Before You Forgot Me
Camila Damien has spent years avoiding Eric Sylvester-the ruthless CEO whose cold reputation precedes him. But when a career-making promotion forces them together on a billion-dollar pharmaceutical project, avoidance becomes impossible. Eric can't shake the feeling that he's seen her before. The mysterious woman in his wallpaper. The missing pieces of a night he can't remember. And now, the brilliant scientist who challenges him at every turn. But Camila is hiding something darker than career ambitions. Three weeks of her life is gone. Stolen by a drugging incident she can't remember and a saboteur she can't identify. As corporate espionage, toxic family ties, and a dangerous conspiracy close in around them, Camila and Eric must decide: trust each other with their carefully guarded hearts, or lose everything, including their lives. In the high-stakes world of pharmaceutical giants, where betrayal comes from those closest to you and the truth is buried in forgotten memories, love might be the most dangerous risk of all.
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Chapter 2
CAMILA
At Camila's Therapy Office,
"Anything you'd like to add?"
Dr. Patel's office was warm, soft lighting, plants in every corner. A safe space.
Camila twisted her hands in her lap. "It's been 2 years. Shouldn't I remember something by now?"
"Memory doesn't work on a schedule." Dr. Patel leaned forward. "But you said you've been having fragments?"
"Yeah...Like a dream. Feels like I remember some things but not everything." Camila swallowed. "And now... I'm working with someone who says we've met before."
"Eric Sylvester." She added.
"You really can't remember if you've met him before?"
Camila nodded.
"Does your body react to him? I mean in anyway?" Dr. Patel asked.
Camila nodded again. Her hands were shaking again.
"What does your instinct tell you?"
"That I need to remember. That whatever I'm forgetting... it's important."
*******One Week Later,
"Uhmm...Camila? You need to see this?! I can't believe this and I'm so happy for you right now." Evie burst into her the office with a letter. Camila was still attending to Richard.
She gave her a glance and sighed. "I'm busy, Evie. You have to come later." She told her and turned back to him. "So, lastly, you need to take the anti-depressant medications to the warehouse for further distribution."
Richard nodded and got up from her seat to the door. Evie immediately took over, facing Camila with a huge grin. She cleared her throat. "Now, it's time to talk about this good news." Evie flaunts the letter across her face.
"What kind of letter is that? Is that for me?" Camila asked, staring at the letter with a frown.
"Oh well. You are going to be proud when you hear this."
"Evie, please. Just tell me."
"Okay, okay, proud one. You've been transferred to the HQ to be the lead biochemical researcher of a new billion-dollar project. I mean, that's the greatest news I've ever heard. Omg! I'm so happy for you!" She started chattering but Camila had tuned out.
HQ? How did she get that kind of a huge transfer and position? Wait...It's not like she's been punished or something? She scoffed. Definitely not!
She snatched the letter from her and read the content. "This isn't good news Evie." She said and Evie who is still chattering suddenly stopped and gave a frown.
"Did you just say something? What isn't good about this letter, Camila? You're still not going to change concerning this proud attitude of yours? Girl, this is golden opportunity and you need to grab it. And also, you're going to be in a room with that Eric, famous billionaire bachelor." Evie's voice took on a strange tone, almost protective? Fond?
Camila frowned. "You say that like you know him."
"Everyone knows him," Evie deflected quickly. "Anyway, you should go!"
With a sigh, "Evie, I'm not going to the headquarter." She got up immediately. "This is worst offer I've ever received. I'm not doing this job. I need to see Mr Dante."
"There goes you, Camila! You can't keep doing this to yourself. Don't you want to get promoted?" She huffed but Camila was already out of her office. "Argh! I do not see anything bad in becoming a lead project blah blah. That's huge money! Wait, does she have a bad past with him that he always avoids that dude? Fuck! That makes me more curious."
Camila knocked at the door and waited for response, before she could let her mind drift apart, a familiar croaky answered. "Come in"
"Good morning, Mr Dante." She bowed slightly at the old looking man in his fifties who was busy reading a fashion magazine. He nodded and adjusted his glass away from his nose.
"What brings you to my office, Mila?" He gave her full attention.
"Well, It's concerning this letter I received. To be a lead researcher on a project. I....I can't do this." She breathed out.
