Sweet Romance14 min read
I Rented a CEO for Two Grand — Then Found Out He Was Phoenix Alves
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I woke to sunlight stabbing my eyes and a panic that felt like a stomach punch.
"Where am I?" I croaked, fingers fumbling for the blanket, for my phone, for anything that belonged to me.
A tie lay across the bed, a dark smear of last night’s confusion. My head throbbed like someone was hammering inside. I sat up, heart hammering, and the alarm started to ring in my pocket — a classmate calling, an unmannerly reminder of the noon reunion awaiting me.
"Chiyo? You coming or what?" Her voice, bright and needle-sharp. "Don't chicken out."
"It's only ten," I muttered without looking at the clock.
"Just reminding you. And don't forget your—"
"Hang up."
I slammed the phone down and stared at the man’s tie. I remembered a client dinner, one drink, the dim pressure in my skull, and then nothing. I remembered running, panicked, and then this bed. I had never done this before.
"I can't believe this," I whispered to the empty room.
The memory flooded: a hand, a kiss, helplessness. For a moment I considered calling someone — my grandma, the one bright point in my life — but instead I did the practical thing. I changed, swallowed pain, and went to the reunion.
At the hotel entrance, I spotted them: Zander Fletcher and Clarissa Barr. Zander looked sleek in a designer suit; he still wore that arrogant smirk that used to win hearts at campus mixers.
"Look who crawled out of her hole," Clarissa chirped, peacock bright. "Where's your boyfriend, by the way?"
I felt my hands go cold. My fingers found my phone. I had spent two thousand on a rental boyfriend app — two thousand to rent a "CEO" to stand by my side, to quiet their whispers. The number I had called promised a man who could fake power for an evening, someone who would look real enough to make them stop.
"I hope he remembers to act," I said out loud, and then I did what girls still do when scared: I hoped for the best.
A black Rolls rolled up like a shadow. The door opened and a man — not just pretty, but carved like a statue — stepped out. He wore black. He wore indifference like armor. He had glass-dark sunglasses, an angular jaw, and a height that made my spine straighten.
"You're late," he said in a tone that felt like silk and iron.
"You're the rental," I said, suddenly embarrassed. "The premium—"
"My name is Phoenix Alves," he said. He removed his sunglasses as if revealing something dangerous. His eyes were abyssal, and for a second I thought of last night's tie.
"You look familiar," someone at the entrance muttered.
"Of course he does," Clarissa whispered. "Who didn't see him at the gala last month?"
I swallowed. He slipped his arm out for me to hold, practiced and perfect, and I let the façade settle over my shoulders like a warm coat.
Inside the room, people looked and stopped. Hushed whispers moved. My plan was working, at least on the first pass.
"Is this real?" someone said.
"Act the part, okay? Say you’re pursuing me," I hissed, because old habits die hard and I wanted to be convincing.
"Say what?" Phoenix asked.
I explained. He listened once, twice, and then — when I forced the smile — he gave me a look like a cat amused by a mouse.
"Do the pursuit like this," I coached. "Look indifferent. Then mention a small scandal: you once tried to win my heart."
He nodded, then kissed my hand with a slow, bored elegance that made people blink.
"Mr. Alves," a voice said, "do you mind telling us your occupation?"
"Small business," Phoenix said breezily.
"Really?" Zander snapped. "What small business? Buying the city blocks?"
"Small," Phoenix said and smiled. "I buy people's theatrics."
The room went cold with laughter. Then Zander did what Zander always did: he tried to show off his wallet. He threw money on the table and dared me to do something silly for it.
"Half a million?" someone suggested.
Phoenix smiled, reached into his own case, and laid two closed suitcases on the table. Then he opened them.
They were full of cash. Real cash, stacked, ruthless and unmistakable.
"You made us wait," he said softly to Zander. "Start."
"What?" Zander spluttered.
"Do it," Phoenix said. "One bark from you, five thousand. Two barks, twenty-five thousand. Make it entertaining."
