The $100k Husband Bounty

[ Urgent hire: Seeking a premium younger male companion. Must have a droolworthy sixpack, a sweet tongue, killer skills in bed, and absolute loyalty.

Offering a $100k monthly allowance, toptier medical coverage, and an unlimited Amex Black Card.

First come, first served. ] By that night, the internet had practically exploded. [ AList Hollywood Actor Throws Punches with SpeedoClad Male Models Outside Beverly Hills Mansion Over Unlimited Black Card! ] [ Acclaimed Screenwriter and TopTier Director Spotted with Black Eyes After Brawl for Monthly Allowance! ] … A week later, Ronan returned from his overseas business trip.

He walked in to find me lounging in the living room, playing highstakes poker with a handful of Alist celebrities, my face covered in bright lipstick marks from losing bets.

His eyes were bloodshot. "Maren, do you not love me anymore?" I didn't even bother putting down my cards.

I just glanced up at him, a lazy smirk tugging at my lips. "Ronan, it's not that I don't love you anymore. It's that the Maren who loved you is dead.

She died the exact moment you were busy swapping spit with your little assistant in the lounge, letting my desperate calls for help ring out to voicemail." Chapter 1 After the illness, I dropped off the Hollywood radar entirely.

My world shrank to the sterile walls of my therapist's office and the suffocating silence of my own house. The contacts in my phone went dormant one by one.

Everything felt like chewing on dry cardboard. Today, an unexpected urge to see Ronan gripped me. I dragged myself out to his corporate headquarters for the first time in ages.

Standing in the doorway of his corner office, my eyes landed on a young girl sprawled across the Italian leather sofa opposite his desk. Her face was pale.

Ronan handed her a steaming latte.

Without missing a beat, he shrugged off his custom, tenthousanddollar Armani suit jacket and draped it over her slightly shivering shoulders. "If you're feeling this awful, I should just have the driver take the Maybach and drop you off at your apartment to rest." She took the cup, her tone righteous. "An assistant who leaves her boss to work all alone isn't a good assistant." Ronan tilted his chin toward the inner door. "Then go lie down in my private lounge for a bit." Tessa cupped the hot coffee, blinking her innocent, falseeyelashframed eyes. "Don't be so good to me, Ronan.

If your wife sees you lending me your jacket, she's definitely going to be mad at me." Ronan let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head in helpless amusement.

His eyes were swimming with pure indulgence for her girlish stubbornness. He even reached out, his fingers intimately tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

Then, he lifted his gaze. And saw me standing perfectly still in the doorway. The smile froze on his lips. My own breath hitched in my throat.

My brain was stuck on a loop of that smile he had just given her. The meds and the illness had made my reactions sluggish. But as I stood there, a cold knot formed in my stomach.

It hit me—since I got sick, it had been a very long time since he had smiled at me with that kind of effortless ease.

His face smoothed over into his usual composed mask as he strode toward me. "Maren, what are you doing here?" He reached out to grab my hand.

My muscles jerked, pulling my hand back before my brain even gave the order.

Ronan's hand hung suspended in the dead air between us. "Wow, a surprise inspection!" Tessa, still clutching the coffee Ronan had given her, bounced over to stand right beside him.

She flashed me a radiant, perfectlyteethwhitened smile and extended her free hand. "I'm Tessa. We went to the same university. I wonder if you still remember me?" Tessa… Tessa.

My eyes traced the features of her face. A few seconds later, the rusty gears in my head finally clicked. This wasn't the first time we'd crossed paths.

She was an underclassman from Ronan's department back in college. Freshman year, she had taken one look at Ronan and decided he was hers.

She was all fiery energy and sunshine, a girl who moved like a hurricane. She launched a relentless, highprofile pursuit of him right out of the gate.

Back then, I was already breaking into the industry.

Even though Ronan and I were in the honeymoon phase of our relationship, my shooting schedules meant I couldn't be glued to his side 24/7.

