Falling for the CEO's brother
Elise thought her life was finally falling into place. She turned down her father's company to work as executive assistant to Marcus Grey-the boy she's loved since childhood, now the powerful CEO she's devoted her life to.
But when Marcus proposes to another woman, Elise's world crumbles. Enter Sebastian Deluca-Marcus's tattooed, ruthless, long-estranged brother. He's everything Marcus isn't: dangerous, magnetic, and determined to take back his place in New York.
But, there's something odd about him.
Something changed since he arrived.
Bound by family secrets and a mutual desire to expose Marcus's fiancée, Elise and Sebastian form an uneasy alliance. But as sparks ignite between them, Elise must choose: remain loyal to the boy she thought she loved, or risk everything for the man who sees her as more than a shadow.
Some loves are safe. Others are consuming. Which one will she survive?
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Chapter 1
Elise's pov
I have loved Marcus Grey for as long as I can remember.
It started off small when we were kids, the way he'd defend me from other kids, the way he'd look back to see if I was catching up when we were running, when he'd over me his ice cream when mine melted away.
All those little things started piling up until I fell so deep that I didn't know how to live without him so I stuck by his side ever since.
But, he would never find out how I felt. Our friendship meant more to me than my feelings so I would never do anything to ruin that.
Right now I sat in his room as he excitedly told me about the many things he was going to do at Grey tech once he takes over next week. His father had just handed over the company to him, three years after graduating from college
"This all feels so surreal, Lise!" He said happily, calling me by the nickname he had given me since we were kids which still made my heart flutter.
I smiled seeing the happiness in his eyes. As long as Marcus was happy then so was I.
"Of course I believe it. You've worked so hard for this, remember? You've earned it." I told him calmly.
His face turned from happy to boastful. "I know right? I'm simply so good at whatever I do."
"Shut up." I said, giggling and tossing a pillow in his direction making him erupt in a fit of laughter.
I loved this.
I loved us.
When we had gotten into college he had turned into the college superstar. Marcus Grey, son of Lucien Grey, one of New York's most influential billionaires.
His background plus his looks turned him to a fuck boy in no time. While I was Elise Bennet, last daughter of the Bennet family who owned the largest mine in the country and yet, I was a ghost. Just a shadow in their spotlight.
But I didn't mind because I had Marcus.
Although it had hurt to see him sleep with so many girls and come home drunk sometimes, I would still care for him, telling myself that it was all temporary. They were all temporary while I wiped his sweat.
I was brought back to the present as I noticed a serious expression on his face now.
"What's on your mind, pookie?" I asked.
He nervously rubbed the back of his neck, it wasn't like him to be so nervous so this made me sit up straighter as my mind started running countless thoughts as to what was bothering him.
"Well, you see lise." He stopped, ran a han down his face and blurted out. "I know this is too much for me to ask and I know that you have been wanting that position at your father's company but I cannot do this without you and I need you by my side. I know I'm being selfish but can you leave your father's offer and come work for me, I promise to give you a high position- maybe an executive. I'll give you anything! Just please say you'll be by my side."
I blinked in surprise because he had said all this in one breath and I needed a moment to process it.
He was right, I had wanted this position all my life so I worked hard for it despite it being my birthright and now he was asking me to leave it and come be by his side instead.
It was a lot to take on.
I bit my lips in thought as I looked at his pleading face.
He had never begged me for something like this and a position by his side sounded promising. Maybe if I was by his side in the real world then he might start to see me differently.
I knew it was a bit far fetched but when it came to Marcus, I would do anything. So before I could talk myself out of it, I looked at him and said, "okay."
****
I nervously smothered out non-existent wrinkles on my dress as I stared at myself in the mirror. It has been exactly a week since he asked me to come work for him. A week since I broke the news to my father who was disappointed but supported my decision.
I spent the night before laying out my outfit. It was a beautiful purple work dress that he had gotten for me a year ago and I had never worn.
I added our friendship necklace and a simple diamond bracelet for jewelry.
I sighed. "You've got this, Elise."
I didn't know why I was so nervous. Nothing was new besides work.
I walked out and got into the car with my driver who took me down the busy roads of New York until we arrived at Grey tech. The building stood tall and intimidating in front of me but I didn't let it phase me aside, squared my shoulders and walked in.
I nodded at a few staff on my way to the private elevator that led to his floor. I smiled imagining the look on his face once he noticed the dress I was wearing. He would love it.