I did not expect what came next.
A wave of greed crashed through the room. People who had sneered suddenly lurched into ridiculousness.
"Do it! Do it!" someone shouted.
"Why not?" Zander snarled. "I'll do it for honor."
He got on the floor with shaking hands, and then — under Phoenix's cool gaze — he barked once like a beaten dog. Five thousand cash flew onto the floor and a boy dove for it like moth to flame. Then others followed. It became a spectacle of humiliation and cash, and I felt glue in my mouth and bile rise in my throat.
I looked at Phoenix. He sat like a monarch and watched. The richer the laughter, the colder his gaze.
"This is a rental job?" someone asked, scandalized.
"No," Phoenix said. "This is a debt."
He tossed a stack of money to a young man who had been the loudest. "Buy some dignity."
The mood shifted into something else: fear.
"Who are you?" someone demanded.
"Someone who does not like people who humiliate others," Phoenix said.
Zander's face twisted like wet clay. He lunged. Two men in sharp suits — Phoenix's silencers — overpowered him and pressed him down. Blood spattered from his nose where a fist had found it.
"How dare you?" Clarissa yelled, outraged and suddenly ugly.
Phoenix rose and placed one foot on Zander's chest, boots parked there like a judge's hammer.
"Tell me what you said about Chiyo," Phoenix said, voice like lightning, and he was ice what the room had expected to warm up as spectacle.
"He said—" Clarissa started.
"He lied," Zander rasped, blood running cold and heavy. "She—"
Phoenix kicked Zander lightly. "Spare me the details. You lose dignity here. You lose money here. Go out the door."
They dragged Zander out. The room broke into murmurs and then into a clamor as phones came out to capture the scene. Phoenix did one more thing. He pointed outward, to the hallway.
"Everyone," he said, voice steady and frightening. "Line up. One minute each. Tell Chiyo what you have to say — with honesty. And then apologize."
People froze. A woman who had laughed the loudest looked like a rabbit in snares. The humiliation she had dished was now only a shade behind what she might receive.
"You're insane," someone muttered.
"Do it," Phoenix said. "Live with the consequences."
They filed past me like shadows. Some sobbed, some lied, some said nothing. The cash remained on the table like a monetary altar. Cameras flashed outside; mouths filmed and recorded.
After the last one left, Phoenix folded his arms. "I am a man of business and of principle," he said to no one in particular. "I invest where there is honor. I do not tolerate predators."
He looked at me, and it felt like being seen plainly for the first time since the city had fallen in on me.
"Why did you do that?" I demanded, voice shaking.
"You needed someone to pull the leash," he said simply. "You also needed to owe me."
I swallowed. "You owe me three thousand for dinner."
"Three thousand," he echoed. "You also owe the world nothing for its cruelty."
It should have ended there. But life had a way of complicating things.
*
The next morning, the office smelled of coffee and stale paper. My manager — Gavin Wallin — a man with a round belly and a face that suggested bad intentions — called me into the office.
"Chiyo," he barked, "that report."
"You checked it last week," I said. "You said it was fine."
He slammed a folder toward me like a verdict. "You are fired. Our company's image suffered. We cannot have you."
"You fired me as punishment for... me not staying at a drink with a client?" I asked, incredulous. "Gavin, I left because I was dizzy. I did not—"
"We cannot have troublemakers," he said, eyes darting like a weasel. "You are done."
I could not believe it. He made a show of cruelty, and in that cruelties he showed his true face.
"You can't—" I started.
He laughed. "You can sue. But who will pay your tuition? Who will give you a place to live? Pack up."
I left like only the defeated leave: numb and brittle. I thought of Grandma's small pension, the loan on the house, the cold unyielding world.
I curled up on the curb and felt sorry for myself until a shadow fell across me.
"You okay?" a voice asked.
I looked up. Phoenix. He stood there as if conjured by my low moment.
"You again," I said.
He crouched. "You're not allowed to be trampled. Get in."
"Get in where?"
