CEO's Runaway Lover: My Cold Ex Begs For My Love Again
Four years ago, Madelynn accepted money from Caiden's family and vanished. She thought it was for the best-he would remain the untouchable heir while she faced her tough life alone.
When they met again, Caiden humiliated her in public, yet appeared when she was cornered by a difficult client, pulling her back into his life.
He forced her to stay as his lover, using her mother's medical bills as leverage, whispering, "What you owe me... you'll repay the same way."
Madelynn believed he despised her. Only after the accident, when he ran toward her before the explosion, did she understand-he never let go.
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Chapter 5
Madelynn had drifted off without realizing it, and when she finally stirred awake, she found herself in Caiden's car, which had already stopped at the hospital entrance.
"I'm really okay," she said on instinct, trying to decline, but Caiden didn't give her the chance. He lifted her into his arms without hesitation and walked straight into the emergency department.
The rest of her protest got stuck in her throat.
"I can walk on my own." She tried again after a pause.
But Caiden didn't respond and continued forward as if he hadn't heard her at all.
From wound cleaning and dressing to X-rays and a tetanus injection, Caiden remained present the entire time. He didn't engage in conversation, didn't step away, just stood near the doorway of each room like a fixed shadow keeping watch.
When the doctor began disinfecting her injuries, the sting made Madelynn inhale sharply.
Caiden immediately shifted forward.
The doctor looked between them and said to him, "Are you her family? Come hold her hand."
Without a word, Caiden walked over and took Madelynn's hand.
Madelynn stiffened.
His palm was warm as it enveloped her blood-stained hand, holding it as if it were a fragile treasure.
She barely felt any pain after that.
By the time everything was finished, it was well past midnight.
At the hospital exit, Madelynn paused beside Caiden's car.
"Thanks for tonight," she said quietly.
"It's nothing," Caiden replied evenly.
Madelynn hesitated for a moment. "About Randy... will this affect Infinity Entertainment?"
"No."
Caiden's answer was immediate and final.
Madelynn didn't ask why. "Alright. I'll head back now. My mom is still waiting for me."
Caiden just looked at her.
A strip of gauze covered her forehead, and her elbow was secured in fresh bandaging. Her complexion had turned pale from losing blood. Even so, she held herself upright, her eyes unwavering, as though nothing could break her.
At that moment, he suddenly asked, "What about Isaac?"
He had kept the question bottled up all night, and now, it finally broke free.
Four years ago, she had walked out of his life without a backward glance—for Isaac Curtis.
For years, he had believed she had gotten together with Isaac and had been living in comfort. He had never imagined he would find her like this—reduced to such a miserable state.
The question clearly caught Madelynn off guard.
"He left the country," she answered after a pause. "He visited me once before leaving. We haven't been in contact since."
Caiden said nothing in response.
"Four years ago..." Madelynn began, only to trail off.
She studied his expression, as if hoping to find a sign that could allow her to continue.
But Caiden just stood there, motionless, like a figure carved from stone.
Madelynn forced back the words she had almost spoken.
"I'll go inside now... and thank you, again."
With that, she turned and made her way slowly toward the inpatient wing.
She never glanced back.
And because of that, she missed the fact that Caiden remained there long after she disappeared from view.
True to expectation, Randy didn't stir up any problems for Infinity Entertainment.
Still, the project was quietly reassigned to someone else.
After Madelynn lost two projects in a row, Danny arranged for her to head to Avlester to supervise a production.
She had just arrived in Avlester and hadn't even stepped onto the set when Margot Sullivan's assistant, Paula Blake, hurried her into the dressing room.
"Madelynn, you need to see this. Look at Margot's face!"
Margot was seated at the vanity, one side of her face visibly swollen. A vivid handprint was imprinted across her cheek.
As soon as she noticed Madelynn, she turned her face aside instinctively, avoiding eye contact.
Madelynn inhaled deeply in shock. "Who did this to you?"
"It's Lacey," Paula answered, clearly furious. "It was a slap scene. They reshot it nineteen times, and she hit Margot hard every single time."
Margot dropped her gaze. "I wasn't doing it right; it's not really her fault."
"If your performance needed work, she could've guided you or requested another take. That doesn't justify hitting you so hard every time," Madelynn said, eyes fixed on Margot's swollen face. "Can this be concealed by makeup?"
