When Emilia Bäcker walked through the doors of Halstein Innovations on her first day of work, no one suspected that she was married to the company’s founder and CEO. That was by design. For three years, her relationship with Niklas Halstein had existed in the public eye only as a faint mention in outdated society columns and in a handful of carefully suppressed corporate rumors. For eleven months, they had been separated in every sense except legally, and during that time, Niklas had become a distant figure whose image appeared more often in business publications than at their shared dinner table.
Emilia had cut her hair to shoulder length, dyed her usual honey blonde a cool chestnut brown, traded her silk dresses for simple business trousers, and reverted to her maiden name: Emilia Bach. Through a recruitment agency, she secured a temporary position in the operations department of Niklas’s company, without ever approaching the executive suite. She wasn’t there to reconcile—she wanted answers. The rumors had been enough—about Niklas’s endless late nights, about a secretary who acted less like an employee and more like an aristocrat, about signatures on documents that moved money around in mysterious ways. Niklas stopped giving her direct answers. So she decided to slip unnoticed into his world.
For two weeks, Emilia studied the office’s rhythm. She stayed in the background, worked efficiently, and spoke little. She noticed how the employees visibly froze whenever Vanessa Kohl, Niklas’s chief secretary, strode down the hall in her elegant cream-colored blouses and impossible heels. Vanessa moved with the certainty of someone who believed that the building—and everyone in it—belonged to her.
By Friday, Emilia had observed even more. Vanessa was constantly near Niklas’s office, guarding his door, correcting assistants, and interrupting his thoughts in meetings where she had no business being. People joked quietly about it. “She knows what he’s thinking before he even knows it himself,” murmured one analyst. “Like a wife,” added another, then laughed too quickly.
During the lunch break, the kitchen buzzed with noise and conversation. Emilia stood at the counter, scrolling through emails while she waited for the microwave to heat up. At the far end, a glass of water sat next to a leather folder embossed with N.H. She immediately recognized it as Niklas’s. She also knew he never used the staff kitchen. Vanessa must have brought it while preparing for his afternoon board meeting.
Emilia looked at the glass for a single, conscious moment. Then, almost casually, as if it meant nothing at all, she picked it up and drank.
The room fell silent. A chair scraped sharply across the tiles. Vanessa rushed forward, her eyes flashing, and before anyone could react, her hand struck Emilia’s face. The thud echoed through the kitchen.
“You dare drink my husband’s water?” Vanessa snapped at her.
Emilia’s head snapped sideways from the impact, her cheek burning. Around her, the employees froze in shock. Slowly, she turned back to Vanessa, a pale red mark appearing on her skin, and asked in a voice so calm it unsettled everyone: “Your husband?”
Vanessa lifted her chin, breathing rapidly, angry yet triumphant. “Yes. Mine.”
Emilia set the glass down with careful precision. A deep, sharp male voice boomed from the doorway behind Vanessa. “What exactly is going on here?”
Niklas had arrived just in time to hear everything. No one moved. He stood in the doorway in his dark blue suit, one hand still on the frame, disbelief etched on his face. His gaze shifted from Vanessa to Emilia, then to the glass of water between them as if examining it as a piece of evidence.
Vanessa was the first to recover. She turned quickly, her anger transforming into controlled shock. “Niklas, that employee was disrespectful. She helped herself to your lunch, touched your things, and—”
“Touched your things?” Emilia repeated, touching her burning cheek. “And you get a slap for that?”
Niklas’s eyes narrowed as he stepped forward. “Vanessa, did you hit her?”
Vanessa hesitated. In that pause, the room understood more than the slap itself had revealed. She had expected immediate support. Now she realized something had gone wrong.
“She provoked me,” Vanessa finally said. “Everyone knows how close we are. She mocked me.”
Emilia let out a short, humorless laugh. “Close enough to call you his wife?”
Niklas’s jaw tightened. “Vanessa. My office. Now.”
Vanessa went pale. “Niklas—”
“Now.”
He didn’t raise his voice, which only made the order sharper. Vanessa walked past him, her shoulders stiff, while every employee avoided looking at her.
Niklas remained where he was. For a moment, he didn’t look at Emilia like a stranger. His gaze lingered too long, searching her face for anything resembling alarm.
“Ms. Bach,” he said cautiously, using her working name, “are you injured?”
Emilia met his gaze. There it was—a brief flicker of recognition. Not certainty, but instinct. She had once known every nuance of his voice. Now she heard caution, unease, and the first crack in the structure he had built around his life.
“I’ll survive,” she said.
The HR department arrived within minutes, nervous and pale. Statements were taken. Witnesses were separated. Vanessa insisted that Emilia had orchestrated the whole thing to humiliate her. Emilia answered every question precisely, without revealing her identity. But before she left the meeting room, she added a sentence that changed the entire investigation.
“Perhaps you should investigate why a senior secretary believes she has the right to publicly identify herself as Ms. Halstein.”
That afternoon, rumors were swirling in the office. At 3:30, Emilia received a message from upper management instructing her to report to meeting room C at 5:30 p.m. She arrived early.
Niklas was already there, standing by the window overlooking the Frankfurt skyline, his sleeves rolled up, his tie slightly loosened—a rare sign of stress. He turned as the door clicked shut.
“It’s you,” he said.
Emilia leaned against the door without answering.
Niklas exhaled slowly. “I knew something seemed familiar, but I didn’t expect—” He paused. “What are you doing here?”
“Working,” Emilia replied. “Apparently, your company hires efficiently.”
His expression hardened. “Don’t play games with me.”
Her laughter was colder this time. “Games? Niklas, your secretary slapped me in front of half the staff and called you her husband. If anyone’s playing games here, it’s not me.”
He remained silent.
Emilia stepped closer. “I came because I heard things. About your company. About money flowing through shell companies. About your inner circle excluding the experienced finance department. About Vanessa acting like she owns the place.”
She remained standing at the table. “I wanted to see if you were incompetent, susceptible to blackmail, or unfaithful. I haven’t ruled anything out yet.”
His eyes flashed. “I’m not having an affair with Vanessa.”
“But you’re letting her act as if she can claim you publicly?”
“I didn’t know she was doing that.”
“Then you’ve lost control of your own office.”
That stung.
