Chapter 11: Jessica - Forced Marriage to the CEO

Jessica

The penthouse is quiet when I wake. For one disorienting second, I don’t remember where I am. Then I see the charcoal curtains, both already familiar. I’m in Jonathan’s penthouse, now my husband’s penthouse.

It’s been four days since Jonathan’s PR team fielded a response to allegations that I would normally need to handle myself. A very intense twenty minutes seemed to resolve itself under a directed strategy. Jonathan said he would let me know if additional input was needed. Since then, I haven’t heard anything. I expected additional media coverage but so far nothing.

We started going back to living a normal business arrangement with benefits lifestyle. Last night we watched a murder mystery show then paused twenty minutes before the reveal because his mouth had found my neck and neither of us had cared enough to argue about who the killer was. The show is probably still open on the screen this morning, waiting for us to remember we never found out who did it.

I pull the comforter a little higher and let myself smile at the ceiling. This is exactly why I made the rules. There is no reason for emotions to get involved for a twelve-week on paper marriage. I just want sex. There should be no expectations or pretending this is anything more than it is. But after three plus weeks of living like an actual couple instead of two people fulfilling a contract, it’s hard not to imagine a life with Jonathan beyond the contract terms. I told myself I would not do this, but he knows how I like my coffee and he keeps the refrigerator stocked with my favorite yogurt. The penthouse is filled with my favorite lavender scent, and the man kisses like he was sent by the devil himself to personally ruin me.

I remind myself that the last time I believed it was something, I paid for that mistake longer than the relationship itself.

The phone rings before I can think about it any longer. It’s someone from my field team. I answer before the second ring.

It’s an emergency she can’t handle because she’s already on her way to visit someone else. The client is in an emergency room after her recurring nightmare struck again. She needs a follow-up scheduled with her psychiatrist in the afternoon and someone to sit with her while her sister gets a few hours of sleep.

“I’ll come by before nine,” I tell her.

“You don’t have to, Jessica.”

“I know.”

When the call ends, I sit on the edge of the bed for another moment, the penthouse still wrapped in the quiet Jonathan left behind. I remember hearing the front door before dawn. I hadn’t opened my eyes.

Not because I regretted last night, because I didn’t. And that feels considerably more dangerous.

* * *

By the time I pull into Anchor Point’s parking lot, the winter wind has found every gap in my coat. Roxbury is fully awake now. Parents hurry children toward school buses, a city transit groans to a stop across the street, and steam curls from the coffee cart on the corner.

The moment I step through the front door, something inside me settles.

The phones are already ringing. Someone laughs down the hall while the copier protests another paper jam. A volunteer carries two boxes of donated coats toward the family resource room, and somewhere in the back, Darnell is trying, and failing, to convince the ancient coffee maker to cooperate.

This is home. Not the building, but the people. I feel a sense of peace as I walk to my office.

Ten minutes later, Darnell comes to my desk with a paper cup in one hand and a granola bar in the other.

He raises an eyebrow. “Did you have breakfast?”

“Coffee.”

He slides the granola bar across the counter. “I accept payment in gratitude.”

“I’ll be sure to mention that in your annual review.”

“You don’t write my annual review.”

“I absolutely do.”

“You absolutely do not.”

A laugh slips out before I can stop it. It feels good. Familiar. Last night already feels like another life. One that doesn’t belong here between intake forms, emergency vouchers, and people who need practical answers instead of complicated feelings.

Darnell nods toward the hallway. “Max is in Conference Two. He hasn’t said much.”

“I’ll take him.”

Max is staring at the floor when I walk in, a folder of paperwork untouched on the table in front of him. He aged out of foster care eight months ago and has been circling the same problem ever since. An eviction notice, a job that doesn’t pay enough to cover the gap, and pride that makes it hard for him to ask before things get desperate.

“Morning,” I say, taking the chair across from him.

Max doesn’t look up.

“Landlord filed the notice,” he says finally. “I had it under control and I had a plan.”

“I know you did.”

His jaw tightens. “I don’t want a handout.”

“Then it’s not one.” I open my own folder.

We work through the emergency rental assistance paperwork, call the landlord’s office together, and get a temporary hold on the eviction while the funds process. By the time he is ready to leave, Max is carrying a folder of solved problems instead of one unsolvable one.

“Thank you,” he says.

“That’s the job,” I tell him. “Don’t make me chase you down next time.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He leaves, and for a moment I let myself feel the small, steady satisfaction of a morning that made sense.

* * *

I’m halfway through reconciling the emergency assistance ledger when Amy appears in my doorway.

“Jessica?”

I glance up from my laptop. “Everything okay?”

“There’s a reporter here asking to speak with you.”

I frown. Reporters don’t usually come to Anchor Point unless we’re opening a new program or someone wants to highlight a success story.

“What outlet?”

