Teniola had three problems.
One: She was broke.
Two: She was now jobless.
And three?
She had just woken up in a five-star suite in Las Vegas… with a gold ring on her finger and a marriage certificate staring back at her like it owed her money.
She squinted at the paper.
"Certificate of Marriage – Clark County, Nevada. Groom: Damien Alade. Bride: Teniola Williams."
She blinked again.
"No. Nope. This is a prank. A very expensive, very badly timed prank," she whispered.
She glanced around the hotel room. It was massive—bigger than her mother's entire apartment in Surulere—with gold trim, champagne bottles on the floor, and a shoe in the lamp. One shoe.
Then she looked down at herself.
A white mini dress. Glitter on her legs. Red lipstick smudged across her cheek.
Her heart thudded.
She turned her head slowly… and nearly screamed.
Sleeping peacefully beside her, in all his glorious shirtless arrogance, was Dami Alade.
Her boss.
No—her ex boss.
The same man who sat behind his glass desk at NovaTech HQ, sipping imported espresso and firing people with zero emotion. The man who never remembered her name despite her being his executive assistant for six months. The man who just fired her yesterday for "poor attitude and lateness."
And now she had apparently married him.
To survive, she did what any Nigerian girl in her situation would do.
She panicked.
"WAKE UP!" she yelled, smacking his shoulder with a nearby pillow.
Dami groaned, his brows twitching. "What the hell…"
"You better tell me this is a dream, Dami! A nightmare! What is this—what did you do?!"
He opened one eye slowly, blinking at her in confusion.
"Williams?"
"Oh, so now you remember my name!"
He sat up halfway, rubbing his temple. "Why are you shouting like a market woman?"
"You mean your wife?" she snapped, waving the marriage certificate in his face. "Or is this how you greet your lawfully wedded wife?!"
He looked at the paper. Then he looked at her. Then he looked at the ring on his own finger.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
"Nope. I wish I was."
There was a long silence. The kind where you can almost hear two reputations dying at once.
Teni grabbed her wig off the floor and paced the room like she was waiting for Rapture.
"Okay. Okay. Maybe we were drugged. Maybe this is just a Vegas joke. You know they do this for tourists, right? Right?"
Dami stood slowly, shirtless and annoyed, like a very angry Greek god. "Teniola, we signed a marriage license. It's legal."
She froze. "You're saying… we're really married?"
He nodded grimly. "Looks like it."
She screamed into her hands. "God, if this is punishment for all those indomie noodles I stole from my roommate in university, I'M SORRY!"
He rubbed his forehead. "Relax. We'll fix this. Get it annulled quietly. No one ever has to know."
But the universe was not done with them yet.
Because right then, his phone rang.
He picked it up, putting it on speaker.
"Dami, it's Mr. Okonkwo," said a voice. "We're so excited to meet your wife this week. You know the investors insisted they want to see your 'stable family life' before finalizing the billion-naira deal. Bring her to dinner Thursday!"
Teni's mouth dropped open.
Wife? Billion naira? What kind of setup is this?
Dami ended the call and looked at her. She looked back.
And then he said the words that would change everything:
"…I think we need to stay married. Just for a little while."
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End Of Chapter One