Once His Nightmare, Now His Employee

He thought he had his life figured out until the boy he buried in the past walked back in. Dorian Keene was once the golden boy of high school-famous, feared, and cruel. And Caspian Vale? Just the quiet nerd with a birthmark... and a target on his back. But beneath Dorian's bullying lay a truth he couldn't face: he was terrified of how much he wanted the boy he was supposed to hate. Years later, Dorian's world is in shambles. Penniless, grieving, and sick, he lands a miracle job working under a Tech Mogul who turns out to be none other than Caspian. Only this Caspian is powerful, untouchable... and very much engaged to a woman. Dorian tries to keep his distance. Caspian, for all appearances, is straight. But fate has a twisted sense of humor, and buried sparks are reignited-this time under the harsh light of adulthood, secrets, and slow-blooming desire neither man can afford. As Dorian's hidden illness grows deadlier, and Caspian's mask begins to crack, a single kiss will force them to ask: Can a man who thought he was straight handle the truth of who he's always been... before it's too late?

Chapters

Chapter 2

DORIAN's POV

"How was the interview?" Ronan asked, drying a glass behind the bar. "You look like hell, but I'm hoping for good news."

I sat in front of the bar, rolling my eyes while dropping both my curriculum vitae and my phone onto the tiny slab.

"How do you think it went?" I muttered, dropping into the stool like dead weight. "Martini. Double."

"Gin or vodka?" Ronan calmly asked, careful not to probe into the interview or my joblessness-and I couldn't have been more grateful.

"Gin."

He nodded and began mixing the shots while I pressed my nails into my skin, hoping the sting could match what I felt inside.

All the savings I had left was what I used to get my mother's drugs earlier this morning. Again, I had gone in search of a job but... nothing as usual. Walking in the heat, being dismissed, or how the receptionist looked at my resume like it was trash.

Today makes it exactly five months since I had been marking tallies on a calendar or opening a folder filled with rejection emails.

Five months of unemployment! Five months of scouting for jobs and it just seems like some kind of god had decided to place a curse on me.

"I know you will find a job soon enough. I just feel it in my bones, but whatever you do, don't give up hope on trying." Ronan advised, passing me the shot and I scoffed.

My phone beeped and I reached into my pocket before retrieving it to stare at the text I got.

'Your mother just passed on. My condolences, Mr. Dorian. Our deepest condolences.'

My breath caught. Everything slowed-the noise in the bar, the flicker of lights, Ronan's voice calling my name. My heart pounded once, hard, and then went quiet. Like even it didn't want to go on.

"Dorian?" Ronan called but I could only hear him through a daze as tears slid down the corner of my eyes.

Cancer!

She was always in pain. I could remember how she kept on asking if the surgery would happen. But I couldn't even look her directly in the eye.

If I had just gotten one goddamn job... one stable income. She could've had the surgery. The bills wouldn't have piled so high. She would still be breathing. Still calling me her boy.

I could only stare at my hands and see her blood on it-They were stained by it.

I was already at the brink of losing my mind knowing that if I didn't pay rent by next week, I would be homeless and then my mum?

"Dorian, what's wrong with you man?" Ronan asked, jerking my hands a bit and that pulled me out of my ocean of thoughts saving me from drowning.

I shifted the phone over to him and his countenance fell as he stared at the contents on the screen.

"Dorian, I'm so sorry."

I shrugged, taking slight deep breaths to level my heart rate. "Make it a double Martini, Ronan." I requested and Ronan shook his head in negativity.

"I know this hurts, Dorian. But I'm not about to let you drink yourself into the grave." Ronan stated in a firm voice and I just swallowed hard.

"Fine then. I'll just go and wallow in misery back at home." I seethed, standing up immediately but he grabbed my hands, pulling me back down.

"Dorian, you're my best friend and I probably know you better than you would ever know yourself. This isn't a good time for you to be alone, you'll spend the night at my place today." Ronan stated, matter of factly leaving no room for any kind of argument. "We will go pick her body up from the hospital tomorrow."

A disturbing thought always crept in whenever I was around Ronan.

He was my best friend. It had been for years. But would he still be... if he knew? I wasn't sure. And tonight, the thought of being that vulnerable, that exposed-it scared the hell out of me.

I wasn't so sure about that and leaving I and Ronan in one enclosed room, at night, I'm quite unsure how that would go.

If he touches me... will I break?

What if I want him too?

That's not possible. Ronan and I are close buddies.

There's nothing between us but I still feel something was off. Maybe because Ronan is not gay? At the same time, I haven't seen him with any lady lately.

