I woke up alone.
The sheets on his side were cold. No note. No sound from the bathroom. Just the faint smell of his cologne and the taste of last night's lie still bitter on my tongue.
I sat up slowly, every muscle tight. The kiss replayed in my head—his mouth on mine, my hands in his hair, the way I'd used my body like a weapon to shut him up. It worked. He stopped asking about the name.
But he didn't forget.
I could feel it in the way he'd pulled back, eyes sharp even while his breathing wasn't. The way he'd said "Arthur" like he was testing the weight of it. Like he knew I was full of shit but wanted to see how far I'd go.
I grabbed my phone. The photos were gone—I'd sent them to Claire's encrypted server and wiped everything local. But my hands were still shaking.
He knows I was in his office. He knows I said his real name. And now he's somewhere in this house, deciding what to do about it.
I heard footsteps in the hall. Slow. Deliberate.
The bedroom door opened.
Archer stood in the doorway, already dressed. Dark suit, no tie. He looked like he'd been up for hours. His eyes locked on mine, and I couldn't read a damn thing in them.
"Good morning," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt.
He didn't answer right away. Just walked to the window and pulled the curtain back, letting gray morning light spill across the floor. His back was to me. I couldn't see his face.
"You talk in your sleep," he said finally.
My stomach dropped. "I know. You mentioned that."
"Not just last night." He turned around. His expression was calm. Too calm. "You've done it before. Three times this week."
I hadn't known that. I forced myself to breathe normally. "What did I say?"
"Names, mostly." He tilted his head. "Your parents. Your friend Claire. And once—" He paused. "Once you said 'burn.'"
The air left my lungs.
I died in a fire. He set it. I smelled the smoke, felt the heat crawl up my legs while he stood in the doorway and watched. In that last moment before everything went black, I'd screamed his real name.
Archer.
Not Lin Yuhan. Not the broke bastard son. The man who owned half the offshore accounts in Southeast Asia and every politician in this city.
And now he was staring at me like he was trying to crack a code.
"Bad dream," I said. I sat up straighter, let the sheet fall to my waist. I was still in the silk nightgown from last night. His eyes flicked down for half a second, then back to my face. "I have them sometimes."
"About fire."
"About a lot of things." I swung my legs out of bed, stood up. Walked past him to the closet. I could feel his gaze on my back. "My family just went bankrupt. I'm married to a stranger. I think bad dreams are pretty normal."
"And the name?" His voice was quiet. "Arthur."
I pulled a robe off the hanger, wrapped it around myself. Turned to face him. "You said your middle name was Arthur. Last week. When we signed the papers."
"No," he said. "I didn't."
Shit.
I held his gaze. "Then I must have heard it somewhere else. Maybe your mother mentioned it."
"My mother's dead."
"Then your lawyer. Or the secretary. I don't know, Yuhan." I walked toward him, stopped a foot away. Close enough to see the faint scar along his jawline—the one he got in Singapore three years ago when a deal went bad. I wasn't supposed to know that. "Why does it matter?"
"Because you didn't say Arthur." He stepped closer. His voice dropped. "You said Archer."
The room went silent.
I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. Too fast. He'd notice.
I laughed. It sounded hollow even to me. "Archer? That's not even a real name."
"It is," he said softly. "To a very small group of people."
I met his eyes. They were dark, unreadable. Testing me.
This was it. He was going to ask how I knew. And if I couldn't give him an answer that made sense, he'd know I was digging. He'd know I found the files. He'd burn this whole deal down and maybe me with it.
So I did the only thing I could.
I told him a truth wrapped in a lie.
"I saw the scar," I said quietly.
His expression didn't change. "What scar."
I reached up, slow, and touched the line along his jaw. He went still. I could feel the tension in him, coiled tight.
"This one," I said. "You got it in Singapore. Three years ago. A shipping deal went sideways and someone came at you with a broken bottle."
His hand shot up and caught my wrist. Not hard. But firm.
"How," he said, "do you know that."
I didn't pull away. "Because I was there."
His eyes narrowed.
"Not at the fight," I continued. My pulse was hammering but I kept my voice level. "At the hospital after. My father had business in Singapore that week. We were staying at the same hotel. I saw you in the lobby, face bandaged, bodyguards everywhere. You were on the phone, yelling at someone in English. You used the name Archer."
It was a good lie. Specific enough to feel real. Vague enough that he couldn't check.
"You remember that," he said slowly. "From three years ago."
"I remember you." I pulled my wrist free, let my hand drop. "You don't exactly blend in."
He stared at me for a long moment. I could see him turning it over, looking for holes.
Then he stepped back.
"That's a convenient memory," he said.
"It's the truth." I crossed my arms. "You want to call your security team and check the hotel logs? Be my guest. I was there with my father. June fourteenth. Peninsula Hotel."
I was gambling. If he actually checked, he'd find the Su family had been in Singapore that week—I knew because I'd gone through old travel records in my past life, looking for any thread to connect my father to his death. I never found one. But the dates were real.
Archer's jaw tightened. He didn't move.
"You never mentioned it before," he said.
"You never asked." I walked past him, headed for the bathroom. "And honestly? I didn't think you wanted people knowing you had another name. So I kept my mouth shut."
I closed the bathroom door before he could answer.
My hands were shaking again. I turned on the faucet, splashed cold water on my face. In the mirror, I looked pale. Wired.
I'd just lied to a man who built an empire on reading people. And I had no idea if he believed me.
I heard him move in the bedroom. Footsteps, then the sound of the door opening. Closing.
He was gone.
I braced my hands on the counter and let out a long breath.
My phone buzzed in the bedroom. I walked out, grabbed it off the nightstand.
A text from an unknown number.
*One rule. You don't dig into who I really am. You don't ask questions. You don't go looking. Do that, and we're fine.*
*Break it, and the deal's off.*
I stared at the screen.
He believed the lie. Or at least, he was choosing to.
But he was also drawing a line.
I typed back: *Understood.*
The reply came instantly.
*Good. I'll be out of town for two days. Business. Don't wait up.*
I sat down on the edge of the bed, phone still in my hand.
Two days. He was leaving.
Which meant two days without his eyes on me. Two days to move.
I pulled up the encrypted message app Claire had set up for me. Typed fast.
*He knows I know something. He's testing me. I need everything you can find on Singapore, June 2021. Shipping deal gone bad. And I need it before he gets back.*
Claire's response came in under a minute.
*On it. You okay?*
I stared at the question.
No. I wasn't okay. I'd kissed the man who killed my parents. I'd lied to his face. And now I was in so deep I couldn't see the surface anymore.
But I typed: *Fine. Just keep digging.*
I put the phone down and walked back to the window. Outside, a black car was pulling out of the driveway. I couldn't see through the tinted glass, but I knew he was inside.
Gone for two days.
I pressed my hand against the cold glass and watched the car disappear down the street.
Then I turned around and went back to his office.
The door was locked this time.