My CEO Brother Wants Me
He was supposed to be my brother. The cold CEO everyone feared. The man who controlled the entire country's business world.
But one night, he looked at me and calmly destroyed everything I thought I knew.
"We're getting married."
I laughed, but he didn't.
Now every door in my life is closing, every choice is disappearing, and the one man I'm not supposed to love refuses to let me go.
Because to Lucien Hale, this was never forbidden. It was inevitable.
And the most terrifying part? The closer I get to him, the harder it becomes to run.
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Chapter 6
AVA
"So you're back with your rich family now?" Maya, my blood sister, said. I could clearly hear the resentment in her voice.
"Maya," I said softly. "Hi."
She laughed. "Hi?" she repeated. "That's all you have to say after disappearing into luxury for six years?"
My fingers tightened around my phone.
"I didn't disappear," I said carefully. "You knew where I was."
"Oh, I knew," she replied quickly. "London...private university...private jet rides... living the dream."
"Must be nice," she added.
Guilt flickered through me, but I kept my voice calm.
"I didn't choose how things happened."
"No," she said. "You just benefited from it."
I closed my eyes briefly.
"Maya-"
"Do you know when I left the orphanage?" she cut in.
"Yes," I muttered. "Five years ago."
"Eighteen, Ava. I was eighteen." she repeated. "I stayed there until I aged out. No rich family came back for me."
Her words weren't loud but they hit hard anyway.
"I tried to stay in touch," I said softly.
"You called sometimes," she corrected. "From your perfect life."
I didn't argue because any defense sounded hollow.
"And now you're back," she went on. "Back to privilege."
"It's not like that." I murmured.
She ignored that. "So tell me," she said, her tone shifting slightly, "are they finally treating you like one of them?"
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Did they give you their last name yet?" she asked casually. "Or are you still the charity case they keep around?"
My stomach tightened.
"They never gave you the Hale name, did they?" she continued. "Funny. You lived there all those years, but they still kept that distance."
I didn't answer because I never understood that part either.
"And Lucien?" she added suddenly. "How's your cold, untouchable brother?"
My heart raced immediately.
"He's fine," I said shortly.
"Still ignores you?" she asked.
"I'm tired, Maya." I answered, exhaling through my nose.
She went quiet for a second, then she hummed.
"Alright," she said. "Keep your secrets."
My grip tightened on the phone.
"Maya..."
"I'm just saying," she continued, almost lazily. "So... enjoy being back with your rich family."
I took a breath, then replied, "Goodnight, Maya."
Before she could respond, I ended the call. I stared at my phone for a moment, then let out a long breath.
The irony of it all sat heavy in my chest. To everyone else, my life looked perfect.
I lay back on the bed slowly.
'Perfect.'
I let out a soft, tired laugh, then I curled on my side, pulling the blanket around myself.
I barely slept.
Even when exhaustion pulled me under, my mind never fully rested. Lucien's voice kept echoing in fragments.
"You've always been mine."
"We're getting married."
By morning, I was too drained to think about it anymore. So I focused on the one thing I could still control.
My life.
I stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the sleeves of my blazer.
I was dressed corporately, wearing a structured jacket, fitted trousers, and low heels. My hair fell neatly down my back, and my makeup was light but professional.
If nothing else, I could still choose my career. Lucien wasn't going to decide that too.
I picked up my bag and headed downstairs.
Seraphina and Alaric were already at the breakfast table.
The moment Seraphina saw me, guilt crossed her face. It was subtle, but I caught it.
"Good morning, darling," she said softly.
"Morning," I replied.
Alaric gave a small nod. "You're up early."
"I have somewhere to be."
Seraphina's brows pulled together. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to apply for a job."
Seraphina hesitated. "But... Lucien said you shouldn't-"
"I know what Lucien said," I cut in. "I want to work at Greenfield. I don't need his help."
Alaric didn't say anything, but his expression had tightened a little.
I adjusted the strap of my bag and started heading towards the door.
"Ava, wait." Seraphina's voice stopped me.
I sighed, then turned back slowly.
She looked... uncomfortable. More than that, remorseful.
"About yesterday," she began awkwardly.
I shook my head before replying, "There's no need to explain, Sera."
