The Silent Treatment: Catfishing the CEO

Chloe Hastings accompanies her brother to a business dinner and finds herself seated across from Liam Sterling, the Crown Prince of the business world, notorious for his eccentric temper. When she rises to toast him, he scoffs coldly, and her brother urges her to speak. For two years Liam has believed his fiancée is mute, unaware that the quiet woman he keeps beside him is Chloe, who used a false name and never dared to speak for fear of being recognized.

When Liam proposed marriage, Chloe realized he was serious, and her best friend warned that he might only be using her to spite the first love who recently got engaged. Terrified that registering the marriage would expose her real identity, she fled, booking a flight out and resolving to escape before he could learn the truth.

Now, at the dinner, Liam's gaze sweeps over her skirt and he scoffs again, telling her the room is asking about his mute fiancée, and that she has not played mute long enough.