Fire truck lights dance on the walls of neighbors’ homes. Embers glow beneath the ash, and there’s a crowd surrounding the burned heap that was my home. Smoke still wafts in the air even though the flames are out. Can a fire really destroy an entire house that quickly?

I get out of my car, forgetting to put it in park. It rolls and hits a row of garbage cans before coming to a stop. I don’t even care at this point. My mouth flops open, fists clutching my hair, and I can barely breathe. The air reeks of burned wood and I want to throw up.

“What the hell happened?” I say to one of the firemen coming from the scene. He won’t let me come any closer even though it’s my property.

“Is this your home?” he asks.

I want to scream at him. Can’t he tell by the look on my face that I’m not just a curious bystander? I’m wrecked and it shows.

Instead of snapping at him like I want to, I just say, “Yes.”

“Looks like the origin of the fire came from a toaster oven left plugged into the wall.”

I swallow hard, tasting bile. My stomach twists, on fire, just like my house. It feels like the acid might burn right through the lining.

I nod, unable to speak, as if I were answering a question. Did he ask a question? I can’t remember. I can barely think straight.

My neighbors keep glancing at me as they retreat back to their cozy, still-standing homes. Some offer words of sympathy on their way. Some glare at me because I put their homes in jeopardy with my negligence. I would glare back at them if my face would allow it. Instead, I just stare at the destroyed remains of a dream now gone.

As the last fireman leaves, he says, “Might want to get ahold of your insurance company.”

Again I nod, and I get on the phone. But I don’t call the insurance company. I call my best friend.

“Alba?” I say weakly when she answers.

“What’s wrong?” she says, immediately hearing the shock in my voice. In the background there’s a riot of noise. She has a huge family and they all live in one little house.

“My house burned down.”

She makes a loud gasping sound. There are footsteps on the other end of the line and the sound of a door closing. Suddenly the background noise is just a soft mumble and I know she went into a different room to talk. I tell her everything that happened, about my stupid mistake leaving the toaster oven plugged in.

“Do you have money for a motel?” she asks.

She doesn’t offer to let me stay with her. I wouldn’t expect it anyway. There’s just no room. It’s not her house, so it’s not her place to invite me. Alba always escaped to my house when she needed quiet time. She won’t have that anymore.

I’m sure her parents would let me stay if they knew my situation. I could sleep on her floor. But I’m not about to ask for that favor. It’s stressful enough for everyone already living there. I don’t think I could handle all the noise anyway. I don’t need any more chaos in my life, and chaos is exactly what I’d be in for if I went to Alba’s house tonight.

“Yes,” I lie. I don’t have money for a motel. Not a single penny. I had just enough money for groceries and gas to get me by until I get paid, which isn’t for another week. I’ll have to sleep in my car tonight and figure out what to do about my future tomorrow. I’m sure after I talk to my insurance company they’ll cut me a check and I can get into something temporarily. It will all work out in the end. I have to believe that or I will completely drown in my sorrow.

“Meet me at the diner. I’ll get you a piece of pie and we can talk,” she says.

Her family owns a greasy spoon downtown. It’s a hole in the wall in a sketchy neighborhood, but the food is to die for. Normally, I’d be all over the offer of pie. Especially the peach cobbler. But right now my stomach is too sour to hold anything down, and I know if I start talking, I’ll break down. I don’t want to cry in a diner full of people.

“I’ll take a raincheck on that, okay? I need to get to the motel and check in for the night.”

There’s a long pause on the other end, and I know she wants to protest, but she doesn’t and I’m grateful for it.

“All right. Call me if you need me.”

“I will, Alba. Thank you.”

I hang up and look at my car still parked among a pile of overturned trashcans. I drag myself over to it. I guess still having a car is a small bit of luck. If I had walked to the store like I sometimes do, it might’ve burned up with the house and I would be left with nothing. I guess I should be thankful, but instead I feel like shit.

I drive around all night looking for a place I will feel safe enough to park for the night. At first I try in the mall parking lot, but a security officer kicks me out. Then I go to the park and I’m told to leave by the ranger. I decide to go to work instead. I have a parking pass that will allow me to stay overnight without the risk of being towed away. The kid they hired for the security night shift is a nephew of the store owner and just sits in the back of the building smoking weed instead of actually patrolling. I just hope none of my co-workers see me in the morning.

Sleeping in my car makes for a lonely, boring, and extremely uncomfortable night. No matter which way I turn in the front seat, I can’t get comfortable. So I decide to try the back. But then the seat belt latch digs into my back. That’s where I stay for the rest of the night despite the poking and prodding. My back windows are tinted and I’m less likely to be discovered by my co-workers in the morning this way.

I’ve just started to doze when the alarm on my phone goes off the next morning. I sigh, exhausted. Time for work. I tell myself everything will be better today. It has to. Since I can’t take a shower or put on makeup, I can use the extra time to sleep in. I turn off the alarm and go back to sleep, thinking I reset it, but I didn’t.