Her lips parted, but I continued before she could speak.
"I don't expect much from any of you anyway."
The words came out calmer than I felt, but they seemed to have landed hard because her face fell instantly.
"Ava..."
"You know," I added, "it finally makes sense now."
She frowned. "What are you saying?"
"Everything."
I met her eyes directly.
"So I was being groomed for your son all along."
The hurt on her face was immediate.
"That's not true," she said quickly. "Ava, that's not true at all."
I didn't respond.
"Everything Lucien is doing," she continued, "It's his decision. His alone."
"But you support him," I said.
She went silent because she couldn't deny that. For a moment, she didn't know what to say.
"You know Lucien," she finally said, "When he makes a decision... no one can change it."
I held her gaze.
"And that makes it okay?"
She didn't answer, she couldn't.
I glanced at my wristwatch, I had one hour before my interview.
"It's fine," I said. "My appointment is at nine. I need to leave now."
I turned before the conversation could drag any further. As I reached the door, I heard her voice behind me.
"Good luck, Ava."
I paused for a second, then I stepped outside without responding because luck wasn't what I needed.
I needed control and I was determined to take some of it back, starting with my career.
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8.4
Carissa's son was dying in the ICU, and the bone marrow match had just failed.
The billionaire father, Guilford Gates, cornered her with a cruel ultimatum: naturally conceive a "savior sibling" to save their son. But what shocked Carissa more was his family's sudden accusation that she had heartlessly sold her baby to them three years ago.
"You sold your own flesh and blood to us for five million dollars, so your body belongs to the Gates family."
She was dragged into their gilded estate, treated like a filthy, rented womb. Guilford's new fiancée mocked her, the matriarch humiliated her, and Guilford looked at her with pure disgust. When she desperately tried to feed her sick son and accidentally made him vomit, Guilford violently shoved her away and banned her from the room.
Carissa was devastated and entirely confused. She had never seen a single cent of that five million. Driven by a desperate need for the truth, she investigated and uncovered a horrifying reality: her own father and stepmother had secretly trafficked her baby to the billionaire behind her back, leaving her to bear the ultimate blame.
Looking at the bank transfer record bought with her son's life, the last shred of Carissa's vulnerability died.
She signed the conception contract without asking for a single penny. She was going to use the Gates family's immense power to destroy the blood relatives who sold her, and she would survive this hell to take back her son.
8.4
Everly spent four years playing the perfect, accommodating wife to Carson Moss, swallowing every grievance just to secure medical treatments for their sick daughter.
But at a high-society banquet she exhausted herself organizing, Carson's pregnant mistress crashed the party.
The woman shoved an ultrasound of Carson's "real heir" directly into Everly's frail grandfather's face.
The shock triggered a massive heart attack.
Carson refused to use his private helicopter to save the dying old man, choosing to protect his mistress and his company's IPO instead. Her grandfather died on the hospital table.
Instead of remorse, her mother-in-law demanded Everly publicly cover up the murder.
"You will do exactly as I say, or I will freeze every single cent of the medical trust fund paying for your crippled daughter's treatments."
When a battered Everly returned to the estate, she discovered her three-year-old daughter covered in dark bruises and pinch marks. Her in-laws were deliberately torturing her disabled child.
Everly couldn't comprehend how a family could be so utterly heartless. Her only family was murdered, her child was abused, and her husband threw a five-million-dollar check at her face as hush money.
They thought she would just break and quietly disappear.
But when a terrifyingly powerful billionaire unexpectedly blocked Carson's security team from locking her up, Everly finally saw her window.
She grabbed her sleeping daughter and ran out into the freezing storm, making a blood-bound vow to make the entire Moss family bleed.
7.1
For seven years, I hid my identity as a wealthy heiress to be with my boyfriend, Ewing. I followed him across the country and made myself small so he could feel big.
On Thanksgiving, he ditched our celebration for his first love, Bree, who supposedly had a "burst pipe."
Later, she posted an intimate selfie with him, calling him her "hero."
Then she sent me a video of him at a bar, laughing with his friends.
"She's just being dramatic," he slurred, smirking at the camera. "A new necklace and she'll forget all about it. She's easy."
Easy. Seven years of my life, my love, my sacrifice-all reduced to that one word. I realized I was never his partner. I was just a placeholder.
