Between Heartbeats
Celeste Moreau vanished from CEO Jae-won Choi's world three years ago, stealing critical research and a secret: his daughter.
When their child falls ill, Celeste is forced to return to Seoul and strike a desperate deal with the man she betrayed: her medical expertise for their daughter's life. Trapped in his corporate fortress, their past becomes a volatile war of bitter resentment and forbidden attraction.
As corporate sabotage threatens everything, Celeste must decide if the secret she protects is her greatest curse or her only remaining power, and if the man who wants to destroy her is the only one who can save their child.
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Chapter 2
CELESTE
The specialist's office was too bright.
Everything gleamed-white walls, white floors, white lights that buzzed overhead like angry insects. I sat in a chair that was supposed to be comfortable but felt like sitting on knives. Luna colored in the corner, humming to herself, completely unaware that my entire world was ending.
Dr. Beaumont adjusted his glasses and looked at me with eyes that had delivered bad news too many times. "Madame Moreau, the tests have come back."
My hands gripped the armrests. "And?"
He cleared his throat, opening a manila folder thick with papers covered in numbers and terms I already understood. My father had made sure I could read medical literature before I learned to ride a bike.
"Your daughter has what we call Progressive Degenerative Myelinopathy." He said each word slowly, carefully, like they might shatter if he spoke too fast.
The words hit me anyway. Crashed into my chest and exploded.
Progressive. Degenerative. Myelinopathy.
My brilliant mind-the mind my father had trained, had molded, had destroyed-raced through every medical journal I'd ever read. Ultra-rare. Maybe fifty cases worldwide. Terminal. The myelin sheath around the nerves breaking down, piece by piece, until...
"How long?" My voice didn't sound like mine.
Dr. Beaumont shifted in his seat. "Without treatment, eighteen months. Perhaps two years. The progression varies, but ultimately, the neurological damage becomes-"
"I know what it becomes." I cut him off, my nails digging into the leather armrests. "What are the treatment options?"
He hesitated. That hesitation told me everything.
"The standard treatments are palliative. We can manage symptoms, make her comfortable-"
"No." The word came out sharp as broken glass. "There has to be something else. Gene therapy. CRISPR. Something."
Luna looked up from her coloring. "Maman? Why are you angry?"
I forced my face into something that might pass for a smile. "I'm not angry, mon cœur. Keep coloring. Your butterfly is beautiful."
She smiled and went back to her crayons, and I wanted to scream.
Dr. Beaumont leaned forward, his voice dropping. "There is one option. Experimental. Very experimental."
My heart stopped, then started again, too fast. "Tell me."
"A gene therapy trial. VX-7. The early data is remarkable-truly remarkable. Three patients in the trial are showing significant improvement. Regeneration of myelin tissue. Reversal of symptoms." He paused, and I could see him choosing his words. "It's not approved yet. The trial is highly selective. But it's the only real hope for a condition like this."
"Where?" I was already standing. "Where is the trial?"
"Seoul." He said it quietly, like he knew what that word would do to me. "At Choi Pharmaceuticals."
The name hit me like a fist to the throat.
Choi Pharmaceuticals.
The room tilted. The bright lights blurred. I reached for the desk to steady myself, but my hand found only air.
"Madame Moreau, are you alright?" Dr. Beaumont stood, concerned.
"I'm fine." I wasn't fine. I would never be fine again. "Seoul. You're sure?"
"Yes. It's the primary trial site. Dr. Choi himself is overseeing the research. If you'd like, I can provide you with contact information-"
"No." The word came out too loud. Luna looked up again, her eyes wide. "No, thank you. I'll... I'll handle it myself."
I grabbed Luna's hand and pulled her toward the door.
"Maman, my picture-"
"We'll finish it at home."
The hallway was sterile and cold, but at least it wasn't bright. I leaned against the wall, trying to breathe, trying to think, trying to do anything but fall apart.
Seoul. Choi Pharmaceuticals. Jae-won.
Luna tugged at my sleeve. "Maman, you're scaring me."
