Mr. Sterling, Your Ex-wife is a Famous CEO
Five years ago, Arabella Sterling vanished without a trace, disgraced, heartbroken, and branded her billionaire benefactor's dirty secret.
What the world never knew was that she'd also been his wife.
Or that the man she loved-and the son she gave everything for-chose another woman over her.
Now, she's back as The Reformer, a world-renowned business strategist celebrated for resurrecting dying empires.
Her newest client? The Sterling Group.
Her ex-husband's empire.
Adrian Sterling has spent years trying to atone for the lies that destroyed them both.
But when Arabella walks into his boardroom, colder, sharper, untouchable...he realizes redemption may come at a cost he can't pay.
Because this time, she's not here to save him.
She's here to ruin him.
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Chapter 6
Arabella felt her whole body go numb for a moment.
Maybe she'd read it wrong. Maybe.
She closed the note...then opened it again. But the words didn't change.
Adrian really wrote those words. She knew his handwriting well so there was no mistaking it.
Arabella tilted her head back, forcing herself to hold back the tears.
Maybe this was just another drunken mistake. After all, he had a lot to drink that night at the party.
But when she continued to open one page after another, her heart sank deeper into the bottom of her belly.
Adrian had kept a record of every flirty word he said to her...and then laughed it off as a joke.
Everytime he held her hand and felt butterflies in his stomach.
Every time his gaze lingered on her a little too long.
And every time he bought her gifts because they reminded him of how beautiful she was.
More tears pumped out of Arabella's eyes, as she realized it wasn't all just in her head.
The words that made her heart flutter, the touch that gave her butterflies...they were all deliberate.
She wasn't confusing things. Adrian was really seducing her...making her fall for him.
And when she did...he panicked and tried to create a distance.
He even knew the moment she realized she'd fallen for him. Something Arabella still wasn't sure of.
Arabella's memory replayed to the eve of her high school reunion party years ago when he interrupted a dance she was having with a male friend.
Adrian had noticed Arabella being uncomfortable and intervened at the perfect time...so perfect that Arabella wrapped her hands around him in what felt like the warmest hug ever.
It had caused quite a stare back then, but everyone knew how protective of her Adrian was, so they didn't talk about it.
Maybe it was the way her heart thudded louder than ever that gave away her feelings?
But somehow he knew right then and there she'd fallen for him.
Her tears dropped on the pages, each drop soaking the paper as her hands trembled by the edge.
She could still remember how he stopped coming home for the small holidays from his law school...and how he started to ignore her calls.
Arabella covered her mouth as a choked sob threatened to escape her.
"Serena asked why I call Arabella 'Petals.' I lied, said it's a sibling thing. Truth is, I've memorized every mark on her skin. She's my sister, for God's sake. I'm trying so hard to love the right person. I keep failing. I'm sick."
Just when she thought nothing more could surprise her, she opened to the next page. It was about their one-night stand.
He wasn't drunk that night.
"I told everyone I was too drunk to remember. Told Serena it meant nothing. Told myself it was a mistake. But I remember everything. Every sound she made. Every time she said my name. It was the best night of my life, and I let her think she seduced me. I'm a coward."
Arabella's hands shook.
He knew. He'd always known.
Arabella's throat clicked as she swallowed, the words blurring for a moment before she blinked them back into focus.
A hollow ache settled beneath her ribs, spreading slowly and cold as she read the last lines on the page, "I love Arabella, but dirty feelings will ruin my family."
"I can not disappoint my Father. I can't love. I will never love her...because I can't protect her. Serena will have to do."
Arabella let out a shaky exhale, the kind that sounded more like defeat than breath. "This...this is what he calls love?"
She let out a humourless laugh that did nothing to the sting as she wiped her face off.
There were still so many pages left to read. Probably about the pregnancy, the forced marriage and everything in between.
But she was done crying over an asshole like him. Now it was time to leave, so at least Axel could come back home.
Since he was adamant that she had to leave before he brought him back, there was no doubt he had someone keep an eye on her.
But before she dropped the book, she picked up a pen and scribbled something on the last page; words he'd find later, when it was too late to take back what he'd done.
As she dragged her small suitcase down the living room, she met Catherine sitting on her wheelchair in the center of the room.
When she reached her front, she stopped, looking at her with deep sadness, "As you might already know, I have finally divorced your son."
"I give up my child to fulfill your happy family fantasy."
Catherine scoffed, rolling her eyes. She'd already heard about the divorce so it wasn't news to her, "Don't think you're doing us a favour, Arabella. You owe us this."
"I took you in wholeheartedly, but as soon as you were old enough, you bit the hand that fed you. So don't play victim around me." she said, leaning back with a maddening smirk, "It's disgusting."
"I'm playing victim?" Arabella muttered, a laugh slipping out, sharp, disbelieving, entirely humorless. "So what do we call you who weaponize your immobility against me every single time?"
Catherine's brows creased with fury. Arabella was talking back now? How dare she.
"If you had just let Dad drive in peace...If you hadn't started arguing about HIS decision to change HIS will..." Arabella's voice broke as the memories of that night flashed in her face again.