I didn't cry. I packed my bags, booked a one-way flight to New York, and sent him one final text before blocking his number.
"Don't bother coming home. I'm getting married."
7.8
Andrea was trapped in a suffocating marriage with billionaire Gregory Morse, forced to live as the pathetic substitute for his dead fiancée.
When armed intruders broke into their estate in the dead of night, she called her husband in pure terror.
"Stop playing these cheap, attention-seeking games," Gregory sneered with disgust, and hung up the phone.
She barely escaped with her life, but the cruelty only escalated. At the family mansion, his dead fiancée's sister deliberately scalded Andrea's hand with boiling tea. Instead of defending his wife, Gregory publicly humiliated her, ordering her to clean up the mess while calling her a stray dog.
That night, hiding in the dark wine cellar, Andrea overheard a chilling confession.
Gregory admitted to his brother that he knew Andrea was completely innocent of the car crash that killed his fiancée. He knew she had been framed.
Why did he marry her? Just to use her as a psychological punching bag to vent his twisted grief. He watched her suffer every single day, treating her like disposable trash, while violently threatening anyone who showed her an ounce of kindness.
He thought she was just a useless, helpless shadow who would quietly endure his torment forever.
He had no idea that behind her submissive facade, she was secretly Madame Lan, the apex predator of the global fashion world. And now, she was ready to burn his empire to the ground.
8.9
For seven years, I hid my MIT Ph.D. and my identity as a top haute couture designer to be the perfect, obedient wife to billionaire Cornelius Lambert.
But on our anniversary, while I waited at home with a cold dinner, I found him at a Michelin restaurant with his childhood sweetheart, Halle.
My seven-year-old son sat between them, laughing loudly.
"Mom is too boring. I wish Aunt Halle was my real mom."
Cornelius didn't defend me. He just smiled and affectionately ruffled the boy's hair.
When I finally packed my bags and left, I accidentally triggered an old AI robot prototype Cornelius had given me years ago.
A hidden recording played his voice from the very night he proposed.
"Why marry her? Because she's easy to control. Halle doesn't want to settle down yet, so Cassidy is just a perfect, temporary shield."
Later, when I caught them being intimate in a dark parking garage and snapped a photo, Cornelius watched with cold, dead eyes as his massive bodyguard shoved me against a concrete pillar.
My arm was torn open, blood dripping onto the floor, as they forced me to delete the evidence of his affair.
For seven years, I filed down every sharp edge of my brilliance for a man who saw me as nothing but a pathetic, disposable placeholder.
My heart turned to absolute ice. He thought I was just a weak, powerless housewife.
But he forgot who he was dealing with.
As his luxury car drove away, I pulled up the hidden command terminal on my phone and recovered the encrypted cloud backup of the photos.
I looked at my lawyer with a bleeding arm and a cold smile.
"Let's go. Now, we have a weapon."
7.9
For five years, April Gamble loved Julian Travis with everything she had, trusting him completely.
But on a stormy night, he casually tossed a liquidation agreement at her feet, single-handedly destroying her grandfather's company.
He coldly admitted he only dated her to steal Vance Group's internal financial data.
"You were convenient," Julian said, swirling his whiskey without a shred of guilt.
Before April could even process the brutal betrayal, a breaking news alert lit up her phone.
She watched in absolute horror as her grandfather jumped from the ledge of the Vance Tower on live television.
Julian looked at her writhing, screaming form with utter boredom and simply ordered his bodyguard to throw her out.
Blinded by grief and tears, April sped into the torrential rain, only to be completely crushed by a hydroplaning transport truck at an intersection.
As the shattered glass tore into her skin and the metal crushed her ribs, she died with a hatred so pure it made her teeth ache.
Why did five years of devotion mean absolutely nothing to him? Why did her family have to die just to feed his ruthless greed?
When she opened her eyes again, the harsh hospital lights blinded her, but the familiar burn scar on her arm was gone.
She wasn't the betrayed financial analyst April Gamble anymore.
She had woken up in the body of Altagracia Blanchard, the most notorious, obscenely wealthy heiress in New York.
Julian had taken everything from her, but now, armed with a billionaire's empire, she was going to bury him.