The CEO Fell for His Dead Wife
Regina, a talented medical student from a prominent family, is forced into a contract marriage with Damian Harrison, a ruthless billionaire CEO. But when a chance encounter with a stranger leads to unexpected consequences, Regina's world is turned upside down.
As she rebuilds her life and confronts her past, Regina must navigate a complex web of family secrets, hidden identities, and deceit. Meanwhile, Damian's icy demeanor hides a vulnerable side, and he will stop at nothing to claim the two children she's been raising alone.
With secrets and lies lurking around every corner, Regina must decide whether to trust her heart or her head. Will she find redemption and love, or will the secrets and lies tear them apart?
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Chapter 5
Regina woke with a dull ache behind her eyes, the kind that came from restless sleep and unspoken dread. The ceiling above her felt too close, as if the house itself were pressing down on her, listening, waiting.
She lay still for a moment, counting her breaths.
One.
Two.
Three.
From down the hallway came Sasha’s laughter—light, effortless, alive. It floated through the walls like music that didn’t belong to Regina’s world. She squeezed her eyes shut.
*Of course*, she thought bitterly. *Sasha always wakes up winning.*
At breakfast, the difference between them was impossible to ignore.
Sasha descended the stairs dressed in soft cream silk, her hair loose, her smile radiant. Their mother’s face brightened instantly.
“You look beautiful,” she said, standing to adjust Sasha’s collar. “Just perfect.”
Regina sat already at the table, wearing a plain blouse and neatly pressed skirt. No one commented. Her presence was acknowledged only when the maid poured her tea.
Sasha slipped into her seat gracefully. “Father, I spoke to Aunt Eleanor last night,” she said casually. “She mentioned the Harrisons again.”
Regina’s fingers paused around her cup.
Her father looked up, interested. “Oh?”
“Yes,” Sasha continued, eyes glinting. “She said Damian Harrison is… quite different from what people expected. Cold. Distant. Not exactly the type for marriage, if you ask me.”
Their mother frowned. “That’s precisely why a proper woman would be necessary. A stabilizing influence.”
Sasha smiled faintly. “I suppose so. Still, I don’t think I’d suit someone like him. I value warmth. Romance.”
Regina felt the shift immediately—the subtle repositioning of responsibility, the quiet clearing of space.
Her father’s gaze slid to Regina.
“You, however,” he said slowly, “are adaptable.”
The word landed like a verdict.
Regina looked up, meeting his eyes for the briefest second before lowering her gaze. Adaptable. That was what they called obedience. Silence. Endurance.
“Yes, Father,” she said.
Sasha watched her over the rim of her cup, her smile polite, her eyes sharp. Regina knew that look. It was the look Sasha wore when she was winning something Regina didn’t yet know she was losing.
---
By midday, the pressure became impossible to ignore.
Regina was summoned home early from medical school—*family business*, her mother had said curtly over the phone. The words alone made Regina’s stomach knot.
She entered the sitting room to find her parents seated side by side, formal and composed. Sasha stood near the window, sunlight framing her like a portrait.
Regina stopped just inside the doorway.
“You called for me,” she said quietly.
Her mother gestured to the chair opposite them. “Sit.”
Regina obeyed.
Her father folded his hands. “We’ve made a decision,” he began. “One that will benefit this family greatly.”
Regina’s pulse quickened. She already knew—somehow, she had always known—that this moment would come.
“The Harrisons have proposed a contractual marriage,” her mother continued. “An alliance.”
Regina’s breath caught. “For… Sasha?” she asked, though the answer was already written on their faces.
Sasha turned slowly from the window. “I refused.”
The words were soft. Final.
“I’m not suited for such an arrangement,” Sasha said gently. “And Father agrees it would be… unwise to force me.”
Regina felt something crack inside her chest.
Her father’s gaze returned to her. “You will take her place.”
The room went silent.
Regina stared at him, the words echoing over and over in her head. *You will take her place.*
“I—” Her voice faltered. She swallowed. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to,” her mother said coolly. “You only need to comply.”