I wake up an hour later in a panic when I hear a bunch of voices outside my window. The parking lot is full. People are going into the building of the clothing store. It’s open! Shit. I’m supposed to be in there twenty minutes before they open to put new inventory on the shelves and fold shirts. The manager likes things folded like origami—even though it leaves unnatural creases—and it takes forever. He’s such a dick. I’m in so much trouble and I know he won’t care about my sob story when I tell him what happened to my home last night.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Grabbing my phone, I run into the building. I have to pee in the worst way and my clothes are a wrinkled mess. No time to worry about that right now. A couple days ago I left a sweater at my desk. It had belonged to my mother and is now the only thing I have left of her. It will work to hide the wrinkles. That, or there might be something in the lost and found. Co-workers are always leaving sweaters and jackets lying around, never claiming them.

I need to clock in before I’m late enough to be written up. Last thing I need is to lose my job. As I’m running between the racks, trying to avoid the manager on my way to the employee room, I don’t notice the man turning the corner until it’s too late and I run smack into him. The impact knocks me flat on my butt. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even teeter in the slightest. It feels like I hit a brick wall. I moan, my already sore muscles now accompanied by a ringing in my ears and a bruise on my ass.

I’m about to scold him for not watching where he’s going when I look up and see that it’s not a customer, but my boss. Not my boss, actually. My boss is the store manager, a spindly little five-foot prick named Leonard with a chip on his shoulder. The man I ran into is the boss. My boss’s boss. Marcus Steere, the owner of the company itself. He’s practically a legend in the men’s fashion industry, and sits among the rest of the fortune-500 heavy hitters.

I’ve seen him a few times but it was always from a distance. He’s much taller up close. Wide, muscular shoulders, sharp jaw, piercing blue eyes and long black lashes. He’s masculine, yet fashionable, and hands down the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to look away from him. His sexy good looks are so distracting that, at first, I don’t notice him reaching for my hand to help me up. When I finally do, my face grows hot with embarrassment and I spill out a string of apologies.

Once he hoists me off the floor, I smooth out my wrinkled shirt and try to smooth down my hair while I’m at it. I must look like a mess. That’s okay, though. He doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t know I’m an employee and I’m not about to tell him.

“You all right?” he asks with a slight smile in the corner of his mouth, seemingly entertained by my lack of grace.

“Um …” I immediately forget what he said. I’m too busy staring at his lips. They look so soft and velvety. I wonder how amazing it would be to kiss a man with lips like those. My last boyfriend had lips like a shedding snake, always dry, always peeling, always kind of gross.

Marcus waits for an answer to the question he asked that I don’t remember. I don’t know what to say, so I say what I feel is a universal answer to many different questions.

“Okay.”

He lets out a muffled laugh and says, “I think you might’ve hit your head.”

“No, I’m fine, I’m just … it’s not a good day.” I start to ramble after that. I always ramble when I’m nervous. I say stupid things like, “My house burned down last night and I didn’t have enough money to get a motel so I slept in my car, and I don’t make enough at my shit job to earn a living wage …” As I’m rambling, I keep glancing over at the door to the employee room. If I don’t clock in soon, I’m definitely going to get fired. I see the clock above the door and I’m a half hour late as it is. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to—” I start to say when I hear my name in the tinny, Lollipop Guild voice of my elfin boss. I cringe at the sound of it.

“You’re late, Ruby, I’m writing you up for this one,” he says, then stammers when he sees Marcus. “Mr. Steere, I didn’t see you there …”

Marcus raises his eyebrows and looks at me. “This is your shit job?” he says. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. He looks and sounds almost as if he were amused, but how could he be when I just called the job at his company shit? He should be furious. My boss sure is. He looks like he’s about to blow cartoon smoke out of his ears any minute now.

“You called your job here, shit?” my boss says, rising on his toes as if trying to appear imposing, but his head barely reaches my shoulders. Marcus could sit on the top of his head like a bar stool if he wanted to. Their size difference is almost comical, like they’re different breeds: pug vs. mastiff.

“No, I didn’t mean …” I mutter.

Shit.

I sigh. I did call my job shit. I hadn’t meant to, but the words just sort of slipped out and now they are out in the air and there’s no taking them back.

I’m about to turn in defeat and walk back out to my car when Marcus says, “In my office, Ruby.”

Hearing my name in his voice is the strangest thing. He says it as if he’s familiar with it. As if he’s said it a million times.

“Yes, sir,” I say.

Leonard gives me a smug look and wanders off. I should tell him to go fuck himself since I’m about to be fired anyway. Might as well go out with a bang. But for some reason, even though we’ve only just met and he’s about to kick me to the curb, I don’t want to disappoint Marcus Steere.