*****

An hour later, Ronan was done with his night shift. He clocked out, and we walked home in silence.

The walk back was cold and quiet. Ronan didn't say much, and I didn't have the strength to fill the silence. I just replayed her laugh in my head... the way it used to echo through our tiny living room.

Ronan turned to stare at me for a few seconds before patting my shoulders a bit.

When we got to his apartment, I just settled in on the couch lost in my own thoughts as Ronan presented dinner but I declined.

"You're not really going to starve yourself, are you?" Ronan queried and I grabbed him by the shirt.

"That's exactly what I'm going to do, Ronan." I blurted out and he threw his hands up in surrender while I went ahead to scroll through old pictures of my mom.

Just as I scrolled through her pictures, I saw a pop up of an incoming mail but it vanished almost immediately so I had to enter my mail to confirm what it was about.

And right there...

'JOB INTERVIEW FROM VALE ENTERPRISE.'

My phone fell from my hand almost immediately with a slight thud onto the table as I took deep breaths trying to stabilize my heart rate as I kept staring at it in disbelief.

"There must be a mistake. They must've clicked the wrong file and mail. My resume? It's nothing impressive. Two years in retail. A failed internship. A business degree gathering dust in a folder titled 'At Least You Tried.' No way!"

I blurted out, dropping my phone onto the table with a slight thud as I stared at my friend's wide eyed.

"Umm, Dorian? What are you talking about?" Ronan asked and I gulped, unsure of what to say while staring at the mail long and hard like I was trying to see past some glamour and see the real message.

'There's no way they're actually accepting me right?'

"I think Vale Enterprise wants a job interview with me." I said quickly and he dropped the food he was holding whilst picking my phone up.

"Like The Vale Enterprise that we all know of? Are you sure?" He was equally stunned as I rubbed my wrists, wondering if this was all just a dream.

Speaking of dreams...

And now that I was halfway to my dream, the person I wanted to make proud was gone.

Continue to next part

My mate, Theron, was a powerful Alpha, and I, a scentless Omega, was his greatest prize. But beneath his adoring facade was a terrifying, possessive monster, revealed when he dragged me home and forced me into our bed after I was late to his challenge match. His golden eyes burned with chilling control, and he whispered a threat that turned my blood to ice. I'd been stuck on a forest road, my truck dead, racing to reach his challenge match. His mate bond panic had already frayed my nerves, but nothing prepared me for his rage. He'd publicly broken his opponent's shoulder, then stalked directly to me, ignoring the crowd. He marked my lateness with chilling precision, before dragging me away to our rooms for "punishment." Later, as he tried to force a ceremonial marking pendant on me, he promised, "If you will not accept my mark willingly, then I will wait for your Heat. I will fuck you until your body begs for it, and my wolf will hold you down while I bite." My gaze fell on his open journal, filled with frantic, scrawled words: "SHE IS MINE. PUNISH. CLAIM. MARK HER. BREED HER. MAKE HER UNDERSTAND SHE IS MINE. MINE. MINE." The man I loved, my only protection, was a captor in disguise, his devotion a gilded cage. Every gentle touch, every soft word, now felt like a brand of ownership, a tightening leash. The terrifying truth of his pathological obsession finally hit me. A fragile plan formed in the space between heartbeats: I would de-escalate, redefine, and survive, no matter the cost, before his possessive madness consumed me entirely.

Horror Romance Werewolf

9.1

His Orchestrated Love, My Shattered Life

9.1

After a brutal assault cost me my fiancé, my childhood friend swooped in to save me. He married me, cherished me, and I fell in love with the perfect life he built. I thought I had finally found my happy ending. Then, pregnant with our child, I overheard him confessing to my half-sister. He had orchestrated the entire assault. He married me just to stay close to her. In the hospital, she staged an attack, claiming I tried to kill her and her unborn baby. My husband shoved me against the wall, roaring at me as he rushed to her side. "I'll kill you for this!" As I lay bleeding on the cold floor, losing my own child, not a single person looked back. I was just a necessary casualty in his game. But I had recorded her gloating confession. I faked my death and fled to my billionaire mother. He would find out the truth, and I would be the ghost that haunted him to his grave.