I pushed the button for the top floor and began to ascend. My reflection from the elevator walls stared back at me and I could say that I looked prepared and unshakable for whatever lay ahead.
The doors opened with a soft ding and I walked out towards his door, heels echoing in the empty hallway.
I thought I was prepared. I thought my life was going to change.
It did. But not the way I had planned.
The moment I shoved those double doors open, I wish I had never stepped foot in this building because tell me why my eyes landed on Marcus with his lip locked on another woman.
Whatever confidence I had dropped to the bottom of my ass alongside my heart
She was a tall, stunning brunette perched on his desk, his hands tangled in her hair like she was his whole world. Their kiss was so intense and intimate, that for a moment it felt like I couldn't breathe.
I watched in shock until he finally pulled back once he noticed me standing there.
He didn't look guilty or embarrassed.
He didn't see anything wrong.
Of course he didn't.
He just... smiled, as if nothing was wrong. As if my world hadn't just been flipped.
"Elise!" His voice was warm and excited. "You're here! Perfect timing. I want you to meet someone."
I blinked, trying to calm myself and not to let the pain of betrayal show on my face.
"This is Victoria," he said proudly, wrapping an arm around the woman. The way he held her made me know that she wasn't like the girls from the past, she wasn't temporary.
She was permanent.
This had never happened.
No, no, no. I chanted in my head.
Time seemed to slow as his lips formed the next words that I had dreaded all my life. "My girlfriend."
Girlfriend.
The word stabbed deeper than I thought possible. "Gir-girlfriend?"
"Yes, we met a while back..."
His voice faded as all I could hear was the pounding of my heart in my ears. "Excuse me." I said softly, turning on shaky legs and heading out.
I wanted to hate her. But how could I? It wasn't her fault. She hadn't been the one to make promises to me under the night skies or to whisper "forever" in a little girl's ear. That had been Marcus. My Marcus.
And yet, he wasn't mine. Maybe he never had been.
As I walked out of that office that day with my spine straight and my chest hollow, repeating the same words over and over in my head because I refused to give up.
"Someday, it'll be me."
Even if it killed me, someday, it would be me.
Because my love for Marcus wasn't the kind you gave up on. It wasn't the kind that faded with time. It was stubborn, pure, maybe even foolish. But it was mine.
And for Marcus I would wait.
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7.8
Alayna was working a grueling catering shift in worn-out heels to support her broke college boyfriend, Caiden, who claimed to be studying at the library.
But through the crack of a VIP suite door, she saw him wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch, sipping expensive liquor.
"It's a little poverty role-play. Keeps things interesting."
He was laughing with his rich friends, mocking her as his clueless "charity case."
To make matters worse, she was forced into a humiliating mascot costume just in time to watch him passionately kiss his wealthy ex-girlfriend.
That same night, Alayna's mother collapsed with gastric cancer, requiring a half-million-dollar surgery.
When a desperate Alayna begged Caiden for help, he refused.
"Why don't you just apply for Medicaid? That's the path for people like you."
For two years, she had starved herself to buy his textbooks, his tickets, and his shoes.
He had stolen her sweat and her sacrifices, all for a cruel game.
The sheer audacity of his betrayal made her blood run cold.
When a billionaire stranger stepped in to pay her mother's medical bills in exchange for a one-year fake marriage, Alayna didn't hesitate to sign the contract.
She slipped the flawless diamond ring onto her finger, opened a spreadsheet, and sent Caiden an invoice for every single cent.
This time, she was going to dismantle his entire life.
9.3
Ginny was chained to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, bleeding and betrayed by the two people she trusted most.
Her fiancé, Brant, and her adopted sister, Coretta, had just slashed her face open. Brant coldly admitted she was nothing but a disposable key to a vault, right before he tossed a lighter onto the gasoline-soaked floor.
As Ginny burned alive in the roaring inferno, the heavy iron doors were violently smashed open. Bedford Parks—the notoriously ruthless, germaphobic "monster" of Silicon Valley whom Ginny had always feared—charged straight into the flames. Ignoring the blistering heat, he shielded her charred body with his own. A massive steel beam collapsed, snapping his spine.
"I love you."
He coughed up blood, whispering his final words against her blackened skin before dying to protect her.
Hovering as a ghost, Ginny's soul screamed in agonizing realization. She had spent her life terrified of Bedford, yet he was the only one who truly loved her, while her supposed family laughed at her gruesome murder.
Suddenly, a blinding white light swallowed the warehouse.