But Ronan had been ruthless about shutting down anyone who might threaten us. He flatout told her he had a girlfriend and remained stonecold to her advances.

Naturally, she didn't buy it. To her, a girlfriend who was never around was just a convenient myth. A polite excuse to brush her off.

It wasn't until I wrapped my movie and showed up on campus that reality finally slapped her in the face. I remembered how crushed she looked that day, tears welling up in her eyes.

She shot me this pathetic, kickedpuppy look and asked, "Maren, can I at least get his number?

If love is off the table, I still need to focus on my grades!" Before I could even open my mouth, she pivoted to Ronan, begging, "Come on, Ronan.

If I can't date you, at least give me the chance to be a normal classmate." "You're the genius of our department.

If I hit a wall with my coursework, I'm going to need you to throw me a lifeline!" She played it off so well, sounding completely transparent and harmless.

But how did the Ronan from back then react? He just looked at her and said, "Sorry. There's no need for that.

If you have issues with your coursework, take it up with the professor." I had to admit, that moment had sent a rush of pure dopamine through my veins.

Standing right there beside me, he had handed me an armorplated sense of security. Chapter 2 Years had passed.

Tessa was still the same—a blinding sun, radiating warmth to everyone in her orbit. And me?

I felt like a walking black hole, a gravitational pull of misery swallowing up any light that dared to get close.

Ronan still signed off on Tessa's halfday leave, sending her home to rest. I spent the entire afternoon anchored to the sofa in his office, waiting for him to clock out.

He was stuck in backtoback meetings. My eyes remained glued to the halfempty cup of latte she had left behind on the glass coffee table.

After work, I slid into the passenger seat of his Maybach.

As he leaned over, his cologne washing over me to click my seatbelt into place, my gaze caught on a new dashboard ornament. A plush, sickeningly cute little white bunny.

It was a glaring anomaly against Ronan's sterile, minimalist aesthetic. The stuffed bunny seemed to be grinning at me.

A cold, heavy stone dropped straight to the bottom of my stomach.

I stared at the stupid thing until the silence stretched too thin, finally forcing the words out of my throat. "So, Tessa graduated." "Yeah." Ronan kept his eyes on the road. "Graduated last year.

Fired her resume over to the firm right after.

We were shortstaffed, and her skill set was exactly what we needed, so I brought her on board." He sounded like he was trying to smooth things over, but the rapidfire explanation felt like he was overcompensating.

He must have realized it too, because his jaw clenched shut, cutting off the rambling. The fleeting spark of energy that had dragged me out of the house today flatlined.

I didn't even have the strength to pry further. I just let my head thud against the cool tinted glass of the window, watching the city blur past.

Maybe this was just the sickness talking.

Even if he had repeated the exact same words from years ago—there's no need—giving me that ironclad sense of security, my brain probably wouldn't have been able to process the dopamine anyway.

But after seeing the way he smiled in his office today, I forced myself to really look at him. He had been so incredibly tolerant of me.

Treating me like fragile glass because of the diagnosis. Before, he used to dump all the chaotic startup drama on me, finding the dark humor in the grind.

He'd text me from his desk just to say he was craving a dry martini shaken exactly the way I make it, and the apple pie I'd bake from scratch.

He'd sit there for hours, perfectly content to listen to my endless gossip about the absolute trainwrecks in Hollywood.

He used to share everything—the rage, the highs, the missing me. Now? He gave me nothing but a sterile, clinical gentleness.

It was like I had slowly been drained of my personality, leaving behind a hollow shell of pure misery. And I had dragged him right down into the dark with me.

We still slept with his arm draped heavily over my waist. We still ate breakfast staring at each other across the marble island. On paper, the picture was flawless.

But the air between us felt thick, choked by an invisible pane of bulletproof glass. That effortless smile he had aimed at Tessa kept flashing behind my eyelids.

He hadn't breathed that easily around me in years. I was the anchor pulling him under. I needed to fix this. Our anniversary was just a few days away.

Maybe this was the lifeline I needed. A grand gesture to snap me out of this coma and shatter the glass wall between us.

