Chapter 1 - Before Sunrise
The first thing that terrified me was waking up naked beneath sheets far too expensive to belong to my hotel room.
The second was seeing my boss pouring coffee across the suite.
The third was the platinum wedding band on my finger.
For several seconds, I didn’t move.
I stared at the unfamiliar ceiling while sunlight leaked through floor-to-ceiling windows and painted pale gold across a room that looked like somebody had dropped a private residence on top of Las Vegas. Beyond the glass, the Strip stretched beneath the morning haze. Towers. Traffic. Tiny moving cars thirty floors below.
Somewhere behind me, porcelain clicked against marble.
I turned my head.
Graham Reed stood beside a breakfast table holding a black coffee mug.
CEO of Reed Global Infrastructure.
My boss.
The man people in our Chicago office called the Ice King when they were absolutely certain he couldn’t hear them.
Except nothing about the scene felt cold.
His dark hair was still damp and badly combed, falling over his forehead. He wore a deep green hotel robe tied low around his waist, leaving most of his chest exposed. Black ink covered one shoulder and ran down both arms. Tattoos I had only caught glimpses of beneath rolled shirtsleeves were suddenly impossible to ignore.
Neither was the fact that his shirt was on the floor beside my bed.
My black cocktail dress was crumpled near the couch.
One of my heels had somehow made it beneath a glass table.
His tie hung from a lamp.
I sat upright so quickly the room tilted.
The sheet slipped.
I yanked it back against my chest.
Graham’s gaze immediately moved away.
Not dramatically.
Not performatively.
He simply looked toward the windows and said, “Good. You’re awake.”
“What?”
My voice sounded scraped raw.
He reached for a bottle of water on the breakfast table.
“Drink this.”
“Why am I in your room?”
“Water first.”
“Graham.”
That made him look at me.
At work, people usually called him Mr. Reed unless they had known him longer than five years or had enough stock options to feel brave.
I had never used his first name with that much anger.
Something moved behind his expression.
“Your room was compromised last night,” he said. “After that, things became complicated.”
“Complicated?”
“Yes.”
I looked around again.
Bed.
Clothes.
Robe.
Him.
Me.
Complicated was doing some heroic work.
The breakfast table was set for two. Coffee, eggs, fruit, toast, orange juice. The boring normality of it made my stomach twist harder.
“Did we—”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly to be misunderstood.
I stared at him.
Graham put down the water.
“No,” he repeated, quieter. “We didn’t.”
Relief should have arrived.
Instead I became aware of how little I remembered.
Our client dinner.
That much was clear.
Eight months of negotiations had finally ended with Reed Global closing the acquisition of Southwest Transit Systems, a deal so ugly and politically sensitive that three executive teams had nearly quit halfway through it.
We had celebrated at a rooftop restaurant.
Graham had looked exhausted.
Not tired.
Exhausted.
There was a difference.
His mother had called twice during dinner. The chairman had called once. The Denver team kept pushing scotch across the table as if alcohol were some kind of corporate loyalty test.
At one point, Graham’s hand had stayed around the same untouched glass for twenty minutes.
I remembered leaning toward the executives.
“Give him a break,” I’d said. “I’ll take this one.”
Everybody laughed.
One toast became two.
Two became something else.
Then pieces.
A private elevator.
Graham’s hand at my waist when I stumbled.
My hotel hallway.
My door standing open.
My laptop bag unzipped.
The safe open.
Fear.
That part I remembered clearly.
After that?
Noise.
Lights.
Graham loosening his tie.
Water.
An argument.
Maybe crying.
Definitely Graham swearing, which had been shocking enough to survive whatever had happened to the rest of my memory.
I climbed out of bed with the sheet wrapped around me.
My knees felt unreliable.
Graham stepped forward when I stumbled.
Then stopped before touching me.
That tiny hesitation registered somewhere in my brain.
I ignored it.
“Bathroom?”
He pointed.
I walked inside and locked the door.
Then I gripped the marble sink and looked into the mirror.
My hair was a disaster.
Mascara shadowed beneath one eye.
There was a faint pink mark near my collarbone where my dress strap had probably rubbed.
I looked exactly like someone who had made at least three terrible decisions.
Then I saw my left hand.
Silver gleamed beneath the bathroom lights.
I stopped breathing.
A smooth platinum band sat on my ring finger.
“No.”
I raised my hand.
The ring stayed there.
“No, no, no.”
My pulse became a roar.
