I Stopped Fighting For My Husband and He Panicked Chapter 04

I didn’t even blink. “Of course! You know how good I am with luxury brands.”

Paige bought it immediately.

A while back, our company had landed a potential client who was notoriously difficult to please. He worked in the fashion industry, and our company had thrown practically everyone it could spare at the opportunity to pitch a new project.

The results had been disastrous.

The client had barely glanced at the people we sent before dismissing them outright. He’d even left us a parting shot.

[If your people have such terrible taste, what makes you think they can handle an advertising campaign? You might as well shut the whole company down.]

Our entire project team had been furious. Even Hailey, who rarely let anything get under her skin, had been seething.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could do about it. The man was a major player in the fashion world, and landing his account would put us on track to meet our annual targets in one fell swoop.

Everyone on the team had taken a beating trying to win him over. With no other options left, Hailey finally sent me.

By then, I’d already learned the hard way that dressing in luxury brands came with its own problems. Tristan had also cut off my credit cards, so I’d been forced to shop for affordable clothes instead.

I fully expected the client to insult me and send me packing like everyone else.

Instead, he gave me a once-over, tilted his head, and flicked his hair over his shoulder.

“Your outfit is actually halfway decent. Come on in.”

I followed him into his office, still trying to figure out what had just happened.

Then I handed him our proposal, and he tore into it.

One minute, he was criticizing our entire concept. The next, he was accusing us of knowing next to nothing about luxury fashion.

By the time he’d finished, I’d gone from nervous to absolutely furious.

I’d been a VIC at the biggest luxury fashion houses since I was a kid. I knew this industry inside and out. There wasn’t much about designer brands, fabrics, or trends that I didn’t understand.

And although I wasn’t officially leading the project, I’d been involved from the very beginning. Hailey had approved every recommendation I’d made.

If he was dismissing the entire proposal, he was dismissing my work, too.

So I argued back.

We went head-to-head over everything from fabrics and tailoring to design concepts and creative inspiration. We spent the entire afternoon fighting over the proposal, and when we finally ran out of things to argue about, I’d managed to edge him out by the narrowest of margins.

Apparently, I’d infuriated him so badly that he’d signed the contract just to end the argument.

I’d landed the account almost by accident.

Things didn’t get any easier after that. Whenever we needed to discuss the project, the client insisted on dealing with me personally.

Terrified he’d complain about me to Hailey, I followed him around like a nervous intern, doing my best to keep him happy.

It didn’t work.

He started criticizing the entire project team again, and before I knew it, I was arguing with him all over again.

I won that round, too.

And once again, he was so furious that he agreed to the proposal.

Just like that, I’d made a name for myself.

Before long, everyone at the company knew I had an uncanny eye for fashion and that I’d managed to outargue the most difficult client we’d ever dealt with.

Which was why Paige didn’t question my explanation for a second.

Instead, she launched into an angry rant.

“I knew Ivy and her little fan club were making stuff up! After you left yesterday, Mr. Hayes left, too. Ivy went home by herself.”

Paige rolled her eyes.

“Then she showed up at work this morning with red, puffy eyes. People kept asking what was wrong, but she wouldn’t tell anyone. She just let them guess.”

“Everyone threw out theories, and she shook her head at every single one. But the second someone suggested it had something to do with you, she stopped shaking her head and actually shed a tear!”

Paige’s voice rose with every word.

“Do you know how that makes you look? She’s basically setting you up to take the fall! People are already whispering that you stole Mr. Hayes from Ivy Vance. They’re calling you the other woman!”

She scoffed.

“If you ask me, Ivy’s just jealous because you’re prettier than she is and twice as good at your job.”

I raised my hand, making sure Paige could see the ring on my finger, and gave her a casual smile.

“It’s fine. You know I’m already married.”

The wedding ring Tristan and I had exchanged had been taken off my finger by Tristan himself on my very first day at the company.

He’d said that because I’d always had someone to rely on, I’d never learned to understand what Ivy had to deal with. He wanted me to experience firsthand what life was like for a single woman in the workplace.

Until then, I’d been so sheltered that I’d carried my innocence and naivety into adulthood without ever realizing how vulnerable they made me.

Women like me were easy targets for men who wanted to take advantage.

It didn’t take long for a male supervisor to start giving me special treatment. He promoted me quickly and even took me along on business trips.

Then, during one trip, he asked me to drink with a client. He kept pouring until I was dead drunk, then took me back to his hotel room.

I didn’t fully come to my senses until he took off his shirt and sat down on the edge of the bed.

I screamed and drove him out of the room.

The moment I returned to the office, I reported him to upper management. But without evidence, the complaint went nowhere.

When Hailey found out what had happened, she tracked the man down and made him cough up a hefty sum of money, which she handed directly to me as compensation.

We both knew it was the best we could get under the circumstances.

I could either keep the job I needed to support myself or hold out for justice that might never come. I couldn’t have both.

Before leaving my office, Hailey had looked me straight in the eye and said, “Vivian, when you’re out in the world, you have to decide how people see you. Nobody else is going to do it for you.”

I’d understood exactly what she meant.

That very evening, I called Logan Sinclair, Tristan’s best friend, and asked him if he’d be willing to pretend to be my husband.

Logan was so confused that he could barely get the words out.

“Don’t you already have a husband? Why do you need someone else to pretend to be him?”

I had no choice but to tell him the truth.

“Tristan’s busy pretending to be someone else’s boyfriend.”

Logan went silent.

As a committed bachelor who had no interest in marriage, he couldn’t understand why Tristan was neglecting his own wife to play boyfriend to another woman.

And he couldn’t understand why a married woman like me would make such an outrageous request, either.

I didn’t bother hiding anything from him. I told him exactly what my male supervisor had done.

After hearing the whole story, Logan agreed without hesitation.

To make the act convincing, I went to a flea market and bought a pair of matching wedding bands. One for him, one for me.

The next day, people at the office noticed the ring on my finger and immediately started asking if I was seeing someone.

I told them I was already married. I’d taken off my wedding ring a while back because my husband and I had fought, but we’d since made up. He’d even be picking me up after work.

After that, my male supervisor never bothered me again. The rumors that I was secretly sleeping with one of the company’s executives died out, too.

I couldn’t help marveling at how useful a wedding ring could be.

To make sure everyone remembered that I was married, Logan and I even took a few pictures together. Every now and then, I’d post one to my Instagram Story.

The night before, I’d been worried someone might start spreading rumors about Tristan and me, so I’d deliberately posted one of those pictures.

As luck would have it, Paige was scrolling through Instagram when she came across a photo of Logan and me. She tapped on it, then sighed admiringly.

“Vivian, every time I see pictures of you and your husband, I swear you two look like you were made for each other. He’s ridiculously handsome, and you’re gorgeous. You’re such a good-looking couple!”

I played along without missing a beat.

“I know, right? My husband’s seriously hot.”

The moment the words left my mouth, the entire area around us fell deathly silent.

I turned around.

Tristan was standing right behind me, his eyes fixed on the photo of Logan and me displayed on Paige’s phone.