Regina’s hands trembled in her lap. “You want me to marry someone I’ve never met?”
“Yes.”
“Someone I know nothing about?”
“Yes.”
Her father’s voice hardened. “This is not a discussion, Regina. This is duty.”
Her heart pounded so loudly she was sure they could hear it. “What about my studies? My career?”
“You will continue them,” her mother replied dismissively. “If circumstances allow.”
If.
Regina turned to Sasha, desperation slipping through her composure. “You’re okay with this?”
Sasha met her gaze calmly. “It’s not personal, Regina. It’s just… reality.”
Reality.
The word tasted like ash.
“You’ve always been good at carrying burdens,” Sasha added softly. “Stronger than you look.”
Regina realized then that this had been decided long before she entered the room. Her role had already been written. The outsider. The substitute. The sacrifice.
She nodded slowly.
“Yes,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I understand.”
And in that moment, something inside her went very still.
---
That night, Regina stood alone on her balcony, the city sprawling endlessly below. Somewhere out there was Damian Harrison—the man she was to marry without choice, without voice, without consent.
She had never seen his face. Never heard his voice.
Only rumors.
Cold.
Dangerous.
Untouchable.
The wind brushed against her skin, carrying the faint scent of rain. Regina wrapped her arms around herself, feeling smaller than she ever had.
*I won’t survive this*, she thought.
Then, quieter, more frightening—
*Or maybe I won’t remain myself at all.*
Far below, the city lights flickered.
And fate quietly began to move.
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7.1
After five years in a federal prison, framed by my stepmother and fiancé, I was finally released.
Instead of a welcome home, my stepmother tossed me a one-way ticket to Geneva and a threat: renounce the family name and disappear, or end up in the Hudson River.
When our limo was suddenly ambushed by military-grade SUVs on the highway, their cowardice almost got us killed.
I took the wheel, crashed the attackers, and saved their lives.
But the moment the danger passed, my stepmother tried to slap me, called me a psycho, and abandoned me on the desolate roadside.
My ex-fiancé later cornered me in public, trying to assert his dominance by grabbing my arm.
They still thought I was the broken girl they sent to a cage just so they could steal my dead mother's biochemical research.
I didn't feel heartbreak, only a cold, absolute certainty.
They threw me to the wolves, not realizing the federal penitentiary had burned away my capacity for mercy.
I hacked into the dark web and found out Dante Meltoni, the most dangerous Mafia Don in New York, was tearing the city apart to find a legendary underground doctor.
I am that doctor.
I walked straight into his heavily guarded fortress, pulled out a syringe, and saved his dying grandfather.
Then I looked the terrifying Don right in the eye.
"Marry me. And let me use your empire to wipe my family off the map."
9.5
I returned to New York with a broken suitcase and exactly three hundred and forty-two dollars in my bank account. My mother was dying in a public hospital, and the only treatment that could save her required a fifty-thousand-dollar deposit I didn't have.
While I was pleading with the billing department, I ran into my billionaire ex, Gannon Sharpe, and his cruel fiancée, Aleta. Without a second thought, Aleta slapped me so hard my lip split, kicking my belongings across the floor and calling me a gold-digging thief in front of the entire staff.
I looked at Gannon, the man I once loved more than my own life, hoping for a shred of mercy. Instead, he looked at me with pure revulsion and told me I belonged in the gutter. He believed the lies his grandfather told him—that I had abandoned him after his car crash and vanished with millions.
He had no idea I was the one who actually pulled him from that burning wreckage, or that I was currently skipping meals in a moldy motel just so our secret son could have formula. He called me "disgusting" and walked away, leaving me to rot.
I wanted to scream that I was the genius scientist who wrote his company’s core algorithms, and that the child he didn’t know existed was shivering with a fever only blocks away. But the ironclad NDA I signed to save my family kept me silent, even as Gannon looked at me like I was something he’d stepped in.