Fragments flickered through my head.
Neon.
Somebody laughing.
A pen.
Graham saying my name.
A woman in a cream blazer asking, “Are you both certain?”
I stared at my reflection.
A soft knock came from the door.
“Avery.”
I closed my eyes.
“Tell me I didn’t marry you.”
Silence.
One second.
Two.
Then Graham answered.
“I can’t tell you that.”
I opened the door so hard it nearly hit the wall.
He stood on the other side with his hands inside his robe pockets.
His eyes dropped to my ring.
Then back to me.
“Yes,” he said.
My stomach sank.
“That part is real.”
“Are you insane?”
“This isn’t what you think.”
“I don’t know what I think!”
“You need to lower your voice.”
“Oh, that’s rich.”
“Avery.”
“I wake up half-naked in my boss’s penthouse wearing a wedding ring, and your concern is my volume?”
“My concern is the hallway.”
I stared at him.
He glanced toward the suite entrance.
For the first time since I woke up, I noticed something strange.
A black travel case stood beside the door.
Not luggage.
Security equipment.
On the console table rested two phones I didn’t recognize.
A small monitor showed four camera feeds of the corridor outside.
“Why are there cameras?”
His silence answered faster than words.
I crossed the room, gathering my dress and one shoe.
“Where’s my phone?”
“Charging.”
“Give it to me.”
“Avery—”
“Now.”
He picked it up from the breakfast table.
I snatched it.
Twenty-three missed calls.
Nine from my friend and coworker Natalie.
Four from our corporate communications director.
Three unknown numbers.
Two from Reed Global’s general counsel.
One from Graham’s mother.
That made no sense.
There were also dozens of notifications.
I opened the first message.
Natalie:
CALL ME THE SECOND YOU WAKE UP.
Then:
DO NOT LEAVE THE HOTEL.
Then:
AVERY THIS IS NOT A JOKE.
A cold sensation moved across my back.
“What happened?”
Graham watched me carefully.
“That depends on which part you mean.”
“I mean all of it.”
“You don’t have time for all of it.”
I laughed once.
Wrong response.
Too sharp.
“Of course I do.”
“No.”
He checked his watch.
5:31 a.m.
Sunrise had started painting the sky, but the sun itself hadn’t cleared the horizon.
Something about the exact time seemed important to him.
I noticed.
“What happens at sunrise?”
His eyes lifted.
“Put on the robe.”
“Answer me.”
“Avery.”
“I’m leaving.”
That changed him.
Not much.
Graham Reed didn’t do much.
But the man who could listen to a room full of hostile investors insult him without blinking went completely still.
I headed toward the bedroom to find the rest of my clothes.
He moved in front of the suite door.
Not aggressively.
He didn’t touch me.
He just stood there.
Six foot something of tattooed corporate intimidation between me and the hallway.
“Move.”
“No.”
“You can’t keep me here.”
“I know.”
“Then move.”
“I can’t.”
My hand tightened around my phone.
“Try saying something that makes sense.”
He looked toward the windows again.
“When the Reed trust was created, my grandfather inserted a succession mechanism nobody outside the family understood.”
I waited.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Everything.”
“Try again.”
“Last night, someone initiated a control challenge against Reed Global.”
I knew enough corporate structure to understand those words.
A control challenge meant shares.
Votes.
Board authority.
Possibly billions of dollars.
“I thought your family controlled the voting block.”
“We did.”
“Did?”
He ignored the question.
“At 6:12 last night, a filing was triggered using documents connected to Southwest Transit.”
My chest tightened.
“That deal closed yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“I worked on those documents.”
“I know.”
“What filing?”
“The kind that could strip voting control from my side of the family before markets open.”
“And marrying your employee somehow fixes that?”
His jaw shifted.
“It delays it.”
I stared.
“That is the stupidest sentence I’ve heard today, and I woke up married to you.”
Under other circumstances, Graham might have smiled.
He didn’t.
“My grandfather trusted relatives even less than he trusted competitors. His estate plan included protections against hostile transfers. One of those protections applies when the designated successor is legally married before a control transfer becomes effective.”
I blinked.
“That still doesn’t explain me.”
“It will.”
“Then explain it.”
“I need twenty more minutes.”
“For what?”
“For our attorney to get here.”
“No.”
“Avery—”
“No. You don’t get to marry me in Vegas and then schedule the explanation with legal.”
His gaze hardened.
“I didn’t trick you.”
