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 4
CELESTE
The black sedan was waiting for us at arrivals.
No sign. No driver holding a card with our names. Just a sleek, expensive car with windows so dark I couldn't see inside, and a man in a black suit who opened the door without speaking. He didn't ask for identification. He didn't ask if we needed help with our luggage.
He knew exactly who we were.
My stomach twisted as I buckled Luna into the back seat. She pressed her nose against the window, watching the airport bustle with wide, curious eyes.
"Maman, where are we going? Is it a hotel?"
"Something like that," I lied, sliding in beside her.
The driver got in without a word, and the doors locked with a heavy click that sounded too final. Too much like a cell door closing. I tried the handle anyway. It didn't budge.
We weren't passengers.
We were cargo.
The drive through Seoul was a blur of neon and steel. The city had grown since I'd last seen it-taller, brighter, more suffocating. Luna pointed at everything, chattering about the signs we couldn't read and the buildings that touched the clouds. I held her hand and said nothing, watching the streets pass and feeling the noose tighten around my neck with every kilometer.
We didn't stop at a hotel.
The sedan turned into a complex of buildings that made my chest constrict. Glass and chrome towers rising like monuments to power and money. A sign in Korean and English: Choi Medical Complex.
"Maman?" Luna's voice was smaller now. She felt it too-the weight of this place.
"It's okay, baby." Another lie. "This is where we're staying for a little while."
The car descended into an underground garage, spiraling down, down, down into the belly of the beast. Fluorescent lights flickered past. Concrete walls pressed in from all sides. When we finally stopped, the driver got out and opened our door without looking at us.
An elevator. Private. No buttons inside except one labeled P.
Penthouse.
My mouth went dry.
The elevator rose so fast my ears popped. Luna squeezed Monsieur Hopps and leaned against me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, holding her close as we ascended into whatever hell waited above.
The doors opened with a soft chime.
The apartment-if I could even call it that-was stunning.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Seoul's glittering skyline. White marble floors so polished I could see our reflections. Furniture that looked like it belonged in a museum. A kitchen with gleaming appliances I'd never seen before. Everything perfect. Everything cold.
Everything a cage.
Luna's eyes went wide. "Maman, it's like a palace!"
"Stay close to me," I whispered, pulling her back as she started to explore.
I walked to the windows and looked down. We were so high. Too high. The city sprawled below us like a circuit board, and I felt the distance between us and the ground like a physical weight.
There were no door handles on the inside of the elevator.
I walked to the main door-solid, heavy, with a biometric scanner glowing red beside it. I pressed my thumb to it experimentally.
Access Denied.
My pulse hammered in my throat. I tried the handle. Locked. Of course it was locked.
"Maman, I can't open this door," Luna called from across the apartment.
"Don't try," I said, forcing my voice to stay calm. "Just... come sit with me."
A gilded cage. That's what this was. Beautiful and comfortable and completely inescapable.
I heard it before I saw it-the biometric lock on the front door chirping green.
The door swung open.
And there he was.
Jae-won.
My breath stopped in my lungs. My body forgot how to move.
Three years hadn't softened him. If anything, they'd carved away everything human and left something harder behind. Something colder. His black suit was perfectly tailored, every line sharp enough to cut. His hair was shorter than I remembered, pushed back from his face, revealing those features that had once made my heart race for entirely different reasons.
His jaw was tighter. His shoulders broader. His eyes...
God, his eyes.
They swept over the apartment with detached efficiency, landed on Luna for half a second-just long enough to assess, to categorize, to dismiss-and then locked onto me with a focus so venomous I felt it in my bones.
Luna stepped behind me, her small hand gripping my shirt.
Jae-won didn't move from the doorway. He stood there like a king surveying property he owned, his hands loose at his sides, his expression carved from ice.
"The child's assessment is at 08:00." His voice was exactly as I remembered. Smooth. Controlled. Lethal. "You will be in Lab 4 at 08:30. Your access is monitored. You are an asset, not a guest."
Each word landed like a physical blow.
I opened my mouth to respond-to argue, to negotiate, to something-but he was already turning away.
"Wait-" The word burst out of me before I could stop it.
He paused. Didn't turn around. Just waited, his back to me, radiating contempt.
"She's scared," I said, hating how my voice shook. "She doesn't understand what's happening. Can you just-can you give us tonight? To settle in? Please?"
The silence stretched so long I thought he wouldn't answer.
Then he looked at me over his shoulder, and the expression on his face made me wish he hadn't.
"You lost the right to make requests three years ago." His voice dropped lower, colder. "08:00. Don't be late."
He walked out.
The door swung shut behind him, and the lock chirped red again.
I stood frozen in the middle of that beautiful, terrible apartment, staring at the closed door, feeling the walls press in from all sides.
"Maman?" Luna tugged at my hand. "Who was that man?"
My legs gave out.
I sank to the floor right there on the cold marble, and Luna dropped down beside me, her little arms wrapping around my neck.
"Maman, why are you shaking?"
I pulled her into my lap and held her so tight I was probably hurting her, but I couldn't stop. Couldn't loosen my grip. If I let go, I would fall apart completely.
"I'm okay," I whispered into her hair. "I'm okay. We're okay."
But we weren't okay.
The cage door had shut.
And the dragon was circling outside, waiting to see what I would do when I finally realized there was no way out.
Luna pulled back to look at my face, her eyes-his eyes-searching mine. "Are you sure we're safe here?"
I wiped my tears and tried to smile.
But I couldn't lie to her. Not about this.
"I don't know, baby," I whispered.
And somewhere in the building below us, in an office overlooking the same city, Jae-won Choi stood at his window and smiled.
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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.