Desperate for health insurance to save my mother and son, I took a bottom-tier data entry job in the basement of Gannon’s own tower, intending to stay invisible. But when a billion-dollar error threatened to bankrupt his empire, I couldn't stop myself from hacking the system to fix the code.
Now, the man who hates me is standing in my cubicle, demanding to know how a "dropout" knows his most guarded secrets. Gannon is finally digging into my past, and he’s about to find out exactly what—and who—I’ve been hiding for the last four years.
9.2
Nica caught her boyfriend, Chris, and her best friend, Ella, in a shocking betrayal. Chris was kissing Ella while caressing her close, and Ella only smirked at Nica as if she had won. Nica got pissed off and swore she would not let their betrayal go unpunished. What happens next? Read the story and find out for yourself.
8.7
I woke up from a coma in the hospital, universally condemned as the vicious daughter who pushed the beloved fake heiress, Georgina, down the stairs.
My ruthless billionaire brother, Angelo, stood over my bed with cold eyes, ready to destroy me for hurting his precious sister.
But as I looked at him, a terrifying prophecy from my coma flooded my brain. Our entire family was doomed.
In the original timeline, Georgina would team up with corporate rivals to bankrupt the company, frame Angelo, and send him to federal prison, while our parents would abandon me to die miserably.
Lying there, I didn't dare speak. I just desperately cursed my idiot brother in my head.
"This stupid brother is still yelling at me for that fake heiress. He doesn't even know he's going to be framed and sent to prison next month!"
I just wanted to stay quiet, let them ruin themselves, and run away from this toxic family.
But strangely, Angelo didn't strangle me. Instead, his attitude took a shocking turn.
He abruptly fired the driver plotting to kill him, destroyed the abusive fiancé of a family ally, and publicly humiliated Georgina at a high-society gala.
He even shielded me from our abusive parents, declaring to the world that I was the only sister he would ever protect.
I was completely terrified and confused. Why was the tyrant brother suddenly acting like a protective beast?
It wasn't until he flawlessly crushed a massive corporate attack using the exact financial secrets I had just complained about in my mind that a horrifying realization hit me.
He could hear my inner thoughts!
8.7
I was pregnant with the future heir of the Blackwood Pack, but my fated mate, Alpha Gavin, was nowhere to be found when sharp, tearing agony ripped through my swollen belly.
Instead of rushing to my side, he was in a luxury penthouse with his mistress, Piper.
When I desperately called his human number for help, it was Piper who answered the phone.
"I'm Piper. His future Luna."
Minutes later, I received a leaked audio file of Gavin promising to formally reject me the moment our pup was born.
Before the heartbreak could even set in, my armored SUV was violently rammed off the road by a massive truck.
It wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit paid for by Piper's pack.
I woke up in the clinic with an empty womb. My pup was dead.
Gavin didn't even show up. He just mind-linked the butler to say he was "too busy" to deal with my loss.
He let his mistress murder our child and treated me like disposable trash, assuming my grief would make me a weak, compliant victim.
He thought he could just bury my trauma and move on with his perfect new life.
He was wrong.
I faked my own death in a fiery crash, leaving him with nothing but my signed rejection papers and the bloody receipt proving his mistress hired the killers.
Now, armed with a new identity and untraceable wealth, I am stepping out of the shadows.
I am going to bankrupt their packs from the inside out and make my former Alpha watch his empire burn.
8.5
Betrayed and divorced by her cheating Alpha mate, Elara flees into the human world, carrying the secret triplets he never knew existed. Years later, fate binds her to Damian Blackwood, the ruthless billionaire Alpha of the Eclipse Pack, whose mafia empire rules shadows and fortunes alike. As old wounds reopen and Ryder hunts his hidden heirs, Elara must navigate a dangerous bond, protect her moon-touched daughter from an ancient threat tearing at the Lunar Veil, and decide if she can trust a new mate... or burn everything down to keep her family safe. A steamy fusion of werewolf destiny, billionaire power, mafia intrigue, secret babies, betrayal, revenge, and fated mates, where love rises from ashes and the moon demands its due.