So, when the day finally arrived, I picked up my phone and dialed his number. "Ronan," I murmured. "I ordered the tomahawk from Mastro's, opened a bottle of RomanéeConti from the year we got married, and slipped into that Victoria's Secret lace slip you love.

Are you coming home early for dinner?" The line went dead silent. Ronan clearly hadn't anticipated this sudden spike in my energy levels.

After a long beat, his voice crackled through the speaker. "There's an emergency at the office. I have to stay late." "But I'll be home before midnight. I have a gift for you.

Wait for me, Maren." "Okay. I'll wait." I ended the call, letting the phone drop to the floor.

I sat there in the heavy silence, entirely alone, surrounded by the flickering, suffocating glow of expensive candlelight.

Chapter 3 The bleedingred roses, the untouched Mastro's steak growing cold, the vintage RomanéeConti on the dining table—none of it sparked a single hit of dopamine.

Just a suffocating darkness, a physical weight crushing my lungs. Finally, I grabbed my Porsche keys and walked out the door. Go to him.

Just get to him, and maybe this suffocating grip on my throat will finally loosen.

I drove through the city night, pulling into the underground parking garage of his corporate building. Before I could even put the car in park, I spotted him.

He practically sprinted out of the elevator, jumped into his Maybach, and peeled out of the garage. He was in a massive rush. Abandoning his socalled office emergency.

Something else took priority. Heading home? Home to the candlelit steak dinner, the vintage wine, our anniversary? Or… I hit the gas and tailed him.

I figured, if he really was heading home, I shouldn't keep him waiting. But barely five minutes later, it was blindingly obvious. He wasn't heading anywhere near our neighborhood.

The city lights blurred past, and the cold knot in my stomach twisted tighter. Subconsciously, my brain already connected the dots. But I fought it, desperately clutching at straws.

Maybe the illness was just making me paranoid. I kept my foot heavy on the pedal, locked onto his taillights.

Staring at the rear of his Maybach, a dark, venomous impulse spiked through my veins. What if I just slammed the gas? Rammed right into him and took us both out.

Then whatever nightmare I was about to walk into wouldn't matter anymore. Approaching an intersection on Sixth Avenue, the light turned red.

I slammed my foot down on the Porsche's gas pedal. From the right, a heavy pickup truck came roaring toward the crossing.

If I blasted through this red light, I could push Ronan's car right into its path. We could just end it right here in a pile of crushed steel.

I wouldn't have to face the bloody, rotting reality waiting for me at the end of this drive. HONK! The deafening blast of the truck's air horn shattered the trance.

My foot instinctively slammed onto the brake pedal. "Are you out of your fucking mind?!

If you want to die, don't drag us down with you!" A driver screamed out his window as he swerved past. Reality snapped back. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs.

I slumped over the steering wheel, my palms slick with cold sweat, a bitter laugh tearing from my throat. I really was sick.

Even my suicidal thoughts were laced with pure, unhinged malice. The light flipped green. I shoved the psychotic urges back down into the dark and continued tailing Ronan.

He pulled up to an apartment complex and practically threw himself out of the driver's seat. He sprinted right past my parked Porsche, completely oblivious.

He had his phone pressed hard against his ear as he bolted toward one of the buildings. "I'm almost there!" The building's elevator was dead.

A bright yellow Out of Order sign blocked the doors. But the motionsensor lights in the stairwell were flickering to life. Ronan had clearly taken the emergency stairs.

I stood at the entrance, staring up into the dim, concrete stairwell. The shadows looked like they were waiting to swallow me whole. I stepped inside anyway.

One step, two steps… First floor, second floor… I tracked the heavy, frantic pounding of Ronan's footsteps echoing from above.

I followed the trail of lights he activated on his way up, dragging my feet up to the thirteenth floor. The lights on the fourteenth floor remained dark.

Ronan's destination was right here.

I climbed a few more steps, retreating into the shadows of the landing halfway between the thirteenth and fourteenth floors, and sank down onto the cold concrete.

