breathing soft and steady, cheeks flushed from the fever that still hadn’t fully broken. Her stuffed triceratops was tucked under one arm like a bodyguard.

Adam sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the rise and fall of her chest.

He thought about the life he was giving her: the cramped apartment, the secondhand clothes, the constant fear that one bad month would put them on the street. He thought about the math he did at 3:00 a.m., numbers running through his head like rats.

He thought about what Luna was offering: stability, security, a future that didn’t involve him lying awake with panic.

He picked up his phone and typed a message.

He told Luna he would do it, but his daughter stayed out of it. No publicity. No involvement.

Luna replied within two minutes.

Agreed.

Adam set the phone down and closed his eyes.

He had just sold himself.

He wasn’t sure if that made him smart or desperate.

Probably both.

The contract was signed three days later in a lawyer’s office downtown. Luna’s signature looked like it belonged on a museum plaque. Adam’s looked like it belonged on a permission slip.

They shook hands.

It felt like sealing a business deal, which, Adam reminded himself, it was.

He moved into the penthouse on a Friday.

It was cold and immaculate, the kind of place that looked staged for a magazine shoot. The furniture didn’t look sat on. The kitchen didn’t look cooked in. Even the air felt filtered.

Luna showed him to a guest room at the far end of the hall.

“The rules,” she said, like a prayer she’d memorized. “No crossing boundaries. No personal questions. No expectations beyond what is written. You will be… presentable.”

Adam nodded, suitcase in hand, feeling like he’d walked into someone else’s life and left fingerprints all over it.

That Sunday, they attended their first family dinner at the Sterling Estate.

Derek Sterling was there, leaning against the bar with a whiskey glass and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He looked like a man who enjoyed chess because it gave him permission to call cruelty strategy.

He shook Adam’s hand, grip just a little too tight.

“Well,” Derek said, voice amused, “this is a surprise. I didn’t know Luna was seeing anyone.”

“We kept it quiet,” Luna said smoothly.

Derek’s gaze lingered on Adam like he was searching for the seam in a disguise. “And what do you do, Adam?”

Luna cut in before Adam could answer. “He’s in marketing.”

Derek lifted an eyebrow. “How… convenient.”

Dinner was stiff and formal, a table full of people trained to cut with forks and words. Adam played his role: he sat beside Luna, rested a hand on the back of her chair, smiled at the right moments. Luna placed her hand over his once, a brief touch that looked natural but felt rehearsed.

Derek watched them the way predators watch fences.

On the drive home, Luna stared out the window and said, “He doesn’t believe us.”

“How do you know?” Adam asked.

“Because Derek never believes anything I do is real,” she said, voice flat.

That night, Adam lay in the guest room and stared at the ceiling.

He wondered if he would survive twelve months of pretending.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

He failed.

The first two weeks felt like living in a museum where Adam was both the exhibit and the security guard. Luna left before he woke and returned after he’d eaten dinner alone at the kitchen island. They exchanged maybe ten sentences a day, most of them logistical.

Their marriage was paperwork with a pulse.

On weekends, Adam went back to his old apartment to see Ella. Those hours were the only ones that tasted like truth. He’d pick her up, take her to the park, listen to her talk about dinosaurs and classmates and the fact that the moon “looks like it got bitten.”

He’d smile and pretend his mind wasn’t always doing math.

Three weeks after he moved in, Luna said there was another family dinner. This one included two board members.

“We need to be convincing,” she said.

They arrived early at a restaurant where the waiters wore white gloves and the menu didn’t list prices. Luna wore a black dress that looked expensive and unforgiving. Adam wore the same suit he’d signed his dignity in.

Derek arrived on time, flanked by two older men in tailored suits. He kissed Luna’s cheek with practiced affection and turned to Adam.

“So,” Derek said, settling into his chair, “how is married life?”

“An adjustment,” Luna said.

One of the board members, a silver-haired man with a gravel voice, asked Adam what he did at the company.

“Copywriter,” Adam said.

The man raised an eyebrow. “And that’s how you met?”

