The disaster happened during the coffee service.
Mailah was finally beginning to relax, engaged in conversation with a group of won about sustainable fashion initiatives, when soone ntioned the upcoming regatta.
"You and Grayson simply must bring the Serendipity," gushed a woman whose na tag read 'Committee mber - Patron Level.' "She's absolutely magnificent."
The Serendipity. Mailah's mind scrambled through everything she knew about Grayson's possessions. Car collection, art collection, multiple properties, but... a boat?
"Oh, we're still deciding," she said carefully.
"Well, you simply must! I rember when you christened her last year—that gorgeous champagne ceremony. You pronounced her na so beautifully. Sarah-enn-DIP-ity—with that lovely French accent you picked up at finishing school."
Horror washed over Mailah like ice water. Sarah-enn-DIP-ity? She'd been pronouncing it Sir-en-DIP-ity in her head, like the word 'serendipity' but fancier.
"Yes," she managed, "that was... morable."
"You'll have to teach that pronunciation again," the woman continued enthusiastically. "I can never get those French inflections quite right."
Mailah smiled weakly, acutely aware that Grayson had gone very still beside her. She could feel his attention like a laser beam, probably listening to whatever word ca out of her mouth.
"Perhaps another ti," she said, then imdiately invented an escape route. "I think I need so air."
She made her way to the hotel's terrace, her heart pounding so hard she was sure people could hear it over the string quartet. The October air was sharp and clean, a relief after the perfud atmosphere of the ballroom.
Grayson found her there five minutes later, leaning against the stone balustrade and staring out at Central Park like it might contain answers to her problems.
"Serendipity," he said without preamble.
She closed her eyes.
"You seed uncertain about the pronunciation."
She turned to face him, expecting to see the cold disappointnt she'd grown accustod to. Instead, his expression was unreadable, his storm-blue eyes studying her with careful attention.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm not quite myself today."
Sothing flickered across his features—too quick to catch, too complex to na. He stepped closer, close enough that she could sll his cologne again, that intoxicating blend of cedar and sothing darker that made her pulse quicken.
"It's a seventy-foot Sunseeker yacht," he said finally. "Pronounced exactly the way you think it should be pronounced. Sarah-enn-DIP-ity is what happens when socialites try to sound sophisticated about sothing they know nothing about."
Mailah blinked.
"You were right." A pause. "She was pretentious."
The relief was so overwhelming she had to grip the balustrade to keep steady. "Oh, God."
They stood in silence for a mont, the sounds of the city floating up from the streets below. Mailah could hear the party continuing inside—laughter, conversation, the clink of expensive crystal.
"You did well in there," Grayson said suddenly.
She turned to stare at him. "I spent eighty thousand dollars on a vacation and nearly had a panic attack over a yacht."
"You won eighty thousand dollars for childhood literacy," he corrected. "And you handled a hostile room full of won who've been sharpening their claws on each other since prep school. That's not nothing. Maybe you would've handled it differently before, but I like how you managed it this ti."
Sothing warm unfurled in her chest at the unexpected praise. "Really?"
He was quiet for so long she thought he wasn't going to answer. When he did, his voice was softer than she'd ever heard it, and he was close enough now that she had to tilt her head back to et his eyes.
"Really."
The mont stretched between them, fragile and complicated and full of things neither of them seed ready to na. His gaze dropped to her lips for just a fraction of a second—so brief she might have imagined it—before returning to her eyes with an intensity that made her breath catch. The space between them felt electric, dangerous, like standing too close to a lightning strike.
Then Grayson's phone buzzed, and the spell broke. He stepped back, the sudden distance between them feeling like a physical loss.
He glanced at the screen, his expression hardening. "We should go back inside. The photographer will want shots of us during the closing remarks."
As they walked back toward the ballroom, Mailah caught her reflection in the hotel's mirrored walls. She looked poised, elegant, completely in control. Nothing like the woman who'd been hyperventilating on the terrace sixty seconds ago—or the woman whose heart was still racing from the way her 'husband' had looked at her like he wanted to devour her.
Maybe she was better at this than she thought.
*****************************************************************
The photographs from the charity luncheon appeared in three different society magazines and five online publications within twenty-four hours. Mailah stared at them over coffee the next morning, marveling at how happy she and Grayson looked together. His hand on her back, her genuine smile as she raised the auction paddle, the way they seed to move in perfect synchronization.
They looked like a couple in love.
The thought should have been reassuring—evidence that their performance was working. Instead, it made sothing ache in her chest that she didn't want to examine too closely.
"The numbers are incredible," Evelyn announced, bursting into the breakfast room with Marcus trailing behind her like an eager puppy. "Social dia engagent is up three hundred percent. The auction photos are trending on Twitter. And look at this—"
She thrust her tablet toward Mailah, showing an article from Vanity Fair's website titled "The Real Mrs. Ashford: Why Grayson's Mysterious Wife Might Be His Greatest Asset."