I follow him through corridors, up an elevator to the top floor where there’s a massive office suite overlooking the entire city. It’s the kind of office you might see in a magazine. Everything is sleek and metal and different shades of cream leather. It smells heavenly, like the cologne aisle in the store, but not overbearing. There’s a huge salt-water fish tank in the middle of the room with brightly colored fish and elaborate coral formations. No bubbling pots of gold or sunken ships in this masterpiece. It’s so elegant I’m afraid to get near it even though I desperately want to get a closer look.

There are no fingerprint smudges or coffee rings on coffee tables or anything else. The room looks like someone could operate in here. It’s pristine. Just my presence in this place feels as though it’s been tainted. But not Marcus. He looks right in his element, tailor made, as if he were cut from the same expensive cloth. An art piece to be put on display like the fish in their tank.

“Please sit,” he says, motioning to the seat on the opposite side of his desk. I sit when he does.

God, he’s handsome. It makes it difficult to focus. I should be panicking about my job, but instead my mind starts to wander and I picture myself crawling under his big desk and unbuttoning his pants with my teeth. He tells me we shouldn’t, and what if we get caught, but I keep pulling off his clothes piece by piece until he’s naked. Then I do a sexy Cat-Woman crawl up his body and sit on his lap, impaling myself of his stiff cock. The room fills with the smell of sex and the wet sounds of our bodies slapping together. I give him the best fuck of his life and then he begs me for more.

When I finally shake myself of the fantasy, I look down and my nipples are hard. I quickly cover them with my arms and feel my face growing hot. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to notice.

“So your house burned down and you’re broke,” he says in a single breath. I was kind of hoping he hadn’t been paying attention to all that in his haste to get to wherever he was going. That’s unfortunate. But at least he knows. Maybe he’ll take pity on me and let me keep my job with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. One can hope.

“Yeah, that’s my life at the moment,” I say.

He folds his hands on top of his desk and looks me in the eyes, his expression far more serious now than when I ran into him. This isn’t good.

His eyes are a steely gray with a unique starburst pattern in the iris. It’s like looking into a storm from the comfort of your home. A woman could fall prey to eyes like those. They are distant and mysterious, and yet there’s something about him that makes me think they could be welcoming to the right person. Of course, that person is definitely not me.

He wears his hair in a perfect style that makes him look sexy and important. I catch a glimpse of my image in the reflection of a silver sculpture behind his desk. I do not look sexy or important. I look as if I should be warming my hands at a barrel fire in some dark alley while drinking my sorrows away.

“And your shit job doesn’t pay a living wage. Am I getting this right so far?” he says.

My shoulders drop and I close my eyes. I should jump out of one of those windows. The glass looks pretty thick. I’d probably just knock myself out and wake up back in this nightmare again. I glance at the door. Stay or run? Decisions.

Since I’m about to be fired, I might as well be honest. “My job is difficult. I’ve always wanted a job in the fashion industry, and I’ve put a lot of time and effort into it with little reward, if I’m being honest. It might be more tolerable if I didn’t have to work under that little greasy McNugget down there, but I do—or at least I did—and so no, it’s not the greatest job.”

That felt good to say out loud. I’m glad it’s off my chest. Now it’s time to have my ass handed to me. I sit back in the chair and prepare for a tongue lashing.

“What if I offered you something better?” he says.

Wait, what’s happening? I stare at him, waiting for him to say more, something like ‘you might’ve gotten something better if you hadn’t called your job “shit”.’ But he doesn’t follow it up with anything and I’m confused as hell. I tell the owner of the company my job is shit and suddenly I’m up for a promotion? No, this can’t be right. There has to be a catch.

“Like that?” I wrack my brain, trying to think of what types of jobs I’m qualified for. There are several, but those positions are already filled. Unless someone else is about to be fired. I cross my fingers and hope if someone gets fired, it’s my troll of a boss. The guy really is a complete idiot and doesn’t deserve to be in charge of anyone.

“I need a personal assistant.”

I lift my head, eyes widening. Me, the personal assistant to one of the wealthiest and most influential people in the city? I could do it, of course. The job would certainly be difficult. He’s a busy man and a personal assistant would basically be in charge of running his life, but I’m up for the challenge for sure, especially if the price is right. And I have to admit, being with Marcus Steere day in and day out sounds pretty good to me. A little eye candy is definitely a bonus.

When I look at him, he wears an expression that makes me think there’s a ‘but’ at the end of this deal.

So let’s just get on with it. “But?” I say, lowering my level of excitement.

“But …” he says, looking slightly awkward which is surprisingly endearing on him. He is so polished and stalwart in his role as ‘rich guy who has his shit together,’ that it’s hard to picture him as anything else. I find this human side of him far more approachable, which makes whatever ‘but’ coming my way not as scary.

