Bound By The CEO's Cruel Contract
I was the orphaned "parasite" of the Tyler family, taken in only to be abused for fifteen years after my parents died in a tragic car crash.
To finally escape their control, I sold my first time to my ruthless billionaire boss, Ellsworth Mosley, for one million dollars.
I thought it was a clean transaction.
But the next morning, covered in severe bruises he left on me, I was handed a brutal contract with a fifty-million-dollar penalty.
He didn't just buy my silence; he bought me.
My nightmare only worsened when my adoptive family found out about my connection to the billionaire.
Instead of disgust, they invited me to a hypocritical family dinner.
"Talk to Mosley, convince him to invest in our failing business," my adoptive father demanded shamelessly.
His son, who had tormented me for years, even grabbed my hand.
"Do this, and we can be officially engaged. You'll finally be a real Tyler."
They wanted me to whore myself out to save the family that had treated me like a stray dog.
I shattered my wine glass, cursed them to go bankrupt, and walked out into the rain.
As I reached the door, my phone vibrated with a terrifying summons from Ellsworth.
But it was the panicked whisper behind me that froze my blood.
"She knows about the brakes on her parents' car. If anyone finds out what we did, we'll go to prison."
They murdered my parents.
I gripped my phone, accepting the devil's call.
Since I was already bound to a monster, I would use his power to drag them all to hell.
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Chapter 2
Claire's heels clicked across the marble lobby of Mosley Tower at 7:45 AM. The morning shift security guard nodded at her. She arranged her face into the smile she used for strangers-warm at the edges, empty at the center.
"Morning, Ms. Page."
"Morning, Marcus."
She swiped her badge at the executive elevator and stepped inside. The doors slid shut with a soft pneumatic hiss. The moment she was alone, her shoulders dropped. Her spine curved. She pressed her forehead against the cool metal wall and sucked in air like she'd been drowning.
The elevator rose. Sixty floors. Sixty-one. The pressure change pressed against her eardrums, her sinuses, the tender space behind her eyes. Her stomach rolled.
Ding. Sixty-eighth floor.
Claire straightened. She smoothed her skirt. She walked down the corridor with her chin up and her gaze fixed on the horizon line of windows at the far end. The women's restroom was on the left. She pushed through the door, checked the stalls-empty-and turned the deadbolt.
She made it to the last stall before her knees hit the tile.
The retching started immediately, violent and dry. There was nothing in her stomach. She hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday, before the gala, before the hotel, before everything. Acid burned her throat. Her abdominal muscles seized, and each contraction sent fresh agony through her pelvis, through the torn places the hot shower hadn't healed.
Tears streamed down her face. She didn't bother wiping them.
When the spasms finally stopped, Claire slumped against the partition. Her forehead rested against the cool metal. She closed her eyes, and the darkness behind her lids opened like a door.
She was seventeen again. The Stark Academy spring formal. She'd saved for three months to buy the thrift-store dress, to get her hair done at the mall salon. Jerrad Tyler had asked her to meet him by the fountain. She'd thought-
The memory cut in with perfect clarity. Jerrad with his arm around Ashton Stark's waist. Ashton's lip gloss shining under the string lights. The way they'd looked at her, at the dress that was already unraveling at the seam she'd tried to hide.
"Did you actually think he'd take you?" Ashton had asked. Her voice was honey and arsenic. "A charity case? A parasite living off the Tyler family's generosity?"
The wine had been red. Cabernet, probably. Expensive. It had hit Claire's chest and splashed up onto her chin, her throat, soaking through the thin fabric to her skin underneath. It had been cold. So cold.
"Stay away from our world," Ashton had whispered. "You don't belong here."
Claire's eyes snapped open. The bathroom stall smelled of industrial cleaner and her own sweat. She fumbled for her phone, her fingers clumsy. The screen lit up. One million dollars. Seven zeroes. Enough to buy Ashton Stark's entire wardrobe and burn it.
She laughed. The sound cracked in her throat.