The shouting. The arguments. The sudden break fail. The crash. Blood. Darkness.
"...maybe Dad would still be with us now."
She'd been in the back seat, silent, as Catherine railed against Victor's decision to change his will in Arabella's favor. The shouting escalated. Victor turned to respond.
He never saw the truck.
The impact through the driver's side killed him instantly. Arabella and Catherine survived.
And Catherine had spent five years making sure everyone believed it was Arabella's fault.
"You..." Catherine cut in sharply, but that was all she could do. She didn't have any words to counter her.
Ms. Shaw who was just walking into the living room thought to defend her boss, "How dare you speak to madam..."
Arabella shot her a cold glance, forcing her mouth shut, but she didn't have words for her. Didn't have time to waste on her.
She wiped off her tears, facing Catherine again, "Making me take the blame might have eased your guilt...but I've had enough. Now is your turn."
"Keep enjoying the attention and control you have over Adrian because of your condition, but stop making him hate Father, because we both know neither of you deserve him." She dragged her suitcase away.
Catherine's eyes were bloodshot, jaws clenched and fingers digging furiously into the iron railings of her chair.
Yet she had no words to defend herself.
Arabella suddenly stopped as she reached the doorway, looking back at the big mansion that held both her happiest and saddest memories.
Her gaze darted back to Catherine even as hot tears blurred her vision.
"As of today, I have paid my debt to this family for raising me."
Her voice broke even as she tried hard to hold back her pain, "I-I...might never understand why you suddenly hate me so much after all the love we shared in all those years."
"But..." she paused again, wiping off her tears, speaking more steadily this time, "I will come back. To take everything that belongs to me."
For once she could swear she saw tears in Catherine's eyes, but maybe it was just her blurred vision.
She turned away, restraining her tears with all her might as she walked out of the mansion. The one she once called home.
Arabella had to cover her mouth to hide her uncontrollable sobs as she walked along the pedestrian.
This is where it ends. The love. The hate. The pain. The guilt. The humiliations.
She looked back again, even though only the top balcony of their house was barely in view.
"I will come back for you Axel. I promise."
She pulled out her phone and began moving the money-splitting it across accounts Adrian couldn't access, accounts she'd set up before but didn't use.
$5 million. Her escape fund. Her revenge fund.
Her new beginning.
In her heartbreak, she had forgotten to book a cab and it was rare to find wandering cabs in such a high society area.
Luckily for her, a cab drove out of the estate, stopping before her. She didn't hesitate and entered.
"Oasis Hotel." She said as she pulled out her phone and started to make her reservation.
She planned to stay in the hotel for the night while she booked a ticket.
When she raised her head, she noticed the driver had passed the intersection leading to the hotel.
She looked back through the window to be sure before she spoke up, "Hey, I think you missed the lane.
No response.
Arabella adjusted to her seat and spoke again, "Hey Mister, is there another route you plan to follow?"
Still no response.
A cold dread washed through Arabella's body. But she didn't want to show it.
"Stop the car!" She ordered.
But the driver didn't.
"Stop the car or I will call the police." Arabella threatened.
Finally, the car slowly came to a halt.
Arabella attempted to step out of the car but it was on central lock.
"Who are you? What do you want from me?" Arabella panicked but the driver maintained his silence, searching for something in his pocket.
Arabella quickly dialed 911, threatening, "The police will..."
Her voice trailed off to a mumble as the driver suddenly turned, pressing a cloth to her face.
Arabella struggled, her mind going through the identity of her possible abductor. Adrian? Serena? Catherine?
Her mind scrambled for a reason until everything slowly went dark.
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8.2
I went to a private clinic for a routine physical, only to find out I was pregnant.
It was impossible. I took my birth control every single day. But when the doctor tested my pills, they turned out to be high-purity vitamin placebos. My billionaire husband, Denton, had been systematically replacing my medication.
Yet, on our anniversary, he brought my sister Beverly home, demanding a divorce so he could marry her. When I refused to sign a settlement that left me with nothing, he froze my accounts and blacklisted me across New York.
My own father disowned me. When an old friend offered me a job just so I could afford prenatal care, Denton launched a ruthless financial attack to bankrupt his firm.
Then, Beverly got into a car crash. Denton's bodyguards dragged me off the street and forced me into a hospital trauma room. Beverly was hemorrhaging, and I was the only blood match.
I cried and begged Denton to stop, desperately trying to protect my fragile pregnancy without exposing my baby to the monster who controlled my life.
"Please, my body can't handle this. Don't do this to me!"
But he just looked at me with pure disgust and ordered his men to strap me to the chair, forcing the needle into my vein while threatening to kill me if his mistress died.
As I dragged my bleeding, cramping body out of the hospital into the freezing snow, my last shred of hope died.
I touched my stomach and made a vow: I would disappear, and I would make them all pay.
7.6
🔞🔞🔞🔞🔞🔞
Aria Bennett is the perfect daughter, a decoration in her father's massive business empire. But for one night, she decides to break every rule. At a secret underground club, she meets Adrian, a man who knows exactly how to please her and awaken desires she never knew she had. They promise each other nothing but one night of pleasure and desire.