He clears his throat and continues. “Part of this personal assistant job is pretending to be my wife.”

I choke out a cough. I thought I was prepared for anything, but I did not see that coming.

“Your what?” I say, standing up, then sitting back down again after getting dizzy from standing up too fast.

His long fingers drum the top of the desk. “I need someone to go with me to Paris for a business meeting. My ex-wife will be there. She owns a rather large share of the company and I’d like to buy it from her. The problem is, she’s under the impression that she and I will be together again someday and so she doesn’t want to sell me the shares for fear of its permanence. If she sees that I’ve moved on and have married someone else, perhaps she’ll be willing to let go.”

I still haven’t quite gotten past the part where he wants me to pretend to be his wife. All the details start to catch up with me one by one and a bigger picture comes into view. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I mean, pretending to be the wife of one of the hottest men I’ve ever seen doesn’t sound like a bad gig if I’m being honest, but I’m not sure I have the breeding to pull it off.

No one is going to look at me and think ‘now there’s a rich man’s wife.’ I’m more like the kind of girl someone would look at and think ‘now there’s the wife of a rough-neck stuck on an oil rig.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with me. I get plenty of attention from men of all means, but I’m a bit rough around the edges—street-style I guess you might call it. Everything I own is affordable. Target is as high-end as I go when it comes to shopping. Last time I had wine, it was from a discount store and came in a box. I’ve never been in a plane before—nor do I ever want to be in one because flying seems terrifying. So, yeah, not exactly what you would call sophisticated. I don’t know what his ex-wife is like, but I’m guessing she probably doesn’t live in her car and I doubt she’s wearing yesterday’s clothes.

“What would I have to do?” I say, giving him a knowing look, because there are certain things that husbands and wives expect from each other that I’m not willing to give for any amount of money.

He laughs, obviously seeing where I’m going with this. It strikes me as odd and catches me a bit off guard, how casual he is even though he looks pristine. His laugh is melodious and puts me at ease.

“Nothing like that. Your only job will be to accompany me to the meeting and be seen with me in public—oh, and to look at me adoringly. I really need you to sell this relationship.”

Well, looking at him adoringly shouldn’t be all that hard. It’s difficult not to. He’s beautiful.

“Okay, that sounds easy enough. What else?” I ask.

“We’ll need to present a united front here, at this store. Word needs to get back to my ex that I’ve moved on and what better than a little gossip to get it there. She’ll never believe me if I tell her myself. She’ll sense a trick.”

The thought of everyone at the store, co-workers I’ve been around since I started working here four years ago, thinking I’ve slept my way to the top doesn’t sit well with me, but neither does another night sleeping in my car. I still need to get ahold of my insurance company. Maybe they’ll cut me a check soon and I can pass on this bizarre offer. As tempting as it sounds to be holed up in a room with him and hanging on the arm of arguably the sexiest man alive, I don’t know if it’s worth losing the respect of my co-workers. After this arrangement is over and he gets his company back, we’ll stop pretending to be a couple and I’m going to have to face these people on a daily basis—that is, if I still have my job after that.

“And, of course, you’ll be paid well,” he says

There they are, the magic words I’ve been waiting for. I sit forward, eagerly waiting.

“Aside from a significant pay raise as my personal assistant, you’ll get a bonus for pretending to be my wife.”

“A bonus?”

I get this warm, fuzzy feeling inside. During the holidays all the employees get a thousand-dollar bonus and usually some new expensive tech device. That kind of money would be a life-saver right now.

I cross my fingers and say to myself, over and over, please let it be a thousand-dollars, please let it be a thousand dollars.

“Yes, a bonus. On top of your new wages, I will buy you a new house.”

I nearly fall out of my chair. “A house?” I say, my voice a high keen. I’m barely able to contain myself.

“Yes, Ruby, a house.” He shows me the most adorable playful smile that makes my heart thud in my chest.

I tell my heart to knock that shit off. This is business. No time to be fooling around with a crush on the man who holds my future in his very big, very nice looking hands.

This sounds too good to be true. It probably is. I want to say yes, but I can’t. Not yet. I have to see what my insurance says first.

“Can I think about it?” I ask.

“Of course. Take the day off. Talk to the McNugget downstairs and let him know you’re taking a personal day. I’ll make sure you won’t be written up.”

My face heats up and I’m embarrassed for letting him know how much I can’t stand the store manager. I’ve been so unprofessional. I can’t believe I haven’t been fired yet. There’s still time for me to screw that up, though. I need to get out of here and get my head straight.

“Thank you,” I say.

He hands me a card with his personal number on it. When I reach for it, our fingers touch and I feel a spark of something that makes me tingle all over. His eyes widen the slightest bit and I wonder if he felt it too.

After I leave, I lean against the wall outside of his office and let out a long breath. I have so much to think about. But first I have to pee. Oh right, and make a phone call.