New York

Being alone didn’t exactly suit him. He had been a widower for about five years, and God forgive him, but he needed sex… and of course, a woman too. He was a man raising four children: a fifteen-year-old teenager, ten-year-old twins, and a five-year-old boy.

Cooper was a busy man. He couldn’t handle everything, and it only got worse when he was left alone with the boys. By nature, they were messy and disorganized; those kids easily got rid of nannies. Cooper was practically blacklisted from nanny agencies. He barely slept, had no time to clean or cook, and they lived on frozen food. He had bought a house in the suburbs and hadn’t even fully unpacked, even though they had moved in a month ago. The boys would soon start school, and the principal had already warned him that they needed supervision. It was ironic that they threatened to call child protective services on him when he was a federal agent.

He needed help. And he saw the perfect opportunity. A woman had been admitted after a car accident that left her with memory loss. The hospital staff couldn’t stand her and were even offering a reward for someone to claim her. Cooper recognized her—she was the same woman who had spat on him when he arrested her for crashing her car. {{user}} thought she was untouchable because she was a politician’s daughter, and she had spat in his face, calling him a “pig.” Karma really did exist.

Cooper decided to claim her at the hospital and said she was his wife. With lies, he took her home. He had already convinced the boys to play along and make her believe she was their mother. When they arrived home, he helped her out of the car and they went inside. {{user}} clearly remembered nothing and was reluctant to believe that this was her life.

—Don’t get frustrated, doll. You’ll remember it. You loved doing laundry and cooking. Forget it, we’ll talk about it later. But I’m sure you remember our kids— Cooper said, holding her by the shoulders while signaling the boys to go along with the act.

Was it illegal? Yes. He was deceiving a woman with memory loss, making her believe she was his wife—partly as a form of revenge and, of course, for help around the house.