Chapter 3 : Surprise, I’m Married

No one is staring at you. You are fine. I had to keep reassuring myself that I was fine and no one was staring.

I was a married woman. Yesterday I had been drowning in my sorrow and now I was married to a rich man whom I knew nothing about except that he was rich and my mother was going to get the surgery she needed.

I closed my car door and rolled the tension out of my shoulders.

Today was just another normal day at work. There was no black card in the inner pocket of my bag that was burning a hole through the fake leather. There was no ring on my finger that had a fat jewel that could be seen from Mars.

The ring I had bought was modest. Nothing too extravagant and flashy. But the moissanite ring felt like it weighed two tonnes on my finger. I had it in the pocket of my pantsuit the entire time as I walked from my car to the building.

Working at Walvern Media was like a dream for me. It wasn’t the best network out there but it was a great starting point for me.

As I huddled into the elevator with the rest of my colleagues I made sure to keep a smile on my face and not look suspicious but I knew that I was failing miserably. I had just gotten married to a man I didn’t know and I only found out what my last name was yesterday after I signed the certificate.

Dove Scott.

Once the paper work was signed that would be my new legal name. Which meant my husband was Miles Scott.

I don’t know why his name sounded somewhat familiar. I was meant to do a Google search last night but with the activities at the bank and my marriage, I got home and passed out. And when I woke up I had to pass by the jewellers to pick up the rings I had gotten us.

I walked out of the elevator and pulled out my phone. I typed in my husband’s name but just before I could hit the search button, Amy and Sabrina appeared out of nowhere.

“Good morning, Do—what is on your hand.” Amy’s smile slipped, her green eye going wide with shock. “Is that…?”

Sabrina grabbed my left hand that I had taken out to hold my phone.

Dammit.

Maybe I should have kept the ring off. But that would have been against the rules of our contract.

“Oh yeah.” I laughed awkwardly, ripping my hand from hers. “I got married.”

“You did what?”

“Are you pregnant?”

Of course, it would be Sabrina to ask if I had knocked myself up. She had been talking about becoming an aunty for years now.

“No,” I said with a straight face. “I am not pregnant. I just got married.”

“To who? The last time you went on a date was…” Amy’s voice trailed off.

“I have gone on dates.” Why was I being so defensive about this? “And that is not the point right now. I’m a Mrs and we can move on. How was your weekend?”

“No, no, no. We are not moving on from this until you tell us why the hell you even got married in the first place and why I was not your maid of honor,” Amy interjected.

“Umm, who said you would get to be maid of honor?” Sabrina gave her a look that said, ‘We all know the obvious choice’.

“I mean, I will be the maid of honor at both of your weddings. It’s a predestined thing, you know. It’s like…destiny.”

“Destiny my ass,” Sabrina snorted.

“Okay, you two.” I drew their attention back to the real matter at hand. “I need to go to my office and get ready for this interview. And Amy, you are coming too. We need to leave in the next twenty minutes, the building is just down the road.”

We got assigned a last-minute interview with the CEO of MS Global this morning by our manager and were told that this would be our biggest interview yet for the company. To say I was nervous would be an understatement.

“This issue is not done by the way.” Sabina looked between us with those brown eyes of hers. “We need to talk about your secret husband and you are not the maid of honor at my wedding because I will not be getting married, thank you very much.”

Sabrina left both Amy and me.

“We’re going to be late. I know you have a million and one questions but I will answer them all after this, okay?”

Amy nodded, closing her mouth. I knew that after the interview she would be on my case again but for now, I needed to focus.

“At least tell me what his name is,” she said as we walked into the elevator.

“Miles.” I breathed. “My husband’s name is Miles.”

“Miles is a hot name.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “You can tell he is hot simply from his name?”

“Uh, yes. It’s like the Herald, have you ever seen a hit herald? No—exactly my point.”

“Okay, enough about my husband. We have an interview to do and I don’t want us to be late,” I said as we stepped into the elevator, joining the small group already inside.

Amy looked at me with those puppy dog eyes of hers. I just made sure to keep my gaze forward.

“We have to talk about it.” She broke the silence in the elevator, her voice low. “You can’t just get married and expect me not to have questions.”

I sighed. “I said I would answer all your questions but right now we need to focus on work. Can we do that?”