From the side, the makeup artist replied cautiously, "I can hide it for now, but she still has three scenes left today. If this continues..."
Madelynn didn't respond. She simply turned and headed out.
Paula rushed after her. "Madelynn, where are you going?"
"To see Lacey."
Lacey Holt was working with Unit A and finished her scene in a single take, prompting the director to call cut. She took the thermos from her assistant, then lifted her eyes and noticed Madelynn standing near the monitor.
"Well, if it isn't Miss Douglas," she said, sipping leisurely. "I thought you were taken off this project. What brings you back?"
"Why did you do that to Margot?" Madelynn asked.
Lacey placed the thermos aside, her expression turning innocent. "We were shooting a scene. The director wanted realism, so I was just doing my job."
"The director needed only one proper take, but you dragged it out to nineteen."
"Because her acting was awful." Lacey's smile faded. "Is this the best you could train? She breaks down at the slightest thing—no professionalism at all."
Madelynn met her gaze. "If you're dissatisfied, you can discuss the matter properly. Replace her if you must. But bringing your personal feelings onto the set and slapping her nineteen times—that's called workplace bullying."
At that, Lacey's expression shifted instantly.
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7.5
I spent three weeks scrubbing carbonized grease off woks at the Jade Garden, hiding my elite tactical training behind raw knuckles and a practiced, submissive stutter. My mission was the only thing keeping me sane: finding my sister, Elena, who vanished into thin air after her phone last pinged near the city’s Restricted Sector.
The breakthrough came when my boss, a bully named Uncle Wong, forced me to take a delivery to 101 Blackwood Drive—a high-security fortress where the drivers whispered that people went in and never came back right. It was a geographic match for Elena's last known location, but as I rode my battered scooter toward the massive steel gates, I realized I wasn't just investigating a lead; I was walking into a spider's web.
The mansion was a monolith of cold concrete and military-grade surveillance, owned by Hugh Bradford, a billionaire who controlled the city’s elite like puppets. During my delivery, the magnetic locks hissed shut, the lights died, and I was plunged into absolute darkness with a predator who didn't want my money. Bradford pinned me against a stainless steel counter and did something unthinkable: he sank his teeth into my shoulder, using the rhythm of my frantic pulse to anchor his own fractured mind.
I escaped with a bruised neck and a thousand-dollar "tip," feeling the crushing weight of his violation and the terrifying realization that my "clumsy immigrant" act hadn't fooled him for a second. I didn't understand why a man of his power would treat a delivery girl like a biological drug, or what he had done to the other girls who had vanished behind those black glass walls.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I realized I was being hunted by a man who could buy and sell my life a thousand times over.
"You're terrified," he had whispered in the dark, and for the first time in years, I wasn't faking it.
Back in my apartment, I found a note tucked inside the cash that confirmed my worst fears:
"For the inconvenience. See you Tuesday."
He thinks he’s found a new toy to play with, but he just gave me the one thing I needed to find my sister—an invitation to go back inside and finish what I started.
9.0
Adaline Poole thought she had escaped her family's toxic corporate grip by moving to London and adopting a stray cat named Monty.
But when she returns to her empty apartment, her father delivers a chilling ultimatum: he has kidnapped the cat and will euthanize it by morning unless she accepts an arranged marriage with Barron Cooke, a notoriously elusive billionaire.
Her entire family becomes complicit in her sale. Her mother demands she secure their elite status, and her brother secretly spies on her social media to feed Barron her every move. Horrified to discover Barron is a thirty-three-year-old "fossil" twelve years her senior, Adaline resorts to sabotage. She goes to a Soho club, takes a scandalous photo with a frat boy, and sends it to the old billionaire to disgust him into canceling their upcoming dinner.
But her rebellion backfires horribly when the frat boy spikes her drink with a powerful narcotic. As her body burns with a terrifying, feverish heat, she collapses in a dark corridor. Stripped of her phone and betrayed by her bloodline, she is left utterly defenseless as a predator approaches to drag her away.
Suddenly, the heavy fire door is kicked open by a towering, terrifyingly handsome stranger who effortlessly neutralizes her attacker.
"Please... help me," Adaline begs, deliriously throwing her burning body into his arms.