Chapter 4 Then, I heard the frantic thud of footsteps.

Ronan's voice was completely stripped of its usual calm, raw with panic. "Hold on, I'm getting you to the hospital right now." I slowly peeked my head around the corner.

I saw Ronan sprinting out of the hallway, Tessa cradled tight against his chest, whimpering in pain. He took the stairs two at a time, heading down.

His jaw was locked tight, his eyes fixed entirely on the pale, fragile girl in his arms. He was dialed into her. He didn't even glance toward the shadows where I sat.

The motionsensor lights flickered to life with his heavy footfalls, then died out one by one as he descended.

The stairwell plunged back into pitch black, leaving only the sickly, weak neon glow of the EXIT sign above my head.

I sat frozen on the concrete, letting the heavy darkness swallow me whole. Something had shifted. Without me even noticing, it had already changed.

Ronan had found something more important than his multimillion dollar firm. More important than me. My phone alarm buzzed against my thigh.

Midnight. "Happy Anniversary, Maren," I whispered to the empty air. Walking down those thirteen flights of stairs felt infinitely worse than climbing up.

It was like descending into hell, step by agonizing step, into an endless black pit. Endless concrete beneath my feet.

The dark stairwell looming ahead like the open throat of a monster. The venomous malice clawed its way back up my throat, a demon whispering right into my ear: Just fall.

Throw yourself down the stairs. A quick snap of the neck, and I wouldn't have to drag my feet through this miserable, lonely existence anymore.

When Ronan brought his little assistant back, he could just scrape my dead body off the concrete floor. Shame about the expensive cake, the vintage wine, and the roses, though.

I squeezed my eyes shut and lifted my foot over the edge. Just one empty step… Ping! The loud notification chime echoed like a gunshot in the silent stairwell.

My foot froze in midair. I stood paralyzed in the dark for a long, heavy minute before my numb fingers finally unlocked the screen.

It was a text from Ronan. [ Maren, sudden emergency. Can't make it back. Sorry. ] I stared at my name on the glowing screen. Then, slowly, I pulled my foot back.

I walked down the rest of the stairs.

I drove away, dumped the highend cake, the roses, and the dinner into the lap of a homeless man on the street corner, and drove back to my empty mansion alone.

Insomnia was my baseline since the diagnosis. I was used to it. I lay wide awake staring at the ceiling until 2 AM, when the front door finally clicked open.

He hit the shower first. When he finally slid into bed, his chest pressing heavily against my back, he buried his face in my hair and murmured, "I'm sorry." Sorry for what?

Sorry for missing the midnight cutoff? Or sorry he found someone better, ditching me to sprint up thirteen flights of stairs for her?

The sun bled through the curtains, and I still didn't have an answer. I just sat up and looked at him as he got out of bed. "Ronan. Fire Tessa.

Get her out of the firm." His hands froze on his silk tie. The heavy silence stretched out before he finally gave a tight nod. "Okay." The unspoken truth hung between us.

I didn't even need to justify it. He agreed, but my chest remained completely hollow. Not a single drop of relief.

After he left for the office, I sat on the floor by the massive floortoceiling windows, staring blankly at the oak trees in the yard all morning.

When my phone alarm buzzed again, I realized it was already noon.

I had tossed last night's dinner to a stranger on the street, yet some pathetic, obsessive part of my brain still desperately wanted Ronan to taste the soup I made.

As if a homemade meal could magically glue our shattered marriage back together. So, I packed a fresh batch in a thermos and drove straight to his corporate headquarters.

But his corner office was empty. Chapter 5 The corner office was completely empty.

His executive assistant stammered something about him stepping out for a meeting and coming right back. I waved her off and dropped into Ronan's massive leather chair.

My prescription bottle was almost empty. Time for another shrink appointment. The meds didn't even work anymore; they just stuffed my brain with heavy cotton.

I sat there, staring blankly at the wall, until the heavy oak door swung open.