“We’re taking the company van and with this morning traffic that ten-minute journey will be twenty at the very least. So you need to tell me why the hell you had a shotgun wedding.”

My eyes went wide as Gertrude, the biggest gossip in the office, looked behind her.

Shit, I forgot we weren’t the only people in here.

“You got married?” She looked down at my hand which I was too late in hiding. She gasped and grabbed my hand bringing it to her face. “Let’s see this rock. Oh my—wait, that’s not a diamond. Hmm, I guess you didn’t marry rich.”

If only she knew the half of it. I didn’t know exactly what my husband did but I just knew that he had ¾ of a million dollars to spare.

“And what is that to you, Cruella,” Amy piped up, giving Gertrude a death stare. “Dove isn’t a gold digger like you.”

Thankfully the doors dinged open just in time. I pushed Amy out of the contained space and into the underground parking area. The last thing was to have yet another Gertrude and Amy fight. The two of them went at it like cats and dogs. The best thing to do was separate them otherwise anyone within a twenty-foot radius would perish and the last thing we needed, especially right now, was drama.

“We have an interview to do and the last thing we need is for you to walk in with bruised knuckles from punching her in the face—again.”

Amy scoffed. “That was one time, and she had tried to punch me first. I was defending myself.”

I rolled my eyes and continued to push her to the awaiting van. Once we were safely in we made our way out of the basement and out into the New York City air. The streets were busy as usual with the hustle and bustle of food traffic.

My life had taken a sudden turn but I still had to keep myself grounded. My job was everything to me. It was all I ever wanted out of life and I may not be on the big stage yet but I was more than determined to get there.

“Two days ago you weren’t married so that means you got married yesterday?” Amy continued to grill me.

I wished that the traffic would somehow magically disappear and we could make it to MSG.

“I know you may not want to talk about it but I’m one of your closest friends, D. And it hurts that you would just have this life-changing moment in your life and not share with me.”

I saw the way her eyes pooled with sadness and it made me feel bad. I didn’t know that this would affect her like this.

“I…I’m sorry, A. It all just happened so quickly and I—”

The car came to a halt in front of the MSG building. The driver told us to get out and we ambled out of the car to the front of the building only to be met by a woman with a tightly slicked-back bun. Her glasses were perched on the bridge of her nose and she wore this striking red lip that made her look all the more professional.

“Miss Andrews?”

“Yes.” I didn’t want to correct her. I wasn’t too comfortable calling myself Mrs. Scott even though legally that was who I was now. “And you must be Jennifer.”

She didn’t even smile back at me. She just kept her face passive.

“Follow me, you’re late. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Sorry,” both Amy had I muttered.

We walked behind her taking in the beauty of the building. This was unlike anything we had back at the company. But this was no surprise since MS Global was one of the biggest developing companies in the world and not only that but they owned a multitude of high-end brands from fashion to champagne to cars. They had it all here and it was why we were thrilled to be conducting this interview with the CEO.

The word on the street was that the CEO was a very private man. He didn’t like to do interviews and he was rarely seen in public after his accident. Whenever he needed to go somewhere he always had someone else standing in for him.

The ride up the elevator was spent with me reading through all the approved questions that we had been given. I was nervous, to say the least. This was a huge interview and had come out of the blue. It was a massive opportunity for Walvern to be able to do this, so I needed to make sure the interview goes smoothly.

I could not mess this up.

When the elevator dinged open again I was stunned once more. The foyer to the top floor was taken right out of a movie. White marble tiles and crystal chandeliers hanging from above.

“This way, please. He is in his office.”

My heart lurched in my chest, the excitement and anxiety mixing as one.

We followed Jennifer to the door and then she stepped aside so we could get inside. I let out a shaky breath trying to relieve myself of the nerves. But as my eyes looked into the room my heart stopped altogether in the middle of my chest.

Sitting behind the desk was none other than my husband. His eyes bore into mine, a stoic and passive expression etched on his face.

“Mr. Scott, the ladies from Walvern Media are here,” Jennifer announced.

Miles Scott.

Oh, my God. How had I been so dumb? How could I have not put the pieces together all this time? They had been in front of me the entire time.

My husband, whom I had just met yesterday, was the richest man in America and the 8th richest in the world.

What the hell had I just gotten myself into?