She has absolutely no idea that the handsome savior she is clinging to is Barron Cooke himself.
8.2
For five years, I was the invisible glue holding Damien Crawford together. I was the one who pulled him from a burning car until the skin melted off my back, and I was the one who donated bone marrow when he was on death's door. I even gave up a full-ride scholarship to MIT just to be his nurse.
Yet, he believed his mistress, Hadley, was his savior. To him, I was just the maid's daughter who changed his bedpans—a piece of furniture he could abuse while he planned his wedding to another woman.
But his cruelty didn't stop at verbal abuse. When my father suffered a massive heart attack, Damien refused to let me use the car, choosing to comfort Hadley over a fake panic attack instead.
His mother even slashed the tires to ensure I couldn't leave.
While my father died cold and alone, Damien stabbed a needle into my hand just to teach me a lesson about "respect," oblivious to the fact that the scars on my skin were the receipt for his life.
He didn't know he was torturing the only person who had ever truly loved him. But the girl who begged for crumbs of affection died along with her father that day.
I picked up my phone and dialed the number saved simply as a dot.
"He's dead," I whispered to the man on the other end—Anderson Morrison, the city's most feared Don and my sworn protector.
"I'm coming," he replied, his voice lethal. "And I'm bringing the army."
It was time to show Damien that he hadn't just mistreated a maid; he had declared war on a Queen.
9.4
Aria Mcgee was the unwanted second daughter of a decaying Long Island family.
To save their bankrupt corporation, her father and older sister drugged her. They shoved her into a town car and delivered her to a ruthless Wall Street billionaire's bed like a piece of meat.
They expected her to be the perfect sacrifice. The original Aria had no access to her own trust fund and was forced to live in a windowless broom closet. Even worse, a cold, synthetic System voice echoed in her skull, demanding she play the tragic, helpless female lead. It ordered her to endure her family's abuse and suffer the billionaire's humiliation to force a pathetic romance plotline.
"Host must follow the tragic trajectory and achieve the ultimate painful romance."
But the soul that woke up in that bed wasn't a weak, frightened girl. She was a dead Hollywood Oscar-winning actress. Why would a top-tier professional ever agree to play the weeping victim in such a garbage, B-list script?
Instead of trembling in fear as the System commanded, Aria looked at the billionaire and smiled. Using her flawless acting skills, she shattered his ego, extracted a hundred thousand dollars, and walked right out the door. Now, she was heading back to the Mcgee estate, ready to rip her money from her father's greedy hands and burn her sister's life to the ground.
9.4
I was the eldest daughter of the powerful Kirk family, sent away to a Swiss sanatorium to recover from my supposed mental illness.
But my stepmother, Johnie, never intended for me to get better. She sent her personal cleaners to drag me onto a plane back to Washington D.C.
In my past life, I didn't know they were assassins. I was forcefully injected with heavy sedatives and locked in a secret torture chamber inside our luxury estate.
My stepmother and cousin skimmed my inheritance while watching me suffer.
They framed me as a crazy addict, and my own father, a sitting Senator, turned a blind eye to protect his political career.
"Her political value is gone, just get rid of her quietly."
That was the last thing I heard my father say before I was brutally slaughtered by my own family.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand why they hated me so much.
Why did my father let them force those pills down my throat?
Why was my life worth less than my stepmother's public image?
Opening my eyes again, the freezing sensation of lake water filling my lungs vanished.
I was back in the VIP room of the St. Moritz Sanatorium in 2023.
It was the exact morning before the cleaners walked through my door with uncapped syringes.
This time, I wouldn't just survive. I was going to cut the throat of the Kirk family.
7.6
"One signature. One life-long debt. One night to change everything."
Elara Vance thought she could escape her family's dark past, until the ruthless tech-mogul Silas Vane corners her with a contract she can't refuse. Her father didn't just owe Silas money-he owed him a blood-oath.
The deal is simple: Marry Silas for 365 days, endure his cold touch, and play the perfect doll for the media. In return, her family's sins are erased. But Silas isn't just looking for a wife; he's looking for the woman who shattered his heart ten years ago.
Elara is wearing a dead woman's face, and Silas is a man who never forgets a betrayal. As the line between hate and heat blurs, Elara realizes the debt isn't money... it's her heart. And Silas Vane is coming to collect.