Horror Modern Romance

8.0

Marrying The Enemy: My Ex's Worst Nightmare

8.0

I spent ten years as the ward of Kason Oneal, the ruthless Underboss of the city's most dangerous crime family. He saved me when I was a child, raised me, and made me believe I was his queen. But the moment his ex-girlfriend, Dalia, returned, the illusion shattered. Kason demanded I return the jade pendant—the one he had hand-carved for my sixteenth birthday—just so he could hang it around Dalia's neck. To him, I was suddenly nothing more than a placeholder who had kept his bed warm. The cruelty didn't stop there. He stood by and watched as Dalia shredded my clothes with scissors, laughing at my tears. When I collapsed on the floor in agony from acute appendicitis, Kason didn't call an ambulance. Instead, he dragged me to a shady clinic, accusing me of faking a pregnancy to trap him. He ordered the doctor to "terminate it" while I was dying of sepsis on the table. He called me trash. He called me property. He stripped away every ounce of dignity I had left, all to please a woman who was lying to his face. I realized then that the hero who saved me when I was ten was dead. I was done begging for scraps of affection from a monster. Trembling, I walked to the phone and dialed the number of the one man Kason feared most—his sworn enemy, Hadley Payne. "Tell him yes," I whispered into the receiver. "I accept the arrangement. I will marry him." Kason thought he could break me. Instead, he was about to watch his "property" become the Queen of the rival family.

Horror Modern Romance

7.4

Reborn From Ashes: The King's Ruthless Queen

7.4

The house was a living inferno, the heat devouring the air in my lungs as I clutched my five-year-old daughter to my chest. Emily was dead weight, her skin already cooling even as the room turned into a furnace of orange and black. Through the stinging smoke, I saw my husband, Kenney, crawling toward the door with a wet handkerchief pressed to his face. He didn't look back at the crib, and he didn't call my name; he was simply leaving us to burn. I lunged forward and grabbed his ankle, my nightgown catching fire, but he didn't reach down to save me. He recoiled in horror at the sight of my burning hair and our dead child, kicking me back with a panicked shriek. "Let go!" he shrieked. I died as a massive, flaming timber snapped from the ceiling and crushed us both into silence. I couldn't believe that the man I loved would leave his family to die just to save his own skin, but the rage I felt was colder than the death that followed. But then the burning stopped instantly, replaced by a cold so sharp it made my teeth ache. I gasped, jerking upright in my bed to find the velvet duvet cool under my palms and the nursery quiet, with Emily still breathing softly in her crib. I had returned to the winter morning two years before the fire, the exact day Kenney finalized the deal to sell me to the King for a promotion. As Kenney stepped into the room with a practiced mask of concern, I realized I was no longer the victim of this story. "A nightmare, my love?" he asked, reaching out to touch my shoulder. I flinched away, my eyes burning with a hatred he couldn't yet understand. Tonight was the Winter Masquerade, the night he planned to offer me to the King as a prize, but this time, I was going to turn his social ladder into a gallows.

Fantasy Horror Romance

8.6

Rejected by my cursed mate

8.6

Daria, an orphaned omega, thought finding her mate would save her and give her everything she had ever dreamed of... Until he rejected her, humiliating her before the entire pack. But after one night of unexpected passion, she falls pregnant with his child. Ecstatic, she believes fate has given her another chance, only to learn he wants nothing more than an heir to cure his curse. Heartbroken and betrayed, Daria flees. Years later, she returns, armed with more than she could ever think to achieve. Now, she must choose: let their bond mend what was broken, or let her anger destroy everything he holds dear.

Fantasy Horror Romance

8.1

The Captain's Runaway Genius In Disguise

8.1

I was just a cleaner making fifteen dollars an hour, scrubbing floors to hide from a past that haunted me. But when I walked into a billionaire's pristine penthouse, the suffocating visions hit me again. I saw a woman brutally murdered in a room that had been bleached spotless. I called 911, and that brought the one man I had spent three years running from right to my door: NYPD Captain Kelvin O'Brien. The patrol cops wanted to lock me up because I found the hidden blood too fast. To avoid a psych ward, I had to pretend my horrific supernatural visions were just brilliant deductive logic. I had to physically endure the phantom sensation of the victim's throat being crushed and poison burning her stomach. All while Kelvin cornered me, demanding to know why I abandoned him and my title as the department's greatest asset, "The Oracle." I didn't want to look at dead bodies anymore. I didn't want to feel their agonizing deaths. Why couldn't they just let me disappear? But when the victim's wealthy husband walked into the precinct with a smug smile, ready to get away with murder, I couldn't stand it. I forced myself to relive the victim's dying moments, guiding Kelvin to cut open her decomposed stomach to find the diamond ring she had swallowed. "We have your blood inside her stomach." His perfect alibi was shattered. But when we found an underground syndicate token hidden in his wallet, I knew my quiet life was over.

Billionaire Horror Modern Mystery

Once His Nightmare, Now His Employee

Chapter 2

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