She'd done it. She'd actually done it. She'd walked into that hotel room last night with her chin up and her heart hammering so hard she thought she'd pass out. She'd reached for his tie with hands that shook, trying to mimic the way she'd seen women do it in movies-slow, confident, dangerous.
Ellsworth Mosley had looked at her like she was transparent. Like he could see the terror underneath the mascara, the inexperience beneath the red lipstick. His eyes-God, his eyes-like birds of prey, like something that hunted from above and struck before you knew you were dying.
She'd thought she was hunting him. She'd thought she was the spider.
Claire pressed her hand against her mouth and tasted salt. She was going to be sick again.
Footsteps in the corridor. High heels. Someone tried the bathroom door, found it locked, moved on.
Claire wiped her face with toilet paper. She flushed. She stood at the sink and ran the water until it was ice cold, then splashed it against her cheeks, her neck, the hollow of her throat. The woman in the mirror looked like a corpse with good bone structure.
She found her compact. Her lipstick. The red she'd chosen specifically because it made her look like she ate men for breakfast. She applied it with surgical precision.
The mask was back in place when she unlocked the door.
Leo Chen stood in the hallway, a stack of folders under his arm, his phone pressed to his ear. When he saw her, his face went through three expressions in rapid succession-relief, anxiety, something else she couldn't read.
"Claire. Thank God." He ended his call without saying goodbye. "He's already here. He's been here since seven. He's tearing through the morning staff like a-" Leo stopped. His eyes narrowed. "Are you okay?"
"Fine." She took the folders from him. Her fingers didn't tremble. "Which meeting first?"
"Morgan Holdings at nine, but-Claire, he's asking for you specifically. He threw his coffee at the wall when I said you weren't in yet."
Her heart contracted. One hard squeeze, then nothing. "I'll handle it."
She walked toward the oak doors at the end of the corridor. The doors to Ellsworth Mosley's office. They looked like the gates of something biblical. Something you didn't come back from.
Her hand was steady when she knocked.
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8.1
Elinor's frail daughter, Cece, died in a sterile hospital room while waiting for her father to take her to Disney World.
But her billionaire husband, Derick, never showed up. At the exact moment Cece's heart monitor flatlined, the hospital TV broadcasted Derick affectionately holding the hand of his mistress and he has booked a clearance of the entire Disneyland to celebrate mistress's daughter's birthday!.
When Elinor confronted Derick with their daughter's ashes, he sneered and accused her of hiding the child just to get his attention. Elinor's heart was torn to shreds. How could a father be so blind and ruthless? Did Kamryn use his power to steal the very kidney that belonged to Cece? Why did her innocent baby have to die for their sick affair?
The suffocating grief inside Elinor finally crystallized into a sharp blade. She wiped the blood from her lips, canceled the simple divorce, and began her ruthless revenge.
7.3
Elara Valente has lived her life under her father's control, a mafia princess trapped in luxury. But when she meets Luca, a humble baker who sees her for who she truly is, her world begins to change.
Secret meetings, stolen moments, and forbidden attraction ignite a slow-burning romance-but danger lurks at every turn. With a strict father, an arranged marriage, and watchful cousins, Elara must choose: follow her heart, or obey the world she was born into.
7.3
She never meant to become his wife.
Aria Hale had only stepped into the marriage registry to deliver her sister's documents. Yet somehow, she walked out as the legal wife of Leon Mercer-the city's most ruthless billionaire.
One signature. One mistake. One furious husband determined to make her regret it.
"You trapped me," he growls, ice lacing every word. "You'll pay for this."
But Aria isn't who he thinks she is. She carries secrets he could never imagine-an identity carefully hidden, a fortune he never suspected, and a strength that refuses to break under his cruelty.
He assumes she's a gold-digger. She lets him believe it.
When he insists she stay until the divorce is finalized, she agrees-but only because she has her own plans.
And then he notices. The way she never begs. The subtle power in her laughter. The way other men glance at her... and how his chest tightens in ways he can't explain.
By the time the truth comes crashing down-when he finally discovers who she really is-it's too late.
Aria is gone.
Now the hunter becomes the hunted. The billionaire married the wrong woman by mistake. And losing her will be his greatest regret.