"In my car," he said. "I came to find you because I thought... because something told me."
"Why would you think that?"
He smiled like someone who hid storms under smiles. "Because I owe you something."
"Debt collector?"
"Sort of."
We went to a small diner instead of the Rolls. He handed me a paper: a bill in his name. A sum that would have meant prison. He had been accused of misusing company funds. He had pulled two suitcases of cash to prove a point at the reunion — money with consequences. He told me, cool as a knife, "I need to get those funds back, or I go to prison."
"You're in trouble," I said.
"You're in trouble too," he shrugged. "You owe money to my company."
"Excuse me?"
He explained. The rental service — the one I used — had a clause. When you sign the agent’s contract, you agree to reimburse for reputation and scores. Somehow, by the inconvenience of last night, they billed me. Two hundred and fifty thousand. My stomach dropped. He handed me the invoice and I saw zeros like mockery.
"You want me to pay that?" I whispered.
He smiled. "No. I want you to split it."
"Split? Phoenix, I make five grand a month as an intern when I'm lucky."
"Then you find work. You live with me. We pay this debt together. You keep it from your grandmother. Deal?"
I should have said no. I should have told him to go tumble in his Rolls. But temptation and desperation are different currencies. I nodded.
"Fine. But the couch. You sleep on the couch."
He smiled. "Deal."
*
Moving him in was ridiculous. The Rolls wouldn't fit here, and the same face that had dazzled a dining room in a black suit looked ridiculous in my tiny kitchen. He borrowed something from a colleague — his assistant apparently — and parked a borrowed Bentley outside. He insisted the driver take away the boxes of garnish he had ordered for dinner. For a man supposedly penniless, he carried himself like a king who had misplaced his crown.
"You're very odd," my grandma said, fussing with a shawl as he stood polite and quiet.
"Thank you," he said, imperturbable.
That afternoon, two men in uniforms came to the door. Men whose uniforms smelled of paper and rules. They were there to arrest me for assault.
"What?" I said, heart dropping.
"You fought with your manager," one of them said. "We received a report."
I clutched at Phoenix's sleeve. He looked at me, and for the first time his face softened without reserve.
"Let her be," he told the officers. "It was a misunderstanding."
They left, whispering, differences made invisible. Later, I learned that the manager had filed not only for assault but to destroy me. He did not want any loose ends.
I was furious, and at home I could not chew the injustice out of me. I sat and shook while Phoenix paced like a coiled thing.
"You did what," I asked him later, "when they came?"
He shrugged, modest as a storm. "I found their complaint invalid. I spoke to a friend."
"A friend who does favors with arrests?"
He did not answer directly. He kept his secrets like one keeps a weapon.
That night, while I lay, exhausted, the door slammed and a group of men with colored hair and worse intentions broke in. They intended to scare me, to make my nights sleepless. They smashed a shoe cabinet and shoved chairs like violent confetti.
"Who sent you?" I demanded.
Red-headed one — their leader — sneered. "Someone who doesn't like you."
The room smelled of cheap cologne and fear until two men stepped between them and us. One was Azriel Corbett, my childhood friend. He moved like a practiced fighter and shoved back. The other was Phoenix. He was cooler than ice and far more dangerous.
"Get out," Phoenix said quietly.
The leader called a name — Ashton Maldonado. A man they'd hired — a city thug — came in and was handled swiftly. They dragged him away and left him in a posture so humiliating he could write home about it.
That was the start of things. The men came and bowed to my door to apologize with boxes of fruit and rumbling promises. Phoenix ordered them to kneel in the courtyard at dawn and show that they would not threaten us again. They recorded themselves, the city recorded them, and their pride was reduced to a daily humiliation. Cameras recorded their kneeling, and the neighbors filmed, and rumor turned the kneelers into a cautionary tale.
It was Phoenix's style: public, sharp, dramatic, final. He preferred making pain public because the crowd knows how to turn shame into a weapon.