“I don’t remember agreeing.”
“You did.”
“Convenient.”
Pain flashed across his face.
Gone immediately.
“If you want to hate me after you remember,” he said, “I’ll live with that.”
My anger hesitated.
Just briefly.
He looked exhausted again.
Not CEO exhausted.
Human exhausted.
There were faint shadows under his eyes and a small cut across one knuckle.
I noticed dried blood on his cuff where the robe sleeve had folded.
“What happened to your hand?”
“Nothing.”
“That doesn’t look like nothing.”
“It isn’t relevant.”
“Did somebody come in here?”
“No.”
“Did you hit someone?”
He looked at the clock.
5:35.
“Avery, please.”
That word stunned me.
I had worked with Graham for three years.
I had heard him negotiate contracts worth nine figures.
I had heard him speak to senators, labor leaders, lawyers and furious mayors.
I couldn’t remember hearing him say please.
Not like that.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Me.
Last night.
Walking through a hotel corridor with Graham.
The photograph was taken from behind.
Another message followed.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED SINGLE.
I felt the blood leave my face.
Graham saw it.
“What?”
I showed him.
His expression became terrifyingly empty.
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“Avery.”
“Who sent this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expected something like this.”
“I expected them to move faster.”
“Them?”
He took out one of the unfamiliar phones.
“Elias.”
A man answered instantly.
Graham’s voice changed.
“Trace a message to Avery’s personal number. Image attachment. Less than thirty seconds old.”
Pause.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“No. Lock the east elevator.”
He hung up.
“Who is Elias?”
“Security.”
“For Reed Global?”
“For me.”
“That’s comforting.”
“It should be.”
“It isn’t.”
I looked again at the photograph.
A memory pushed forward.
My hotel door.
The laptop bag.
The safe.
I suddenly remembered the sound of Graham behind me.
Don’t touch anything.
Then another fragment.
A file folder in my hand.
A page with my name on it.
My signature.
“Graham.”
He was watching the door.
“What did I sign?”
His attention snapped back to me.
“What do you remember?”
“Answer me.”
“What do you remember?”
“I remember a document.”
His face gave me the truth before he did.
Something existed.
Something important.
“What did I sign?”
“Not here.”
“We’re in your private suite with hallway cameras and a security detail. Where would be safer?”
His phone buzzed.
He looked down.
For half a second, Graham Reed looked afraid.
Not worried.
Afraid.
I walked toward him.
“What is it?”
He showed me the screen.
A security image.
A man in a maintenance uniform stood near the service elevator.
His face was turned away.
Elias had apparently sent another image beside it.
The same man, ten hours earlier.
Entering my hotel corridor.
I swallowed.
“That’s the person who broke into my room?”
“Probably.”
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
“Because he wasn’t trying to steal your laptop.”
“How do you know?”
“Nothing valuable was taken.”
“My room was destroyed.”
“They were searching.”
“For what?”
Graham’s voice dropped.
“A document you didn’t know you had.”
I stared at him.
“What document?”
He glanced at the clock.
5:41.
Nineteen minutes before six.
Suddenly I hated that clock.
I hated Vegas.
I hated the ring.
I hated that part of me still trusted the man in front of me despite every reason not to.
I reached for the suite door.
Graham stepped between us again.
“Move.”
“No.”
“I swear to God—”
“If you walk out of this suite before sunrise,” he said, “my family loses control of Reed Global.”
I froze.
He took one slow breath.
“And someone broke into your room last night because they knew marrying me was the only way you could stop them.”
My hand dropped from the door handle.
“What am I stopping?”
Before Graham could answer, three hard knocks hit the suite door.
Not room service.
Not polite.
Three precise knocks.
Graham moved instantly.
He pushed me behind him and reached inside the security case.
I expected a gun.
Instead he pulled out a black tablet.
The hallway feed appeared.
An older woman in a cream suit stood outside beside two security officers.
I recognized her.
Margaret Sloan.
Reed Global’s general counsel.
She looked directly into the camera.
“Graham,” she said.
The speaker carried her voice into the suite.
“You have eleven minutes.”
He unlocked the door.
Margaret walked inside holding a sealed leather folder.
Her eyes moved from Graham to me, then to the wedding ring on my hand.
No surprise.
That scared me most.
May you like
She placed the folder on the table.
“Avery,” she said, “before sunrise, you need to understand why your signature now controls six point eight billion dollars in voting rights.”
