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 2
Elise's pov
I ignored his calls after that.
I know he didn't do anything wrong but I just needed space, so I lied that I was sick whilst I buried myself in my bed and cried my hearts out in the dark.
It was all going well until he showed up.
I heard my front door unlock. Living in a luxurious neighborhood has its perks, so I wasn't even scared that someone was breaking in to rob me. However I was scared that he was going to see me at my all time low.
I cursed the day I gave him a key to my house.
As his footsteps approached my bedroom door I squeezed my eyes shut hoping that it would somehow make him go away.
I heard him pause, probably to collect himself and then my door opened and he walked in. I kept my back turned to the door because I couldn't bear to look at him.
After a moment the room fell into silence. I waited for a minute, then a few more and it seemed like he had gone so I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding and then rolled to face the door and that was the worst decision I had ever made in my life because there he was, face right in front of mine, staring.
"Ah!" I screamed so loud I was sure it would be heard from the moon. My heart raced too fast . I thought it would burst out of my chest and all the idiot did was laugh.
"Glad to see you're alive."
"Don't ever scare me like that you idiot!" I screamed clutching my chest.
His shoulders shook with barely contained laughter which burst out when I shot him a glare. "oh my God." He said in between breath. "Yo-you should have seen the look on your face."
"Shut up." I threw a pillow at him which he effortlessly caught then moved my leg aside and sat on my bed with a sad expression.
"Why have you been avoiding me, lise?"
That looks... It crushed my heart. He had been so happy to introduce her to me and I ruined it.
"I..." what do I say? "I was honestly sick and didn't want to ruin your new couple's honeymoon."
He gave me a deadpan look.
With a sigh I said, "look, I was surprised. You never told me you were seeing anyone and it hurt you know. As your best friend, you hid that from me."
That was somewhat the truth.
"Oh, Lise." He pulled me into a bone crushing hug. "I understand now. I'm sorry about that, I just... I don't know. I was an idiot. I'm sorry."
"It's fine." My voice was muffled against his chest as I tried my best not to melt into him.
"I promise this will never happen again."
"Pinky?" I held up my pinky.
"Pinky."
Like that, another promise was made.
"Now tell me about her." Saying those words was equivalent to me swallowing class but I knew I had to be his friend first before my feelings.
His eyes lit up. "She's the one, Lise. She's the best thing that has ever happened to me. I know we're going to last."
****
Well... they didn't last.
I guess there really was a big guy up in the sky listening to my prayers. Victoria turned out to be the worst thing to ever happen to him. Their relationship was toxic and on and off for years until they finally broke up.
While he was heart broken and crying, I comforted him and celebrated every night when I got home.
Who said miracles didn't happen?
Three months after they broke up things were finally coming back to normal and I had Marcus all to myself. I was slowly working towards the thought of telling him how I felt.
"Stop daydreaming, you're at work." He said, voice cutting through my thoughts as he walked ahead of me.
We had come to LA for a business trip and he seemed awfully excited ever since we arrived. The way he looked at me and spoke to me, it was different.
"Care to share what has got you in a good mood lately?" I tried to pry.
He simply smiled, shaking his head. "Well... you'll find out tonight. Come to the penthouse by 8, dress beautifully. You wouldn't want to miss it."
Before I could ask more, he got into his car and waved at me as he drove away.
Dress beautifully? What's going on?
****
At exactly 8, I walked into the Royal hotel dressed in the most beautiful crimson dress I owned. Make up perfectly done as well as my hair. I was ready for whatever he was planning.
I stepped out of the private elevator and it felt like deja vu. I shook off the weird feeling and took a step forward, straight into someone's chest.
"Oh!" I stumbled back, my purse slipping from my hand.
A deep voice spoke, fine filled with low amusement. "Easy there."
I looked up and my breath hitched.
He was... gorgeous. Not polished and pristine like Marcus. He was rough and jagged. His dark hair was a little too long, falling over his stormy grey eyes. He had tattoos covering his entire left arm and disappearing into his dark shirt.
He looked out of place here, like he belonged in an alleyway with a cigarette between his lips, not outside the penthouse of the city's most powerful CEO.
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. "Excuse me, but what are you doing up here? This floor is private."
His lips twitched like he was fighting back a smile. "And who might you be? The security guard?"
Heat flares in my cheeks. "No, but I know you're not supposed to be here. If Marcus catches you sneaking around the higher-ups' residences, you'll be lucky if all you get is escorted out. You could be arrested."
"Arrested?" he let out a smirk, and something about the way he said it sent a shiver down my spine. "That's a little too much, don't you think?"
"Not when it comes to people like you sneaking where you don't belong." I made my room harsher to hide the way he was unsettling me.
He paused for a moment, just studying me. There was this intensity in his eyes that made me shiver. Then finally, he extended his hand. "Sebastian."
I hesitated then placed mine in his. "Elise."
There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes but that was impossible because we had never met. Before I could allow myself to think much about it, I pulled my head back. "Well, Sebastian, I'd advise you to leave before you get caught. Consider this your warning."
"Consider it taken," he said softly, though the glint in his eyes suggested the opposite.
I stepped around him, determined not to give him another second of my time. He was probably a lower staff member who got curious or worse, a trespasser who thought he was smart.
Either way, he was none of my concern. The guards would take care of him.
I opened the door to Marcus's penthouse and froze.
At my feet lay... a path of roses.
A path of roses usually meant one thing, a proposal.
Was he... proposing to me?
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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.