"Why did you take so long to pick up?!" the woman’s voice boomed from the phone’s speaker. The voice belonged to Meredith English, the notoriously ruthless Executive Producer of the morning talk show.

"Zoe Chen, I swear to God!" Meredith shrieked, her rage echoing in the quiet cabin. "Do you think you and your little actress can just waltz in late because she married Damien Sinclair?! I am pulling the segment! You are both officially blacklisted from this network! Do not even bother pulling into the lot!"

Zoe squeezed her eyes shut in the backseat, paralyzed by the sheer volume of the screaming. Aria gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white.

Damien sat in the passenger seat, his expression perfectly blank. He didn’t interrupt her. He just let her scream until she finally ran out of breath, leaving only a panting static on the line.

When the silence settled, Damien finally spoke.

"Are you finished?" Damien asked.

His voice was a low, smooth, glacial baritone that carried the weight of a man who could buy and sell her entire bloodline before lunch.

There was dead silence on the other end of the line.

Of course, she knew who was speaking. Anyone who operated in the upper echelons of New York media knew the voice of the Demon King.

"M-Mr. Sinclair?" Meredith stammered. The venomous, untouchable television producer was instantly reduced to a stuttering, terrified mess. "I... I had no idea you were on the line. I thought I was speaking to Ms. Chen."

"You are speaking to me," Damien responded smoothly. "And you were screaming at my wife’s publicist."

"Mr. Sinclair, please understand," Meredith babbled, stumbling over her words in a frantic backpedal. "We are on a very strict live broadcast schedule! It is two minutes past nine! The segment is already ruined! I was just trying to calmly explain that it is too late for your wife to—"

"I am not interested in what you cannot do," Damien interrupted, his tone flat. "I will tell you what you will do."

Meredith’s mouth snapped shut.

"As compensation for the slight inconvenience caused by my wife’s tardiness," Damien continued, looking casually out the windshield, "I will make a guest appearance on your show alongside her."

Aria’s jaw unhinged. Zoe nearly choked on her own spit in the backseat.

On the other end of the line, Meredith wasn’t sure if she was having a stroke or winning the lottery. Damien Sinclair on her morning talk show?! He notoriously despised the media! He never did live daytime television! Having the Demon King of New York sit on her sofa would shatter daytime syndication records. It would put her show so impossibly high above the rival networks they would be entirely out of reach!

"Y-Yes! Absolutely!" Meredith gasped, salivating over the ratings boost. "We would be incredibly honored, Mr. Sinclair! I am texting the PR team right now to blast the announcement! We will clear the next segment entirely!"

"Excellent," Damien said. "And while you are typing that message, you can also hand off your formal resignation to the network president."

The blood instantly drained from Meredith’s face.

The silence that followed was so profound it felt like the line had disconnected.

"I’m... I’m sorry?" Meredith whispered, desperately hoping she had misheard him, or that he was somehow joking.

"My wife can be late because she is Mrs. Sinclair," Damien explained calmly, his golden eyes narrowing. "Similarly to how you can lose your entire career for daring to forget your place in my world."

"Mr. Sinclair, wait! Please! I was just doing my job! Please don’t—"

Damien abruptly ended the call, cutting her off mid-plea. He handed the phone back over his shoulder to Zoe in the backseat.

Zoe took the phone with trembling fingers. She and Aria were utterly awestruck.

Damien just settled back into his seat, adjusting his cuffs, staring straight ahead as if he hadn’t just effortlessly destroyed a woman’s entire livelihood over the phone.

The gridlock in front of them finally began to ease up, the traffic crawling forward.

Aria couldn’t hold it back.

She threw the Maserati into park at a red light and lunged across the center console. The seatbelt locked, violently yanking her back, but she fought the nylon strap, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders and showering his face in hot kisses.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Aria cheered, pressing her lips to his cheek, his jaw, and finally his mouth. "You saved my career yet again!"

She pulled back just enough to look at him, a wide, breathtaking smile on her face as she playfully scolded him.

"You really didn’t have to force that woman to quit her job, though!" Aria laughed. "That was so mean!"

"I cannot allow people to think they can bully you behind my back," Damien stated, his hands coming up to grip her waist, entirely unapologetic.