My heavy eyes lifted, locking onto the man standing in the doorway. "Maren?" It wasn't until he said my name that the rusty gears in my head finally recognized him. Miles.

Ronan's college roommate, longtime best friend, and current business partner. He was here looking for Ronan. "He's not here." Miles gave a slow nod, but he didn't leave.

Instead, he dropped onto the Italian leather sofa across from the desk. "I know. He went to the hospital. His little assistant was admitted last night for a bleeding ulcer.

He went to check on her." The fingers resting on the mahogany desk twitched violently. A sharp, phantom blade twisted in my gut.

Miles just kept talking. "Since the firm took off, the networking and client dinners have been nonstop. She's always tagging along, drinking with the clients.

Kid practically destroyed her stomach for the company." "Honestly, with her stuck in a hospital bed, the whole office feels dead." "We used to get absolutely wrecked by the morning grind, but grabbing lunch with her?

It was like hitting a reset button for me and Ronan. She's got this infectious energy. Total ray of sunshine. I genuinely just love having her around." So that was the secret.

That was why Ronan could flash that effortless, easy smile at Tessa. Just like Miles, he saw her as a shot of pure serotonin. A literal ray of sunshine. His light.

I thought the pills had numbed me out completely. I thought I was incapable of feeling the sting anymore.

But hearing those words felt like swallowing a mouthful of crushed glass, tearing my throat open all over again. I was nothing but a walking black hole.

The absolute last thing I could ever offer was light. "What if she left?

What if your little ray of sunshine disappeared from the firm tomorrow?" The words slipped out of my mouth in a raspy whisper, almost as if I were asking Ronan himself. "Maren, humans are naturally drawn to the light." Miles looked at me, his expression unreadable. "Look, I know you and Ronan go way back.

I've had a frontrow seat to the whole thing. I know what you gave up for him. You took every trash script Hollywood threw at you just to fund his startup.

You lost your first baby because of the stress." "You didn't even make it back in time to say goodbye to your dad." "But none of that means you get to turn those sacrifices into a ball and chain around his ankle.

Since you got sick, he's been carrying the firm and playing your fulltime nurse. I'm his best friend, Maren.

I've watched him burn himself out at both ends." "I've watched the life drain out of his eyes. I know exactly how much of a living hell these past few years have been for him.

Honestly? I thought he was going to completely crack. Until Tessa showed up…" Chapter 6 He stared at me. "Do you get it? With you, he's the one who has to play caretaker.

But with Tessa? He's the one in charge, the one being looked up to." "She's his righthand woman at the firm, and she pumps pure, positive energy into his life.

These days, the only time he actually smiles is when she's around." "I know exactly what's going through your head.

You think they're getting too close, so you want Ronan to fire her. But there is absolutely nothing going on between them. It's always the three of us hanging out.

I'm literally right there." "If something was going to happen, it would have happened back in college when she was throwing herself at him. Why wait until now?

You know exactly how much Ronan loves you." "But you? If you kick out the only source of light he has left, what's your endgame?" "Are you trying to drive him insane?

Are you trying to drag him down until he's just as hollowed out as you are? Maren, the truth hurts.

Take a long, hard look in the mirror." Even after Miles walked out of the office, his final words echoed in the sterile silence, drilling into my skull.

Are you trying to drive him insane? Are you trying to drag him down until he's just as hollowed out as you are? I was the dead weight. I was the poison infecting everyone around me.

Ronan had to play my nurse, so all he offered me was a suffocating, clinical mask.

My hands shook as I dug the amber prescription bottle out of my pocket, popping the plastic cap and swallowing a handful of pills dry. They scraped down my throat like gravel.

Was this all my fault? In the end, Ronan never even opened the thermos I brought. He never came back to the office all afternoon. His phone went straight to voicemail.

And I got summoned back to his mother's sprawling estate.

The second I stepped through the grand foyer, Ronan's mother pointed a perfectly manicured finger at my thermos. "Dump whatever trash you have in there.