“Yes,” Adam said.

Luna reached across the table and placed her hand over his. Her fingers were cool, steady. The gesture looked intimate. It felt like choreography.

Derek watched without speaking. Then, mid-appetizer, he leaned back and smiled.

“I always thought you’d end up with someone from our circle,” he said to Luna. “Someone who understands the family business.”

Luna’s eyes didn’t blink. “Adam understands more than you give him credit for.”

Derek’s smile sharpened. “I hope so. The company isn’t kind to people who don’t belong.”

By the time they left, Adam’s jaw hurt from clenching.

Back at the penthouse, Luna poured herself a glass of wine and stood by the window, city lights spread out below her like a board game.

Adam asked, “Do you think we pulled it off?”

Luna didn’t turn. “No.”

Then, for the first time, her posture loosened. She looked tired. Not physically. Tired in the way people get when they’ve been fighting too long and can’t remember when they started.

“Derek was always the favorite,” she said quietly. “Our father groomed him from sixteen. I was… convenient when it suited him.”

Adam’s throat tightened. “I’m sorry.”

Luna looked at him like she didn’t know what to do with the apology.

Then she finished her wine and said, “Good night.”

Adam stayed in the living room, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the woman who had bought his loyalty and wondering if she’d ever had anyone who gave it to her for free.

The storm arrived the following week.

The power went out just after ten. The penthouse went dark, expensive silence suddenly primitive. Luna came into the living room holding her phone like a flashlight.

Adam found two glasses and poured wine by memory.

They sat at opposite ends of the couch, darkness between them like a careful boundary.

After a long silence, Luna asked, “Why did you really agree to this?”

“You already know,” Adam said.

“I know what the contract says,” Luna replied. “I want to know what you were thinking when you signed it.”

Adam took a long drink. “I was thinking about my daughter,” he said. “About what kind of father lets his kid grow up poor when he has a chance to fix it.”

Luna’s voice softened, just slightly. “Do you regret it?”

“I don’t know yet,” Adam admitted.

He looked at her. “Do you?”

“No,” Luna said immediately. Then, after a pause that sounded like honesty breaking through, “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Derek from winning.”

Adam exhaled. “Then we both walked into it with our eyes open.”

In the faint glow of their phones, something shifted in Luna’s expression. Less steel. More human.

They talked until the power came back two hours later.

Luna told him about growing up in the Sterling house, about being invisible until it was useful for her not to be. Adam told her about his wife, about the last six months when the hospital became their second home, the way you learn to fear quiet when machines are supposed to beep.

When the lights flickered back on, both of them blinked against the sudden brightness like they’d been caught doing something illegal.

Luna stood. “I should get back to work.”

She stopped at the doorway and looked back.

“Thank you,” she said.

Adam didn’t ask what for.

The next Saturday, Adam mentioned over breakfast that he was taking Ella to the park.

Luna surprised him by asking, “Can I come?”

“I… why?” Adam asked.

“I want to see what your life looks like outside this place,” she said, voice careful, as if wanting something simple made her feel unarmed.

Adam hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

At the park, Adam pushed Ella on the swings. Luna arrived in jeans and a sweater, no makeup, hair pulled back. She looked younger, softer, like the air had permission to touch her.

Ella noticed her first. “Who’s that lady?”

Adam swallowed. “A friend.”

Luna walked over and crouched to Ella’s level. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Luna.”

Ella’s eyes narrowed with the serious judgment of a child who knows adults lie. “Are you my dad’s girlfriend?”

Adam opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Luna glanced up at Adam. Panic flashed in her eyes, quick and bright.

Then she looked back at Ella and said, “Yes.”

Ella considered this like she was weighing a dinosaur fossil. “Does that mean you’re going to be my new mom?”

Luna’s breath hitched.

Adam stepped in quickly. “No, sweetheart. That’s not how it works.”

Ella shrugged and ran back to the swings, satisfied enough to keep living.

Luna and Adam walked along the pond while Ella raced ahead laughing at nothing in particular.

