Chapter 4 - The Call She Couldn’t Hide
Corrine had been inside Louis Butler’s penthouse exactly once.
It had been eighteen months earlier during a holiday reception attended by executives, attorneys, investors, and enough political donors to fill a ballroom.
That night the penthouse had seemed glamorous.
Now it felt like a fortress.
Louis locked the door behind them.
Corrine turned.
“Start talking.”
He removed his jacket.
“Victor Sloane was once my father’s business partner.”
“Once?”
“They disagreed.”
“That sounds remarkably polite.”
“It is.”
“Try again.”
Louis looked at her.
“My father built legitimate companies alongside businesses that were less legitimate.”
Corrine stared.
“How much less?”
“Enough.”
“Oh, God.”
“My father is dead. Most of those businesses are gone.”
“Most?”
Louis said nothing.
Corrine laughed once, without humor.
“You’re telling me my boss is a gangster?”
“No.”
“Wonderful. That clears everything up.”
“My family had connections.”
“Connections.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like another polite word.”
“It is.”
She walked toward the windows.
“So Dawson knows this Victor?”
“Apparently.”
“And Victor hates you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I dismantled the parts of my father’s organization he wanted.”
Corrine turned.
“Then why does he care whether I’m your wife?”
Louis didn’t answer quickly enough.
Her face changed.
“Oh.”
“Corrine—”
“Because wives matter.”
“Yes.”
“Because wives can be threatened.”
“Yes.”
“And you just told Dawson that I’m yours.”
Louis’s jaw tightened.
“I made a mistake.”
She stared at him.
It was perhaps the first time she had heard Louis Butler admit those words.
“You were trying to protect me.”
“That doesn’t make it less of a mistake.”
Corrine looked away.
Louis’s phone rang.
The investigator.
Louis answered.
“What?”
“Palmer contacted Sloane.”
“I know.”
“There’s more.”
Louis glanced at Corrine.
“What?”
“Someone accessed Harris’s personnel file twenty minutes ago.”
Louis went still.
“From where?”
“Internal network.”
“Who?”
“We’re tracing it.”
Louis ended the call.
Corrine had watched his face.
“What happened?”
“Someone accessed your employee records.”
“What records?”
“Address. Emergency contacts. Personal information.”
Her color disappeared.
“My mother.”
Louis immediately picked up the phone again.
Corrine grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“You promised.”
Louis understood.
“What do you want me to do?”
Corrine swallowed.
“Protect her.”
“How?”
“Without frightening her.”
Louis nodded.
“I can do that.”
“And me?”
“You decide.”
She looked toward the city.
Then back at him.
“If people believe I’m your wife, would they hesitate?”
“Some would.”
“Victor?”
“No.”
“Would he expose the lie?”
“If he could.”
“And then?”
“You become vulnerable again.”
Corrine was quiet.
Louis saw the idea forming before she said it.
“What if we don’t correct him?”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard me.”
“I know what you’re suggesting.”
“Then listen anyway.”
Louis shook his head.
“I will not ask you to pretend to be married to me because of a mistake I made.”
“You’re not asking.”
She stepped closer.
“I am.”
Louis stared at her.
“For how long?”
“Until Dawson is gone and Victor stops believing I’m useful.”
“That could take weeks.”
“Then we pretend for weeks.”
“You don’t understand what you’re agreeing to.”
“Then explain it.”
Louis did.
Public appearances.
Security.
Photographs.
Questions.
The possibility that people from his father’s past would investigate every detail of her life.
When he finished, Corrine was pale.
But she didn’t change her answer.
“I spent a year letting Dawson decide where I went, who I talked to, and what I was afraid of.”
She held Louis’s gaze.
“I’m done letting frightened men make my choices.”
Something changed in Louis’s expression.
Not pity.
Respect.
“All right.”
Corrine extended her hand.
“Then we need rules.”
Louis looked down at it.
“A contract?”
“You are a businessman.”
He took her hand.
Her fingers were warm.
“Rule one,” Corrine said. “You don’t make decisions about my life without me.”
“Agreed.”
“Rule two. No lying to each other.”
Louis hesitated.
She noticed.
“That hesitation is concerning.”
“Agreed.”
“Rule three.”
She paused.
“This stays pretend.”
Louis looked at her hand in his.
Then into her eyes.
“Yes.”
Pretend.
May you like
It should have been the easiest rule.
Instead, for reasons Louis refused to examine, it was the only one he already suspected he might break.