But when Aria wakes up to find him gone, leaving only a cold note behind, she thinks the fantasy is over. That is, until she walks downstairs the next morning to see the same man standing in her driveway.
Now, the man who knows her darkest secrets is her father's new driver. Forced to face him every day while pretending they are strangers, Aria is caught in a suffocating game of cat and mouse.
Adrian on the other hand is dangerous, cold, and hiding a secret that could destroy her father's empire.
And the closer she gets to him, the more she risks losing everything, including herself.
9.6
I was the dedicated, "wolfless" Luna of the Blackwood Pack, bound to Alpha Damien for seven years.
Just three days before our marriage contract expired, Damien burst into my clinic carrying his mistress, Allena.
He used his Alpha Command to clear the room, humiliating me in front of my own medical staff.
The ultrasound revealed Allena was suffering from internal bleeding due to their uncontrolled mating frenzy.
Instead of feeling shame for his weakness, Damien shoved me brutally against a metal counter to protect her.
He threw a $100,000 check at me to buy my silence, treating my broken soul like a cheap transaction.
Later, when I refused to kneel and apologize to his mistress, he pushed me again, shattering my arm against a glass table.
As my blood soaked the pristine white rug, he stood over me, demanding my absolute submission.
He thought I was just a pathetic, weak Omega who would endure his cruelty forever because I had nothing else.
He didn't know that five years ago, after he threatened to kill any pup I bore him, I secretly built a massive offshore empire.
I calmly tied a tourniquet over my bleeding arm and wiped my blood right over his heart.
"I am done with you."
Then I liquidated his thirty-five-million-dollar penthouse assets and walked out into the night, ready to show him who the real monster was.
8.2
Casey woke up with a throbbing skull in a glamorous dressing room, facing a public execution by an internet mob.
Her wealthy family had thrown her away. Her hypocritical sister, Coralie, forced a holographic tablet into her hands, demanding she join a deadly survival reality show on a wasteland planet.
"It's what Mommy wants. If you don't sign, you're dead to the Hendersons."
The whole world wanted her dead. On the live broadcast, billions of viewers cursed her as a toxic stalker. The golden boy idol Kayson physically attacked her to defend Coralie's honor. Even the show's staff mocked her, deliberately leaving her with nothing but a torn, broken tent and a single bottle of water for the lethal alien wilderness.
The universe was playing a cruel joke on her. She was framed as the villain of her sister's perfect story, banished to a wasteland where everyone expected her to cry, beg, and die on live television.
But they didn't know she had already survived a decade in the ruins. Casey didn't shed a single tear. Instead, she invoked a hidden contract clause, demanding a full year on the planet instead of the standard month.
"I'll survive for a year, and the planet becomes mine."
She grabbed her broken tent, stepped onto the red alien dirt, and prepared to show the universe what a real predator looked like.
7.9
On our third wedding anniversary, my husband skipped our celebration to comfort his fragile adopted sister.
When I went to look for him in the middle of the night, I saw them intimately kissing in bed.
"She is a spoiled heiress who cannot live without me. Let her wait."
He scoffed to his sister, calling me a pathetic, clingy dog waiting for a scrap of attention.
For three years, I gave up my career as a top surgeon and managed his estate like a compliant housewife.
I swallowed my pride because my dying father desperately needed an experimental drug controlled by my husband's company.
But when my father accidentally overheard how my husband humiliated me, the guilt gave him a severe heart attack.
Waking up in the ICU, my father grabbed my hand and ordered me to divorce him.
When I finally handed my husband the divorce papers on the street, he flew into a violent rage.
"If you file these, I will cut off your father's medicine and leave you with nothing!"
He threatened me, thinking I would drop to my knees and beg for his mercy.
He didn't know that my personal trust fund was the only thing keeping his entire over-leveraged company from going bankrupt.
I smiled calmly and executed the secret clause to instantly withdraw my two hundred million dollars.
This time, I chose to burn his family's empire to the ground.
8.2
Grace hid her identity as the heir to a multi-billion-dollar empire just to experience ordinary love, acting as a free, devoted assistant to her actor fiancé, Hayden.
But while delivering his coffee, she caught him cheating with a new actress in his dressing room.
Through the crack in the door, she heard the actress whine about Grace being a feelingless robot.
Hayden just laughed, not stopping his frantic movements.
"She is a shield. She is a boring, free assistant. That is all she is."
He bragged that their upcoming engagement was just a PR stunt to build his perfect boyfriend image, and he would dump her the second he didn't need her.
He thought he held all the power, completely unaware that every massive movie contract and endorsement he had was secretly funded by Grace.
The betrayal poured over Grace like ice water, freezing her heart completely.
She had fought her aristocratic family and lowered herself to serve a man who treated her like disposable trash.
The girl who believed in simple love died in that hallway.
Grace didn't cry or burst into the room. She calmly hit record on her phone, securing the evidence to trigger his morality clause.
Then, she dialed her billionaire mother.
"I made a bad investment. Now I am liquidating the asset."
She was going to artificially inflate his fame to the absolute peak, and when he finally thought he was untouchable, she would strip him of everything.