“She’s amazing,” Luna said quietly.

“She is,” Adam replied.

Luna watched Ella with something that looked like longing, the kind of longing that doesn’t want diamonds, just a hand to hold.

That night, Adam lay in bed thinking about that look.

And realizing the lines they’d drawn were not as clear as the contract pretended.

Two weeks later, Luna insisted on wedding photos.

“Proof,” she said. “The family needs proof.”

The photographer posed them against a white backdrop, told them to stand closer, to smile like they meant it.

“Hold hands.”

They did.

“Luna, rest your head on his shoulder.”

She did.

“Adam, arm around her waist.”

Adam hesitated.

Luna whispered, “It’s fine.”

He wrapped his arm around her.

She leaned into him.

And for a brief moment, it didn’t feel like acting.

“Look at each other,” the photographer instructed.

They did.

Adam looked into Luna’s eyes and saw vulnerability, fear, and something else: a quiet exhaustion that came from fighting alone for too long.

The camera clicked.

Luna stepped back immediately, the moment breaking like glass.

A month later, Derek sent an email to the entire board.

Corporate language. Polite knives.

Leadership concerns. Governance review.

A coup dressed in a suit.

Luna read it three times, hands shaking, and then called Adam into her office.

“He’s making his move,” she said.

“What does that mean?” Adam asked.

“It means he’s going to prove this marriage is fake,” Luna said. “He’s going to dig into you. Find the contract. Expose everything.”

Adam’s stomach dropped.

“We need to be more convincing,” Luna said. “Not just at dinners. All the time.”

The next day, Derek called Adam and requested a private meeting.

Adam agreed even though every instinct screamed trap.

Before he left, Luna stopped him. “He’ll try to buy you off,” she said. “Or threaten you. Record everything.”

Adam nodded.

They met at a coffee shop near the office. Derek sat in a corner booth, smiling like he’d already won.

He didn’t waste time.

“I know about the contract,” Derek said. “I know about the debt. I don’t blame you for taking the deal.”

Adam’s hands tightened around his cup.

Derek leaned forward. “But this won’t end well. When Luna falls, you fall with her.”

Then he offered Adam an exit.

“If you walk away now,” Derek said, “I’ll make sure the contract stays buried. No one will know. You keep the money Luna already gave you. You disappear, and you’re safe.”

Adam sat there after Derek left, the offer sitting on the table like a loaded gun.

He thought about Ella. About stability. About how easy it would be to take the deal and go back to surviving.

Then he thought about Luna, working until midnight, fighting a battle she didn’t know how to win. He thought about her in the dark during the outage. The way she’d smiled at Ella in the park like she’d forgotten she was allowed to want something simple.

Adam called Luna.

He told her everything.

And then he said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Luna was silent for a long moment.

“Why?” she asked, voice smaller than he’d ever heard.

“Because Derek is wrong,” Adam said. “This doesn’t end with us falling. It ends with us still standing.”

That night, in the guest room, Adam stared at the ceiling and wondered if he’d just put a target on his own back.

He had.

Within a week, an emergency board meeting was called.

Thursday. Ten a.m.

Luna told Adam not to come.

“I’m coming,” he said.

“Why?” Luna asked.

“Because if he’s going to burn us,” Adam replied, “I want to be in the room when he strikes the match.”

The night before the meeting, Adam couldn’t sleep. At 3:00 a.m., he stood in the kitchen staring out at the city lights, glass of water in hand.

Footsteps behind him.

Luna stood in the doorway wearing an oversized sweater and sweatpants, hair loose. She looked more human than he’d ever seen her.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Adam lied.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Luna said.

Adam turned toward her. “Are you scared?”

“Yes,” Luna admitted. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove I’m good enough. Tomorrow Derek is going to tell them I’m a fraud.”

“You’re not,” Adam said.

“It doesn’t matter what’s true,” Luna whispered. “It matters what they believe.”

Luna exhaled like her ribs were a cage. “I’m going to tell the truth,” she said. “I’m going to admit it was a contract. I paid you. And then I’m going to remind them I’ve run this company better than Derek ever could.”