I hated how that made me feel. Safe, yes. But indebted, too.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked one night as we ate together in the small kitchen. He'd tried to cook and nearly burned the place down, but he smiled at his mistakes.
"Because you are stubborn," he answered. "And because you do not owe the world your humiliation."
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that debts could be split into something less lethal. I wanted to believe in the fiction we were living because fiction felt easier than the truth: that I had just invited a stranger into my life and my house, and he had not only taken the couch but the keys to my safety.
*
Work came in small miracles. I went to interview after interview and got rejections like rain. Then IK Group's local branch called. An HR girl asked me to come in. I went like a ghost with a portfolio.
"Why this firm?" a panel asked me.
"Because your work speaks to me," I said, which was true even if it was rehearsed. They liked my student work. They said they would let the boss make the final call.
I left and nearly collided with Phoenix in the elevator.
"You work here?" I blurted.
"No," he said, with a smile, "I was here to apply for the job of security guard."
"Security guard?" I echoed.
"Yes," he said evenly. "Sometimes the title is the armor. Sometimes I like to see people without their crowns. Gives things perspective."
That night, after the interview, I got a call: "Please come to IK headquarters. You are selected for the next round." My throat closed; hope is the most fragile thing.
At home, we cooked. Phoenix tried to be domestic and set the kitchen on fire twice. Azriel came by to help and left irritated. Sometimes he would flash a brotherly glare at Phoenix and mutter something about "keeping your sword in its scabbard." Phoenix just smiled and said nothing.
I tried to work. But trouble had a way of following me. As I left a boutique with a new dress bought — thanks to a friend’s insistence — Clarissa and Zander burst in. I tried to avoid them, but fate is cruel at the edges. Clarissa scoffed and then clutched her belly and collapsed.
"She's pregnant," someone cried, and then everything spiraled. Panic, red flags, ambulances. I found myself in the hospital corridor with Clarissa hooked up to monitors, and Zander whimpering about consequences.
"Make sure she's okay," Phoenix ordered quietly, which was all he ever needed to say.
The ward cleared, doctors moved, the baby was saved, and I watched like someone in a movie seeing a villain unravel. Zander, pale as paper, started to plead. Clarissa held my hand for a second, cold and accusing, even as she smiled at Zander.
"Why did you do that?" I asked her later, voice brittle.
She laughs. "To get you out of my life," she said.
"You almost killed your child so you could be cruel," I said. "You are terrible."
She scowled and then sobbed, tiny and furious. I hated how complicated people could be.
Phoenix stood there, then, like a pillar, calm and implacable.
"You did a cruel thing," he told her simply. "If you want to be forgiven, start owning what you did."
She looked at him as if he'd insulted a royal. I did something I hadn't done in years: I stood up for myself.
"Don't speak to her like that," I said.
He faced me. "You are not alone, Chiyo," he said. "You have people. You should accept them."
I did not know whether to kiss him or kick him. Instead I walked away.
*
As the days became weeks, I worked mornings that bled into afternoons to earn money. I took odd jobs, lent my sketchbooks to small boutiques, drank two cups of coffee a day instead of three and ate thinner meals. Phoenix showed me things I had never seen — how to dress with a scarf, how to fold a shirt to make it look like a million dollars, how to speak like a grown woman.
We fell into a strange pattern: debt collectors and dinners, public punishments and gentle dinners. He could be cruel and tender on the same breath. He taught me to stand up when provoked and to tilt my chin with a certain dangerous friendliness.
"Do you like me?" I asked one night.
He looked at me and smiled, not saying yes. "Do you like being safe?"
"Yes," I said.
"Do not give your life away for anyone."
I meant to say more, but the world called and the furniture of our days collapsed into routine. I could count the heartbeats of my life like lit coins.
Then one night everything changed.
I fell asleep on the couch and woke to hands on me. A man with a mask and a purpose tried to break in. He had a knife. He pushed me against the bed and said things that made my skin crawl.
"Help!" I tried to scream. He covered my mouth and mocked me.