Mr Dante let out a small laugh. He dropped down the magazine. "You're going to reject that offer I find so hard for you? Do you know the exact length I went through just to gain that man's trust that you will do a better job?"
"Sir......This feels like a punishment and you probably wanted to get rid of me and this is a perfect opportunity for you."
"Well, I just gave you a life changing promotion. All i need is thank you. And i see you have that special talent in you that's not supposed to be used here. Use it in a higher place." He returned to his magazine, flipping to the next page.
Reluctantly, she sat down on a couch across the office. "I heard he's ruthless and cold. I do not want to be near to people like him. He's wicked too." She mumbled the last words. Unsure if it's a better way to describe him as a bad jerk.
"The last time I checked, Eric Sylvester is not into mafia. So, I don't see any reason why he should be what you described him just now. Well, maybe if you start your job with him, you might see some good changes in him." Mr Dante shrugged.
"When am i starting?" Camilla asked.
"Well, today's monday so you should go now. He doesn't talk much so I couldn't get much information from him. But I already sent him more information about you to him. He would want you to show up i guess, they have a meeting today."
"Oh....I still haven't decide if I will do this or not. I will get back to you when I...." Mr Dante cut her off.
"You're doing it, Milla. Just do it. It's just until the project is done and I know you are so good at this. That's why I recommended you." He smiled at her. "I do not want to hear anything from you, all you have to do is to go to the HQ now and go show yourself." He flipped another page of the magazine.
Camilla got up with a hiss, mumbling words to herself. She left the letter in the office and walked out.
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9.5
For two years, I lived as a ghost in the Horn manor, a world built on blood money where my every breath was monitored. Fulton Horn, my stepfather’s nephew and the executor of my life, held the golden leash around my neck, forcing me to play the role of his secret mistress while he paraded a socialite as his fiancée.
Everything shattered at a high-society gala when the scent of raw seafood made me vomit at the feet of Fulton’s future bride. The ballroom erupted in whispers of a secret pregnancy, but Fulton’s reaction wasn't concern—it was cold, predatory calculation.
He immediately forced me into a clinical "inspection" to ensure his "merchandise" was sound, then destroyed my only chance at escape by framing my friend in a scandal and blacklisting my credit. He dragged me to his penthouse, ripped my clothes, and told me I was nothing but a "placeholder" for his dead first love, Arlena.
I was drowning in his obsession, forced to model his fiancée’s engagement gown while he claimed he was the only one who could "protect" me.
"You are what I say you are," he whispered, "and you belong where I say you belong."
I didn't understand how he could be so cruel, or why he was so determined to keep me in a cage of secrets. But when I looked closer at the photo of the "original" girl he loved, my blood turned to ice. It wasn't a girl named Arlena. It was a picture of me from six years ago, smiling and unbroken.
I realized then that Fulton hadn't just found a replacement—he had spent years carefully destroying the girl I used to be so he could keep the broken pieces for himself. Reaching for the hidden keycard, I finally made a choice: I would find a way to kill the ghost he loved before he finished killing the woman I had become.
9.5
On the day she discovers she is pregnant, Amara is handed divorce papers by the man she loved for three years. Betrayed by her husband and her best friend, she walks away with nothing-except the secret growing inside her.
But what Ethan Cole doesn't know is that the woman he abandoned is not weak... and not alone.
When Amara returns as a powerful heiress, no longer the woman he could control, Ethan begins to regret everything. But as secrets unravel and the truth about her pregnancy comes closer to light, one question remains-
When he finally finds out the child is his... will it already be too late?
9.6
Haylie waited nervously at the Wall Street charity gala for her boyfriend Bryan, but a spiked drink hit her hard, leaving her stumbling into a VIP lounge.
There, Chester Steele, the ruthless CEO of Steele Industrial, found her—drugged and vulnerable. What started as a frantic claiming in the shadows ended with him whispering she was his.
But moments later, a security alert shattered everything: data breach traced to Haylie's terminal. Chester's fury exploded. He saw her brush past a Logan Group rival on footage and dumped her in the rain, firing her as a corporate spy.
Bryan answered her desperate call with ice: "It's over." Reporters swarmed her door, branding her a traitor. Arrested at the office by FBI agents, she watched smug coworker Erin wave goodbye.
Thrown in a cell, chained and grilled with fake evidence—offshore accounts in her name—Haylie learned the worst: charges now included her sick father, Ernest, framed for laundering the leak money. Plead guilty or he dies in prison.