I specifically had my Michelinstarred private chef prepare dinner for him, but when I called this afternoon, he said he was taking the private jet to Europe tonight for business and wouldn't be coming home." "Deliver this to him right now.

If you hurry, he can eat before takeoff." The sky outside had ripped open, unleashing a torrential downpour.

It took me two hours just to drive from the corporate building to her estate. Fighting the storm back meant I probably wouldn't make it in time. But I knew she despised me.

She looked at me like dirt under her Prada heels. Staying here just meant enduring more of her thinlyveiled venom. So I kept my mouth shut and nodded.

She practically shoved me back out the door.

But right as I stepped out onto the marble porch, I heard her voice dripping with disgust, aimed at her housekeeper. "Finally, she's gone. I've been watching Ronan for a while now.

I knew he was getting a taste for that little assistant." "He just feels like he owes this golddigger something. That assistant ending up in the hospital was the perfect catalyst.

I bet my Birkin that Ronan is rolling around in bed with that tight, young assistant right now.

This boring old wife heading over there is going to walk right into a live show." "I want her to learn a hard lesson. In this world, feelings are the cheapest currency.

Now that her pathetic little fairytale romance is tainted, let's see if she still refuses to sign the divorce papers!" The handle of the thermos bit deep into my palm.

My boots felt cemented to the marble floor. I don't remember stumbling back to the Porsche. I don't remember turning the ignition or merging onto the slick, rainlashed highway.

Until a blinding flash of high beams tore through the windshield. A massive eighteenwheeler swerved into my lane. I yanked the steering wheel hard.

Tires shrieked against wet asphalt. The Porsche smashed through the guardrail and launched into the black abyss of the ravine. Metal crunched and shattered.

The car tumbled down the cliffside before violently slamming into a cluster of thick pines.

A jagged tree branch punched straight through the shattered window, ripping through flesh and pinning my shoulder to the leather seat.

Pure, whitehot agony ripped through my nervous system, instantly shocking me out of my trance. Chapter 7 Miles's words and Ronan's mother's venom echoed in my skull.

The sheer exhaustion crushed my will to survive. I was nothing but dead weight. The one thing I thought anchored me to this world was gone.

Maybe it was better to just bleed out right here in the dirt. Wasn't this the escape I'd been craving? But a voice kept slicing through the static in my ears, calling my name.

Maren. Maren. It was so loud. So annoying. But she sounded so desperate. Like she actually gave a damn whether I lived or died. Maren. Maren.

I let out a rattling breath, forcing my heavy, bloodcrusted eyelids open, and dialed 911. The blood loss was making the world spin.

Staring into the pitchblack ravine, I couldn't even form the words to explain where the hell I was.

The 911 operator's voice cracked over the line, annoyed and demanding an address. Forget it. I hung up and hit Ronan's speed dial with a trembling, bloodslicked thumb.

It rang and rang until the automated voicemail picked up. The battery icon flashed red–three percent. The freezing rain battered the cracked screen. It was going to die any second.

The darkness was pulling me under. In my delirium, I hit redial. Suddenly, my consciousness was violently yanked out of my body, drifting straight into Ronan's corporate building.

The main office was dead empty. But muffled sounds bled through the door of his private lounge. I floated through the heavy walnut door like a ghost.

Accompanied by heavy panting and the sound of fabric tearing, the scene inside plunged into my eyes like a rusted blade.

I used to think the bond between Ronan and me was bulletproof. That no one, not even Tessa, could wedge herself between us.

I had even brainwashed myself into believing Miles's lie—that Ronan would never cross the ultimate line with her. But right here, right now, I was staring at them.

Their fingers were tightly interlocked, their bodies tangled together in a frantic, wet kiss.

Her cheap knockoff cardigan—the one I'd seen before—was tossed carelessly onto the leather sofa.

His phone was tossed onto the rug, vibrating violently, the screen glaring with my emergency caller ID.

Amidst that grating buzz, he forcefully pinned her against the backrest, completely deaf to my lifeordeath cry for help