A voice came like a thunderclap. Phoenix. He burst into the room and broke the man's bones like twigs. He was not polite. He was brutal and precise. He dragged the man away, and left him breathing and broken.
He came back and sat on the bed like a man whose hunger had been fed.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I thought I was going to die," I said. The tears came freely. "I thought—"
He wrapped me in his arms and I let him. He stayed with me the whole night. I slept.
Slowly, the city settled around us. I fought to get hired at IK's design wing. I went back to interviews and kept my portfolio like an exposed nerve. Phoenix quietly put his weight behind me. Arturo Daniels, the company's founder — a tall man with an old-world charm — called and asked me to show my pieces again.
"You're talented," Arturo told me. "Do not let your fear outweigh your skill."
When they offered me a position — a trainee in design — I cried in the bathroom like a schoolchild, and Phoenix laughed, which made me more human than any of his suit-and-tie gestures had ever done.
"You're going to be fine," he said, clapping me on the back.
Things changed, but the bad kept its teeth. Gavin's misdeeds came to light. Someone in my company had been selling access and hiding behind managerial skirts. Phoenix quietly gathered evidence and presented it in a way that made the whole office burn. Gavin was exposed. He was called out, labeled, and pushed into a corner where men like him shrank.
He tried to sue me for supposed damages. Instead, we confronted him in the public square of the office: in the conference room where the staff gathered to watch him fall. We led him, step by mortifying step, through his lies. People recorded. The HR man who had laughed at me now found himself naked in front of a crowd.
"Why did you lie?" Phoenix asked him calmly.
"You—" He sputtered.
"Because you could," I answered. "Because you thought I wouldn't push back."
Faces in the room changed from boredom to hunger for drama. Phones rose like a tide. Gavin's expressions cascaded: at first incredulous, then angry, then denial, then collapse. When he begged, the entire room heard him. The humiliation was full and public. The company's staff, the interns, the vendors — all of us watched as the manager's confidence crumbled.
"This is not a courtroom," Phoenix declared. "But it is a place where the truth is seen. You used your power to harm. Accept the consequence."
Gavin's reaction moved from fury to bargaining to silence. The junior staff that had once hung on his word now filmed his fall. A chorus of whispers followed him out the door. He left empty-handed and with his reputation shredded.
The humiliation was not bloodless. It was a necessary cleansing. It was public. It hurt. It kept him from doing the same to anyone else.
That was the pattern I came to accept: Phoenix would protect me and demand reparation; I would learn and repay in kind. My life, which had once been a string of small, careful missteps, began to have a spine. When I got my first paycheck, the numbers felt strange, like a language I was only beginning to understand.
I paid Phoenix back a part. He took it with a smile and a phrase: "You never owed me what they took. Only what you owed yourself."
When I looked at him, something unfamiliar uncoiled inside me: warmth, fierce and quietly hopeful. He taught me to wear my head like armor and my heart like a small, dangerous thing.
There were still messy nights and people who wanted to push us apart. Zander tried to lure people into gossip, Clarissa tried to play victim when she was not, and Gavin's allies tried to make trouble. But the pattern remained: we faced it, publicly, and watched as the city's jury decided every time to side with dignity.
At night, Phoenix would make me soups and force me to rest. He would sit and watch me sleep with a softness that surprised me. Once, when the city was loud and cruel, he held my hand and said, "You are allowed to keep some part of your life just for yourself."
I don't know how this will end. I don't know if Phoenix will always be my protector or my debt. I don't know if the city will be kind. But I have learned to stand when someone tries to push me down.
"Will you stay?" I asked him once, trembling.
He looked at me, eyes like a map of storms. "For now," he said. "Until you can stand alone. Then I'll leave if you ask."
"Promise?" My voice was small.
He smiled, the kind that both heals and wounds. "No promises," he said, then kissed my forehead and left, because people like him make rules of their own.
I stopped pretending to be anything but myself. I worked, I drew, I lived. And through it all, when the world tried to shape me back into something small, Phoenix stood in the doorway and said no.
The End
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