“The Boston Globe.”

That gets my attention.

“She said she’s working on a story involving OncoNova.”

“Did she say what about?”

Amy shakes her head. “Only that she’d appreciate a few minutes of your time.”

I close the spreadsheet and save my work before standing. “I’ll talk to her.”

The reporter stands near reception, dressed in a navy wool coat with a recorder already in her hand. She looks to be in her late thirties, professional enough to know exactly where to wait to give clients space. She offers a practiced smile and an equally practiced handshake.

“Jessica Shaw?”

“Jessica Atwell.” The correction leaves my mouth before I have time to consider it.

She notes the correction and professionally moves on. “Rachel Bennett,” she says. “Thank you for seeing me.”

I lead her to the closest empty conference room and motion towards a chair while I take a seat across the table from her and ask, “What can I do for you?”

She opens her notebook. “I’m looking into questions surrounding OncoNova’s Alzheimer’s trial.”

She’s not accusing but asking questions. This is interesting and unexpected.

“There are concerns,” she continues, “about enrollment practices and whether patients with cognitive impairment are truly able to provide informed consent. Given your work with families facing these illnesses every day, I wondered if you had a perspective.”

The question hangs between us. If I criticize the trial, I lend credibility to a story I know nothing about. If I defend it, I’m no longer speaking as the Executive Director of Anchor Point, I’m speaking as Jonathan’s wife.

It’s a trap with teeth either way I turn, and she knows it, because either answer becomes the story. I fold my hands together in my lap.

“I think vulnerable people deserve the same thing everyone else deserves.”

She waits with her pen hovering over the page.

“But I don’t comment on allegations,” I continue. “I comment on evidence. If someone believes a clinical trial has ethical problems, those concerns should be investigated thoroughly.”

“And if the allegations turn out to be true?” she asks.

“Then they deserve to be exposed.”

“And if they aren’t?” she pushes.

I hold her gaze. “Then every headline built on speculation has consequences.”

She tilts her head slightly. “To the company?”

“To the families.” I add emphatically. Silence settles over the room. “Hope is fragile enough,” I say quietly. “Every careless accusation hurts real people, so I hope you appreciate your responsibility.”

Something shifts behind her eyes. Not quite discomfort but not agreement either. “I do.”

Then she completely changes the subject and catches me off guard, “One more thing, Ms. Atwell. The Meridian Advisory Group has appeared on your internal ledger three times in the last eighteen months under administrative consulting. Can you clarify what they did for Anchor Point?”

I don’t answer her directly, but give her a generic line about annual audits and close the subject, but the name stays there, stuck to the back of my mind.

Rachel studies me for another long moment before closing her notebook. “I appreciate your time.”

She stands, shakes my hand and leaves out the front door while I am left wondering where that last question came from.

* * *

Later that day, Rachel Bennett’s interview is still leaving the skin on the back of my neck crawl a bit. More precisely, her final question is causing a very strange sensation that I can’t shake.

How does she know about the Meridian Advisory Group and that they’ve appeared on our internal ledger three times in the last eighteen months under administrative consulting?

I sit down and open my laptop. The emergency assistance ledger can wait. I pull up the administrative budget archives instead.

I find three payments, spaced over eighteen months. Totaling exactly thirteen thousand eight hundred dollars. The line item says general program consulting.

My finger stays on the trackpad. I don’t remember this company and I didn’t authorize these payments. Darnell didn’t either. The digital signature belongs to the operations coordinator whose position was funded by a foundation grant which has its own reporting requirements and vendors already attached.

I search Meridian Advisory Group. A sleek, minimal website that consists of a single page. Marketing and brand strategy for mission-driven organizations, whatever that means.

I don’t recognize it and I’ve never met with anyone from it. I’ve certainly never approved a scope of work, nor do we have that kind of budget for marketing.

I pull the original invoice from the archive. It’s addressed to Anchor Point, correctly, with our tax ID and our address. But the authorization line does not trace back anyone inside my building.

I don’t have access to the foundation’s internal records. The trail ends at my own doorstep and goes no further. I don’t know what Meridian Advisory Group does, or what thirteen thousand eight hundred dollars buys. I know only that a Globe reporter found this line item so I need to go back to Rachel Bennett to find out how she received this information. More importantly, can she get access to areas I cannot to follow this thread to the originator.

I open a blank document and start writing down everything I do know, in order, dates first. It isn’t much. It isn’t nothing.

I’m three lines in when my phone lights up on the blotter.

A short code text from an unlisted number.

We know the Atwell marriage is a liquidity arrangement. You have until 5 PM tomorrow to comment before we go to print.

The office is completely silent, except for the rhythmic, distant groan of the copier down the hall.

I don’t pick up the phone. I watch the screen until the light times out and goes black.

Something is rotten with this situation, and I don’t have enough to see who is behind it.