I knelt down and pulled her into my arms, holding her so tight she squeaked. "I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry. Everything's going to be okay."
"Promise?"
I couldn't promise. I couldn't lie to her face. So I just held her and said nothing.
That night, after Luna fell asleep, I sat in the dark apartment with my laptop. My hands shook as I opened files I'd sworn I would never open again. Encrypted drives buried under layers of security. Research data. Formulas. Notes in my father's handwriting that I'd stolen the night the lab burned.
The work he'd died protecting.
The work Jae-won had killed for.
I opened a secure messaging app I hadn't touched in three years. The cursor blinked at me, waiting. Mocking me.
I typed with fingers that felt like they belonged to someone else.
It's Celeste. I have what you want. I need access to the VX-7 trial. I will trade.
I stared at the message for a long time. Once I sent it, there was no going back. No more running. No more hiding. I would be walking straight into the lion's den, offering myself up, offering everything.
For Luna.
Always for Luna.
I hit send.
The message disappeared into the encrypted void, and I closed the laptop. My hands were still shaking. My whole body was shaking.
– – –
In Seoul, in a glass tower that touched the clouds, Jae-won Choi sat in a board meeting. Twenty executives around a table, discussing quarterly projections and market expansions. Numbers on screens. Money and power and all the things he'd built his empire on.
His phone buzzed.
He glanced at it, and the entire room seemed to feel the shift. The temperature dropped. His jaw tightened. His eyes-those dark, dangerous eyes-went cold.
The executives kept talking, oblivious.
Jae-won opened the encrypted message. Read it once. Twice. His thumb hovered over the screen.
Then he typed a single word.
Come.
He set the phone down and looked up at the room full of people who thought they knew him. Who thought they understood what he was capable of.
They had no idea.
"Gentlemen," he said, his voice smooth as poisoned honey. "We're done here."
They filed out, confused, and Jae-won stood alone at the window, looking out at the city he owned.
After three years of silence.
Three years of searching.
She was coming back to him.
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7.7
CONTENT WARNING ⚠️🔞
This book is strictly for a mature audience only. Reader's discretion is advised.
On her eighteenth birthday, Sabrina's life is stolen from her. She was sold into marriage to Scott Wendell, a ruthless and powerful billionaire more than twice her age. A man she's never met. A man who claimed her as payment for a debt she never owed
But the real problem wasn't the vows she took or the marriage document she signed.
It's his son. The revelation that Ace Wendell, the one boy in school that she's always fantasized about, the boy she's secretly loved from afar, is now her stepson.
Now living under the same roof, Sabrina finds herself torn between duty to her marriage and the dangerous pull toward the stepson who has wanted her just as desperately.
7.2
I didn't hear it from my mother or from family... I saw it online, just like everyone else. A headline, a picture, a ring on her finger. And the man standing beside her? Philip Davenport. Billionaire. CEO. Untouchable. The kind of man who takes what he wants and keeps it. Including my mother.
I was supposed to hate him-the man who replaced my father, the man I swore I'd destroy. So I made a plan: get close, get under his skin, make him want me... then watch everything fall apart. It was simple.
Until he looked at me like I was the only woman in the room. Until his touch lingered longer than it should. Until every glance, every word, every moment started to feel like something I couldn't control.
Now I'm caught in a dangerous game of desire and deception, where the lines I drew are slowly disappearing. The closer I get to him, the harder it is to remember why I started. My mother trusts me, my boyfriend loves me, and the man I was supposed to ruin is becoming the one I can't resist, and every step I take only pulls me deeper into something I was never meant to feel.
I wanted revenge. What I got instead was something far more dangerous. And now? I might lose everything. Because falling for my mom's fiancé was never the plan. And if I'm not careful, I won't just lose the game... I'll lose myself.
9.8
They say when life throws you a lemon, you should turn it to a lemonade, even though some things weren't just intentional.
"For the next three years, you will work under my son, Anthony. You will obey him unconditionally and assist him in developing the first humanoid robots. It's all stated in the contract."