"They're calling you 'refreshingly authentic,'" Marcus added, practically vibrating with excitent. "One blogger wrote an entire piece about how you've 'humanized the ice king of Wall Street.'"
Mailah felt heat creep up her neck. Authentic. If only they knew.
"This is just the beginning," Evelyn continued, settling into a chair with the satisfied air of a cat who'd caught particularly clever prey. "I've booked you for a cooking segnt on 'Morning Manhattan' next week. Sothing light and aspirational. You'll make sothing simple and elegant while chatting with the hosts about married life and charitable work."
The coffee cup slipped from Mailah's suddenly nerveless fingers, clattering against the saucer.
"A cooking segnt?" she managed. "On television?"
"Live television," Luke clarified helpfully. "Broadcast to roughly two million viewers across the tri-state area."
Mailah's stomach dropped to sowhere around her ankles. Inside her chest, panic began to claw its way up her throat like a wild animal trying to escape a cage. She couldn't cook. She could barely boil water without burning it. The closest she'd ever co to culinary expertise was heating up frozen dinners in her adoptive family's ancient microwave.
But Lailah would know how to cook. Lailah, who'd been raised in luxury, who'd probably had private chefs and cooking lessons and every advantage money could buy. Lailah, who according to all the carefully crafted stories, was supposed to be the perfect wife.
"That sounds... wonderful," Mailah heard herself say, each word feeling like glass in her throat. "What will we be making?"
"Sothing classic but approachable," Evelyn said, already scrolling through her phone. "Maybe coq au vin? Or a nice risotto? We want to show your sophistication but also your accessibility."
Risotto. Mailah had heard of risotto. She was fairly certain it involved rice and stirring and probably a lot of ways to ss it up spectacularly on live television.
"Of course," she managed, forcing a smile that felt like it might crack her face in half. "I'd love to share one of my favorite recipes."
"Perfect!" Evelyn bead. "We'll have everything pre-prepped, naturally. You just need to look beautiful and demonstrate your culinary skills. Easy as pie."
Easy as pie. Mailah couldn't even make actual pie.
From across the room, where he'd been reading financial reports with his usual laser focus, Grayson looked up. Their eyes t for just a mont, and Mailah could have sworn she saw sothing that looked like sympathy flash across his features. Then he was back to being the untouchable CEO who existed in a world completely separate from cooking shows and dostic goddesses.
"Don't worry," Evelyn said, already gathering her materials. "It'll be perfect. What's the worst that could happen?"
As Mailah watched the PR team leave, chattering excitedly about wardrobe choices and lighting setups, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd just agreed to sothing that was going to change everything.
Her hands were trembling slightly as she reached for her coffee cup, and she had exactly seven days to figure out how to cook sothing sophisticated enough for live television without completely destroying her sister's carefully constructed identity.
Outside the breakfast room windows, storm clouds were gathering on the horizon, and Mailah couldn't help but feel they were an on of things to co.
The breakfast room fell into silence, broken only by the distant sound of car doors slamming as Evelyn and Luke departed. Mailah slumped back in her chair, finally allowing herself to feel the full weight of her panic. She buried her face in her hands, wondering how she was going to survive this charade.
"Nervous?"
The single word, spoken in that low, familiar voice, made her spine straighten. She looked up to find Grayson leaning against the doorfra, his dark suit immaculate despite the early hour. His tie was perfectly knotted, but sothing in his posture suggested he'd been watching her for longer than she realized.
"I thought you'd left," she said, hating how breathless she sounded.
"I was about to." He pushed off from the doorfra and moved into the room with that predatory grace that always made her pulse quicken. "But then I rembered sothing."
He stopped directly in front of her chair, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to et his eyes. The position put her at a distinct disadvantage, and from the slight curve of his mouth, he knew it.
"What?" she managed.
Instead of answering, he reached past her to place his hands on the arms of her chair, effectively trapping her. His face was inches from hers, close enough that she could see the dark flecks in his eyes, sll the expensive cologne that clung to his skin.
"I forgot this," he murmured, his voice low and intimate.
Before she could ask what he ant, his lips brushed against hers—barely a kiss, more like a whisper of contact that set every nerve ending on fire. It was over before she could respond, leaving her frozen in place as he straightened to his full height.
"The caras caught us at the charity event," he said, his tone returning to its usual businesslike cadence as if nothing had happened. "People expect to see a married couple who actually touch each other."
He adjusted his cufflinks with maddening calm while she struggled to rember how to breathe.
"Practice," he added, his eyes eting hers with an intensity that made her stomach flip. "For the caras."
Then he was moving away, picking up his briefcase from where he'd left it by the door. But he paused at the threshold, glancing back at her over his shoulder.
"Don't worry about the cooking show," he said quietly. "I'll handle it."
And then he was gone, leaving Mailah alone with her racing heart and the lingering taste of him on her lips, wondering what had just happened.
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