Ginny gasped for air, opening her eyes to find herself sitting in the back of a luxury Maybach. She was eighteen again, wearing the humiliating clown makeup Coretta had tricked her into wearing on the day she was brought back to the wealthy Steele estate.
Ginny stared at her reflection, her dark eyes turning cold and sharp.
This time, she would tear her betrayers apart piece by piece, and she would protect her "monster."
8.8
Alaia Dudley spent her life playing the devoted partner, completely unaware that her fiancé Austen was sleeping with another woman.
She thought the worst he could do was break her heart, until she found herself pinned to a cold operating table.
Austen held her down with a cruel smirk while a scalpel sliced through her sternum.
They cracked her chest open while she was still fully conscious.
The agonizing pain of her heart being cut out burned into her nerve endings.
She realized then that to him, she was never a lover—just a spare organ, a boring piece of wood to be discarded the second his true love needed it.
She died in excruciating agony, choking on her own blood while the man she loved walked away with her heart.
Until her last breath, she didn't understand why she had to suffer so brutally.
Why did she waste her life begging for a monster's attention? Why did they get a happy ending while she was carved up like an animal?
But then, ice-cold water flooded her lungs, and Alaia violently broke the surface of her bathwater.
Her trembling fingers touched her smooth, flawless chest. No scars. Her heart was still beating.
The date on her phone glared back at her: it was exactly five years ago.
Tonight was the exact night Austen first took his mistress to a hotel room.
This time, she wouldn't just expose them. She would use Wall Street's most terrifying tyrant as her personal weapon to strip them of everything they had.
8.6
To save my father's failing workshop from ruthless loan sharks, I sold one year of my life.
I signed a fake marriage contract with Cameron Fox, an icy billionaire who needed a wife to pacify his sick grandmother. The rules were strict: it was purely a commercial transaction, with absolutely no physical contact and no emotional attachments.
Soon after, that cold hearted man seemed different to me. Wait, is he pursuing me?
8.6
Ellery was trapped in a suffocating marriage with Manhattan's most ruthless billionaire, Holland Sutton.
She silently endured his blatant affairs, even measuring his mistress for custom lingerie at her own design studio. She drank foul, black fertility potions forced on her by his cruel mother, who treated her like nothing more than a breeding machine.
She only tolerated the endless abuse because her own brother blackmailed her. He threatened to pull the plug on their dying mother's life support if Ellery didn't secure Holland's massive investment for his company. So, she swallowed her pride. She let Holland drag her around like a trophy, let his mother demand she quit her business, and allowed herself to be stripped of all dignity.
But then, the devastating news broke.
Holland's cousin had just welcomed a baby boy, securing the family inheritance. Ellery's womb was suddenly useless to the Sutton empire. The promised investment for her brother was instantly revoked. Every humiliation, every bitter potion she had choked down, was for absolutely nothing. She had been the perfect, silent puppet in a sick game she could never win.
Yet, Holland simply dragged her to the closet and threw a black haute couture gown at her feet.
"Put that on. Tonight, you are going to smile and show all of New York that my marriage is perfectly intact."
Staring at the heavy dress on the floor, a cold, terrifying clarity replaced her despair. If the rules of his twisted game had changed, then so had hers.
8.5
Kelsi Owens stood in front of the mirror in a six-figure gown, ready to marry into the wealthy Harrington family.
But her fiancé, Jeb, didn't even look at her. He abandoned her right in the middle of the fitting because his widowed sister-in-law, Seraphina, called crying.
That same night, Kelsi collapsed on her apartment floor with a ruptured appendix. Sweating and in blinding agony, she called Jeb for help.
Instead of concern, she heard Seraphina laughing and party music blaring in the background. Jeb just snapped at her.
"Stop being dramatic. Seraphina is the guest of honor tonight. I can't leave."
He hung up, leaving her to call her own ambulance. Kelsi woke up from emergency surgery completely alone, only to receive a cold text from Jeb calling her fragile.
To make matters worse, her toxic adoptive family didn't care that she almost died. They demanded she crawl back and apologize to Jeb just so they could keep leeching off her connections and trust fund.
Lying in that cold hospital bed, the illusion finally shattered. For three years, she had always been the one left waiting. She realized she meant absolutely nothing to the people she loved.
Kelsi didn't cry, and she didn't beg.
She calmly texted Jeb to call off the engagement, blocked his number, and cut ties with her greedy relatives forever.
She was finally walking away. What she didn't know was that the city's most ruthless billionaire had been watching her, and he was already weaving a golden net to claim her for himself.