Melissa, a brilliant first-class robotics engineer, signs a binding contract to save her only sister who urgently needs surgery. Not only must she work for Anthony-the arrogant CEO of the Morgan Group-but she must also marry him.
Throughout the contract, Anthony treats her like a lowlife, belittling her at every opportunity and even stealing credit for her achievements, convinced she would never dare to leave. But as the three years draw to a close, her supposed knight in shining armor, Josh, shows up as he promised.
Will Melissa walk away from Anthony, reclaim her freedom, and rekindle the spark with Josh? Or will Anthony realize too late just how much he stands to lose when the countdown to their divorce begins?
And what if there was more to the accident that left Melissa's sister in need of surgery-and forced Melissa into this contract?
If you want to feel first hand what it means for a lady to possess her possession, then get over here!
8.8
I was the despised adopted daughter of the Sanders family, hiding behind heavy gothic makeup and enduring their daily disgust.
The day my adoptive father died in a severe car crash, my adoptive mother and stepsister didn't even bother to call me.
Instead, while his body was still warm, my mother filed a multi-million dollar life insurance claim.
"I am not feeding a useless freak for another day. Pack your trash and get out."
She kicked me out into the freezing rain, but that wasn't the worst of it.
My stepsister Cornelia stole my greatest secret. Five years ago, I saved the life of Fidel Vaughan, a ruthless billionaire heir, from a burning estate.
Cornelia claimed my identity, accepted a million-dollar reward, and secured a marriage proposal from him, burning my only proof to ashes.
They thought I was just a helpless, pathetic high schooler they could discard and replace.
But when I hacked the police files, I discovered my father's crash wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit, and the Vaughan Group had hijacked the traffic cameras to cover it up.
I washed off the ugly black makeup, shedding the disguise of a pathetic outcast.
I am Spectre, the world's most elusive hacker and underground doctor.
I intercepted the billionaire heir's heavily armed convoy in the dead of night. They thought they could steal my life and murder my father, but now, I hold the needle that controls Fidel Vaughan's sanity, and I will make them all pay.
8.4
The night her father is arrested outside their Manhattan townhouse, Amara Bennett's world collapses under flashing cameras and whispered accusations.
Behind the chaos stands one man.
Damian Wolfe.
New York's most feared billionaire CEO - ruthless, controlled, untouchable.
Years ago, Amara's father betrayed him.
Now Damian wants revenge.
He offers her a deal:
Marry him for one year.
Play the perfect wife.
And he will make her father's charges disappear.
It's supposed to be punishment.
A calculated humiliation.
But inside his glass penthouse high above Manhattan, hatred begins to blur into desire.
And when Amara uncovers a secret that proves her father may have been framed, she realizes she didn't just marry her enemy...
She married a man who might destroy everything she loves.
Because in New York, power is everything.
And love is the most dangerous weakness of all.
8.7
I was pregnant with the future heir of the Blackwood Pack, but my fated mate, Alpha Gavin, was nowhere to be found when sharp, tearing agony ripped through my swollen belly.
Instead of rushing to my side, he was in a luxury penthouse with his mistress, Piper.
When I desperately called his human number for help, it was Piper who answered the phone.
"I'm Piper. His future Luna."
Minutes later, I received a leaked audio file of Gavin promising to formally reject me the moment our pup was born.
Before the heartbreak could even set in, my armored SUV was violently rammed off the road by a massive truck.
It wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit paid for by Piper's pack.
I woke up in the clinic with an empty womb. My pup was dead.
Gavin didn't even show up. He just mind-linked the butler to say he was "too busy" to deal with my loss.
He let his mistress murder our child and treated me like disposable trash, assuming my grief would make me a weak, compliant victim.
He thought he could just bury my trauma and move on with his perfect new life.
He was wrong.
I faked my own death in a fiery crash, leaving him with nothing but my signed rejection papers and the bloody receipt proving his mistress hired the killers.
Now, armed with a new identity and untraceable wealth, I am stepping out of the shadows.
I am going to bankrupt their packs from the inside out and make my former Alpha watch his empire burn.