8.9
My family's company went bankrupt, and my biological father was lying in the ICU, kept alive by machines that cost tens of thousands a day.
I thought it was just a tragic business failure, until I caught my mother in bed with my stepfather.
They had secretly transferred all our assets months ago, deliberately bankrupting the company and leaving my father to die.
To pay the hospital bills, my stepfather forced me to a private club, trying to sell me to a sleazy investor.
When I refused, he slapped me across the face, and my mother just looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"Be realistic, Jaelynn. A woman's body is a tool. Use it to get what you need."
Later, right before my father's emergency surgery, my stepfather signed a Do Not Resuscitate order and froze the medical accounts.
"If you don't get on your knees and spread your legs for him, I will tell the hospital to pull your father's plug."
Standing in the freezing rain, covered in mud and blood, I stared at the astronomical hospital bill in my hand.
My own family had plotted to murder my father and sell me to the highest bidder. The betrayal shattered every ounce of sanity I had left.
I didn't cry or beg them anymore.
Instead, I pulled out a water-stained, gold-embossed business card.
It belonged to Dolph Valentine, the most ruthless billionaire in New York and my ex-fiancé's uncle.
If they wanted to destroy my life, I was going to sell my soul to the biggest monster of them all and drag them straight to hell.
9.6
I sat at a mahogany table long enough to land a plane on, signing the papers that ended my two-year marriage to billionaire Eric Koch.
He didn't even show up for the divorce; he was in a private cigar lounge downstairs, sending his lawyer to hand me a five-million-dollar check to buy my silence like I was a discarded employee.
For two years, I had perfected the role of the "mouse"—the plain, timid wife Eric looked right past, never suspecting I was actually Rose, the world-renowned designer behind a secret fashion empire. I never told him I was the "angel" who dragged his unconscious body from a burning car years ago, the woman he’d been searching for while he ignored the one across the breakfast table. To celebrate my freedom, I had a one-night stand with a stranger in a penthouse, only to wake up and realize the man I’d just slept with was my ex-husband.
Before the ink on our divorce was dry, Eric used his billions to buy my studio, trapping me in a contract that forces me to work for him as a "lowly assistant" or face a fifty-million-dollar penalty.
I watched in silence as a fame-hungry actress paraded around his office wearing my stolen heirloom locket—the only proof of my true identity—claiming she was the mystery woman from his bed. Eric looked right through my frumpy disguise with the same cold indifference he showed his wife, never realizing the woman he was hunting was standing right in front of him.
I couldn't understand how he could be so obsessed with finding a ghost while treating the living woman who saved him like garbage. Why was he so determined to own every piece of Rose while he had spent two years throwing Aislinn away?
"Tell him nothing," I whispered to my reflection as I reapplied the thick foundation that masked my face.
"You're dangerous, Ann Reese," he told me later, his eyes narrowing as he sensed a familiar spark behind my thick glasses.
I adjusted my bun and looked him in the eye, ready to play the long game. He thinks he’s bought my future, but he’s about to find out that Rose doesn’t just design couture—she designs ruins.
7.8
The anniversary candles were burning down, and the Wagyu beef had long gone cold. I waited for two hours, but Brigham never came home.
Instead, a push notification shattered the silence. It was a live video from an exclusive club, showing my husband laughing with Giselle Leach—the woman he claimed was just a business acquaintance. In the footage, he pulled her into his chest to shield her from a champagne spray, his hand possessive on her hip.
The humiliation stung, but the printed apology card he sent via his butler later that night was the final insult. He didn't even bother to sign it by hand. My life felt like a hollow performance, a series of lies meant to keep up appearances for a man who kept me as a placeholder while his heart belonged to someone else.
I felt like an idiot, holding onto a marriage that had been dead for years. Why did I keep trying to fix something that was never mine to begin with?
Then, the email arrived—a three-year research expedition in Antarctica. It required me to cut off all outside contact. I looked at the man who had treated me like a disposable accessory, then at the screen. I didn't hesitate. I typed my acceptance, ready to leave the life, the lies, and the man who never saw me behind forever.