Innocent and raging, she couldn't fathom who planted it all—the gala bump, the logs, the forgeries. Why her? Who hated her enough to destroy her life?
Chester burst in, posting unlimited bail but forcing her signature on a slave contract: live in his penthouse, serve him 24/7. As she collapsed in his arms, trapped in his gilded cage, Haylie vowed silently—she'd uncover the real traitor and make them pay.
7.7
I trusted the wrong people in my past life.
My supposed lover and my sweet sister conspired against me, locking me inside a burning warehouse to die.
But the man I had spent my life hating, my ruthless captor Damien Sterling, rushed straight into that inferno and burned alive just to try and save me.
In my past life, I was utterly blind. I believed Julian's forged documents and Scarlett's fake affection. I even tried to assassinate Damien with a silver dagger they provided, breaking the heart of the only man who truly loved me. I died choking on thick ash, realizing too late who the real monsters were.
Why was I so incredibly foolish? Why did I let their vicious manipulation turn me into a weapon against the one person who would sacrifice absolutely everything for me?
Opening my eyes again, the phantom smell of smoke vanished.
I was sitting in the bloody water of Damien's bathtub, right after my staged suicide attempt.
When my sister sneaked into my penthouse suite and handed me the dagger to kill him again, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed her hand tightly and plunged the sharp blade directly into my own shoulder.
"Please don't kill me, Scarlett!"
This time, I will ruthlessly ruin them both, and I will never let Damien go.
9.8
When I woke up on the muddy bank of the freezing river, I unlocked a brutal, unfiltered preview of my actual future.
For the past six months, I had been the town's ultimate joke, chasing after a city boy who looked at me like a diseased insect. Everyone thought I jumped into the river because he rejected me.
But the nightmare didn't stop there. In the future I foresaw, my entire family was destroyed. My eldest brother was handcuffed and dragged into a squad car. My second brother died in a pool of blood on the asphalt. My parents passed away from sheer grief and humiliation, and our farm was foreclosed.
Meanwhile, Bart Hawkins—my family's sworn enemy, the boy everyone accused of pushing me, but who actually jumped in to save my life—became a billionaire tech mogul. I ended up starving to death in a damp, moldy basement, completely alone.
I finally understood that I was just a pathetic, tragic side character meant to drag my family into hell. My own sister-in-law, Felicie, had been stealing our food and money, laughing at my misery behind my back.
But right now, my mother was still alive, my brothers were safe, and the farm was ours.
When Felicie walked into my bedroom, playing the devoted sister-in-law with a bowl of clear, meatless broth while a stolen roasted chicken thigh leaked grease through her apron pocket, I didn't play along.
"What's in your pocket, Felicie?"
This time, I was going to tear that horrific future apart with my bare hands.
8.1
I was a top-tier model with a fiancé I trusted to manage every cent I earned. I thought we were building a life together until a blown fuse at the studio sent me home twenty minutes early.
The silence of the penthouse was broken by a trail of clothes: Haywood’s silk tie, then a red-soled stiletto that belonged to Brandy, the girl I had mentored like a sister. Through the bedroom door, I watched the man I loved tell his mistress that I was "yesterday's news" while they tangled in the sheets I had picked out six months ago.
I didn't scream; I just turned to leave, but the betrayal went deeper than the bedroom. When I checked my banking app, my balance was exactly $12.45. Haywood had liquidated every holding account and savings entry I owned, using a "tax strategy" he’d convinced me of to steal my entire past.
Within hours, the man who robbed me was planting stories in the press, claiming I was having a drug-fueled breakdown. He wanted me penniless, homeless, and discredited so no one would believe the truth. He even tried to force me into a "rehab" facility to silence me forever while he promoted his pregnant mistress.
I stood on a New York curb with nothing left but a desperate, insane idea born from a headline on my phone. Isham Rhodes, the most ruthless CEO in the city, needed a wife by thirty to keep his empire, and I needed a shield to survive mine.
"Mr. Rhodes, I hear you need a puppet," I said, intercepting him in the rain outside City Hall. "I don't want your love. I want a legal document that makes me untouchable."
He didn't ask for a romance; he asked for my ID. Now, with a billionaire’s black card in my pocket and a marriage certificate in my hand, I’m going back to the agency to take back everything they stole. The war has just begun.