“Will it work?” Adam asked.

“No,” Luna said. “But it’s the only move I have left.”

They stood there in the quiet.

Adam set his glass down. “You’re not doing it alone.”

Luna’s mask slipped fully for the first time. Her eyes looked tired and angry and scared all at once.

“Why are you still here?” she asked. “Why didn’t you take his offer and walk away?”

Adam’s throat tightened. “Because I’m tired of running,” he said. “I spent three years watching my wife die and feeling powerless. This is the first time in a long time I feel like I can fight for something.”

Luna’s mouth curved, barely. “You’re either very brave or very stupid.”

“Probably both,” Adam said.

Thursday morning, the boardroom on the 40th floor gleamed with glass walls and leather chairs.

Derek sat at the head of the table, calm and confident. He looked like a man reading the last page of a book he’d already written.

The chair, Gregory, thanked everyone for coming and turned the floor over to Derek.

Derek stood and performed respect like it was a speech.

“I have nothing but admiration for my sister,” he began. “But recently, I’ve learned some troubling information.”

Then he laid it out.

The contract. The financial transfers. The timeline of Adam’s debts being paid.

Fraud. Manipulation. Integrity.

Each word was a nail.

The room went silent.

All eyes turned to Luna.

She stood.

Derek smiled, expecting denial.

Instead Luna said, “He’s right.”

A murmur rippled through the room.

“Yes,” Luna continued, voice steady. “It was a contract. I paid his debts. I asked him to pretend to be my husband for one year. That is true.”

Derek’s smile sharpened. “And you admit you lied.”

“I admit I played a game I was forced to play,” Luna said. “The problem isn’t Adam Bennett. The problem is a will that treats marriage as a qualification for leadership. It’s archaic. It’s insulting. And I refuse to lose my life’s work because my father believed a ring mattered more than competence.”

She didn’t flinch.

She listed the results: revenue up thirty-eight percent, expansion into two new markets, industry respect restored.

“Ask yourselves,” she said to the board, “if any of that would have happened under Derek.”

Derek snapped back, “That’s not the point. The point is you broke the rules.”

“The rules were broken,” Luna replied.

The air crackled. Years of resentment, family history, and corporate ambition pressed on the room like a storm front.

Then Adam stood.

Every head turned toward him.

Gregory frowned. “Is this relevant, Mr. Bennett?”

Adam’s voice didn’t shake. “Yes.”

He said, “Derek met with me two weeks ago. He offered me money to walk away. He promised to bury the contract if I disappeared.”

Derek’s face hardened. “That’s a lie.”

Adam pulled out his phone.

He played the audio.

Derek’s own voice filled the boardroom, offering Adam safety in exchange for betrayal.

The board members exchanged looks. The kind that meant the room was shifting.

Gregory turned to Derek. “Is this accurate?”

Derek stammered about context.

“It’s very clear,” Gregory said coldly.

Adam continued, heart pounding, but words clean and sharp. “And there’s more.”

He handed Gregory a folder. Email logs. Access records. Timestamps.

“Derek has been using executive access to monitor Luna’s emails and calendar for months,” Adam said. “Tracking her meetings. Her correspondence. Spying on her. That’s not due diligence. That’s espionage.”

Silence thickened.

Gregory flipped through the evidence, his expression turning from concern to fury.

Another board member spoke: “That’s grounds for immediate removal.”

Adam met the room with his eyes. “This company can punish Luna for an outdated clause,” he said, “or it can punish Derek for violating the ethics he’s pretending to defend.”

Gregory’s voice was quiet, dangerous. “Everyone except the board members, step outside.”

Luna and Adam left the room. Derek followed, glaring at Adam like he wanted to memorize his face for later destruction.

“You made a big mistake,” Derek hissed.

Adam’s voice stayed level. “I don’t think so.”

Derek walked away.

Luna and Adam waited in the hallway, silence between them loaded with things neither of them had permission to say.

After thirty minutes, the door opened.

Gregory stepped out. “The board has reached a decision.”