"I know, but I don’t want people to fear me too much," Aria reasoned softly, running her thumb over his collarbone. "It makes the work environment stiff and uncomfortable. I can handle the bullies too, you know."

Damien stared into her emerald eyes. He hated the idea of anyone speaking to her with anything less than absolute reverence, but he also knew she wasn’t a fragile doll.

"Fine," Damien conceded. "But as long as I am present, no one will offend you and get away with it."

Aria’s heart swelled with affection. She leaned in for one more quick kiss just as the light turned green.

In the backseat, Zoe was swooning.

’She is the ultimate nepo wife,’ Zoe thought, clutching her phone to her chest.

Zoe remembered when Aria would passionately argue about refusing to use Damien’s influence to reach stardom faster. Aria had always firmly insisted on "opening her own doors."

But Zoe also knew the reality of the industry. Whether Aria liked it or not, everyone in the entertainment industry knew she was Damien Sinclair’s wife. No casting director, producer, or studio head was ever going to say ’no’ to her, even if they couldn’t hide their personal dislike for her. The Sinclair name was a universal skeleton key.

Zoe smiled to herself. ’Aria probably knew all along that she had never, and will never, truly open her own doors while being his wife. Maybe she’s self-aware of her own delusion? Either way, she works harder than anyone else I know.’ Aria took her career incredibly seriously. She was always the first on set and the last to leave. She was going to ensure that, nepotism or not, no one would ever be able to call her an untalented, lazy hack.

The traffic cleared, and the Maserati roared down the final avenue, finally pulling into the VIP parking lot of the television studio.

The dashboard clock glowed: 9:10 AM.

Aria killed the engine and threw her door open. She stepped out onto the asphalt, the heat burning through the soles of her feet.

Before she could even take a step, a colorfully dressed, frantic man burst through the automatic glass doors of the studio lobby.

It was Coco.

He was wearing head-to-toe neon Balenciaga, sprinting across the pavement like a gazelle.

"MY MUSE!" Coco shrieked, tears flying from his eyes as he collided with Aria, engulfing her in a suffocating hug.

"Coco! I can’t breathe!" Aria laughed, hugging her stylist back.

"You almost died!" Coco sobbed, burying his face in her shoulder. "I haven’t slept in a week! I thought I was going to have to style your corpse for an open-casket funeral!"

"Sorry for making you worry," Aria soothed, patting his back.

Then Coco suddenly pulled back. He looked down at Aria’s bare feet.

"Why are you barefoot?!" Coco shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at her toes. "On hot asphalt?! Are you out of your mind?!"

"I left my shoes in the rush to get here," Aria sighed.

"You are ruining the softness of your soles!" Coco scolded, grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her toward the glass doors. "What if the acting thing doesn’t work out?! Huh? And your husband leaves you? What if you have to pivot to OnlyFeet one day?! You are destroying your backup assets! What am I going to do with you?"

Aria laughed as Coco hauled her inside the building.

Zoe scrambled out of the backseat, grabbing the garment bag and sprinting after them. "Wait for me!"

Damien finally stepped out of the passenger side of the Maserati.

He stood up, adjusting his trousers. The ache in his crotch had pretty much faded into a dull memory.

He pulled a pair of dark Tom Ford sunglasses from his breast pocket and slid them onto his face. He leaned casually back against the sleek, midnight-black hood of the sports car, pulling a silver lighter and a cigarette from his pocket.

He lit the cigarette, inhaling the smoke deep as he let the quiet of the parking lot wash over him.

But he wasn’t relaxing.

From behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses, Damien was staring dead ahead.

Parked discreetly across the busy four-lane road, tucked halfway into an alleyway, was a banged-up, grey sedan. It had been there when they pulled in. It had been three cars behind them through the gridlock. Even through Aria’s chaotic driving, it managed to keep up.

Damien just stood there, smoking his cigarette, his cold gaze locked onto the windshield of the sedan.

For thirty tense seconds, it was a silent stare-down between Damien and the shadow across the street.

Finally, the driver in the sedan must have realized that Damien was staring right at him.

The sedan’s brake lights flared. The car threw itself into reverse, whipping out of the alleyway and speeding off into the traffic.