Woke Up Married To A Secret Zillionaire

The fluorescent lights of the New York City Clerk's office hummed with a sound that felt like a drill pressing into Eva Rose's temple. She stood at the counter, her fingers gripping the cold laminate edge so hard her knuckles turned the color of bone.

The clerk on the other side of the glass popped a bubble of pink gum. It made a sharp snap that caused Eva to flinch. The woman slid a piece of paper across the counter.

It was a copy. A marriage license.

Eva looked down. Her vision blurred at the edges, tunneling until the only thing she could see were the typed letters in the spouse field.

Baxter Noel.

The air in the room seemed to vanish. Her lungs pulled at nothing.

This has to be a mistake, she said. Her voice sounded thin, like it was coming from someone else standing three feet away.

The clerk sighed and tapped a manicured fingernail on the document. There was a stamp near the bottom. It was from Clark County, Nevada. The date was three months ago.

Eva felt the blood drain from her face. She remembered the conference in Las Vegas. She remembered the presentation on hydrogen fuel stability that had gone perfectly. She remembered the hotel bar afterward, the celebration with a few colleagues, and then the drink that tasted too sweet.

After that, there was only darkness. A twelve-hour gap in her memory that she had chalked up to exhaustion and cheap alcohol.

She looked at the signature next to hers. It was sharp, aggressive, taking up more space than the line allowed. Baxter Noel. The man who owned half of the skyline she saw every morning. The man whose legal team was currently suing her for intellectual property theft-not because they thought she stole the code, but because they needed to freeze her assets to force her to unlock the encryption keys she had built into it.

She was married to the man who was trying to destroy her career.

Is this valid? Eva asked.

The clerk rolled her eyes. It is filed, honey. It is legal. Unless you want to pay the filing fee for a dissolution, move along.

Eva grabbed the paper. Her hands were shaking so badly she almost dropped it. She folded it once, then twice, shoving it deep into the inner pocket of her coat, right against her ribs. It felt hot, like a piece of radioactive material.

She walked out of the office and into the biting November wind. The cold hit her face, but it didn't numb the panic rising in her throat. She pulled out her phone. Her fingers fumbled over the screen as she dialed.

Ed picked up on the first ring.

I need you to run a name, Eva said. She didn't say hello. She didn't wait for him to ask how she was.

Who? Ed asked.

Baxter Noel.

There was a long silence on the other end. Then the sound of a