Derek was removed from his position for ethical violations and abuse of access.

Luna retained her role, but the marriage contract had to be dissolved within thirty days.

The board would review the will’s terms to challenge or remove the marriage clause entirely.

“It’s not perfect,” Gregory said. “But it’s the best outcome given the circumstances.”

Then he looked at Luna, then at Adam.

“You’re lucky,” Gregory said to Luna, “to have someone willing to stand up for you the way he did.”

The door closed again.

Luna turned to Adam, and for a long moment she just looked at him as if she was trying to learn a language she’d never been taught.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Adam exhaled. “You don’t need to thank me.”

“I do,” Luna said.

They walked to the parking garage in silence.

At Luna’s car, she stopped and faced him.

“The contract is over,” she said. “You don’t have to stay.”

“I know,” Adam replied.

Luna’s eyes held his. “Are you going to leave?”

Adam swallowed. “I don’t know.”

He meant it. Because he had won. They had won. And it didn’t feel like victory.

It felt like standing in a doorway after the music stopped, realizing you’d gotten used to someone’s presence.

Luna nodded as if she understood something painful. Then she got into her car and drove away.

Adam watched her taillights disappear and felt something heavy settle in his chest.

Two weeks later, Adam moved out of the penthouse. Luna wasn’t there. She left him a quiet goodbye the night before, standing in his doorway like she wanted to say more but didn’t know how.

He returned to his old apartment. Picked up Ella. Made dinner. Read bedtime stories. Life looked the same.

But it wasn’t.

Because now he knew what it felt like to sit in the dark with someone and tell the truth. He knew what it felt like when a powerful woman looked at his daughter with longing instead of indifference. He knew what it felt like to fight for something that wasn’t just survival.

Three days after he moved out, his phone buzzed with a message.

Luna: I want to meet. Not as your boss. Not as your ex-wife. Just… me.

Adam stared at the screen for a long time.

Then he typed back: Yes.

They met at a coffee shop on the east side, the kind of place with mismatched chairs and indie music too loud for corporate secrets. Luna was already there, sitting by the window with tea, wearing jeans and a plain white shirt. No makeup. Hair pulled back.

She looked nervous.

Adam realized he’d never seen Luna Sterling look nervous before.

He satMy Boss Said, “Pretend To Be My Husband For One Year.” Single Dad Said, “So… We’re Sharing a Bed?”
down. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Luna said.

Then she took a breath like she was stepping off a ledge.

“I’ve been thinking about the last few months,” she said. “I’ve spent so long pretending to be someone I’m not that I forgot what it feels like to just be honest.”

Adam didn’t interrupt.

“I want to try that now,” Luna continued. “With you. If you’re willing.”

Adam’s voice was gentle. “What does that mean?”

“It means no contract,” Luna said. “No performance. No conditions. Just two people who went through something strange and difficult together, trying to see if there’s something real underneath it.”

Her eyes flicked to his, steadying there.

“I don’t know if it will work,” she admitted. “But I want to try.”

She swallowed. “Do you?”

Adam looked at her, really looked. Saw the woman who’d stood in front of a board and refused to apologize. The woman who’d been tired in a way money couldn’t fix. The woman who didn’t know how to accept kindness without earning it.

And he saw himself too: a man who’d agreed to be rented, only to discover his own spine again.

“Yes,” Adam said quietly. “I want to try.”

Luna’s smile appeared, and it wasn’t the cold, controlled version she wore in meetings.

It was real.

Then she asked, softly, almost like she was teasing herself for daring to hope, “So… are we sharing a bed?”

Adam laughed, the sound surprising them both.

“Maybe,” he said. “But not tonight.”

Luna nodded. “That’s fair.”

They sat there drinking coffee and talking about nothing important, which, Adam realized, was the most important thing they’d done together yet. No boardrooms. No contracts. No enemies. No pretending.

Just two people, finally choosing each other without paperwork.

And for the first time in years, Adam felt something that wasn’t fear or exhaustion.

He felt possibility.

THE END