The CEO Who Won't Let Me Go
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I've always been the unwanted child-the invisible one. The rebel no one ever tried to understand.
And yet, I never resented my perfect, beloved sister. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy.
But one cruel twist of fate-and a devastating betrayal by someone I trusted-changed everything.
I woke up in a stranger's bed, losing the one thing I had guarded so carefully. Back then, I thought that was my greatest loss.
I was wrong.
Because not long after, my sister introduced me to her fiancé.
And the man standing in front of me... was the same stranger from that night.
Now he haunts me-day and night, in my dreams and in my waking hours. And just when I start to believe the nightmare might finally fade with the dawn, Alan walks back into my life.
This time, he has no intention of letting me forget.
Not the insult I dealt him.
...or that one unforgettable night.
The CEO Who Won't Let Me Go Chapter 1
"Why don’t you want to come with us, Zoe?" my sister asked again, peppering me with questions while I pinned her hair into an elegant updo. "All you have to do is put on one of my dresses, and you'd look gorgeous."
"Maybe. But my friends are waiting for me at the club, and I don't want to bail on them," I said, giving her a small, smug smile.
The mirror attached to the vanity reflected two complete opposites.
Valeri was light. I was darkness.
Somehow, though, our parents had gotten our hair colors backwards.
Valeri was a tiny brunette with a delicate figure, her soft curves hidden beneath a beautiful burgundy dress from some designer brand I didn't recognize. Fashion had never really been my thing. Every conversation about it made me feel like an idiot. I could admit her dress was gorgeous, but to me, it was way too proper.
I had more curves, wider hips, and no desire to hide any of it. My short black dress looked, in my mother's words, "like something a cheap slut would wear."
Naturally, I'd paired it with heavy makeup and loose blonde curls falling down my back.
"I don't like your friends, Zoe," Valeri said with a sigh, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Especially Kriss. Honestly, you should stop hanging out with all three of them. Can't you tell they're only using you? The only reason they get into places like this is because of your last name."
Her words hit harder than I wanted them to.
Of course I knew they were using me.
But I needed them.
Needed them like oxygen, if only because they drove my mother insane. The only time she ever seemed to notice I existed was when I did something she hated.
Even tonight, the four of us were going to one of the most exclusive clubs in the city using a pass I'd stolen from Mom's purse.
Did I actually want to spend the evening with them?
Not really.
But no one had invited me to the company's anniversary party with the rest of the family, and there was no way I was going to beg.
"I'll think about it," I said, setting the curling iron down and unplugging it. "Your hair's done. Go. And good luck meeting your fiancé. I'm sure he's wonderful. Mom and Dad would never marry you off to just anybody."
Valeri got to her feet and turned toward me. One look at her face, and I braced myself for another lecture.
Instead, her expression softened, and she smiled.
You couldn't hide happiness like that. Not even when you were trying to scold your little sister.
"He's amazing, Zoe. I really want you to meet him."
"You'll get your chance eventually," I said. "Tomorrow you'll tell me everything."
Valeri pouted.
"So you're not coming home until morning? I wanted to tell you tonight." She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. "Don't get drunk. I won't survive waiting that long."
"I'll try," I said with a quiet laugh.
Not that it mattered. I didn't drink.
No matter how hard my terrible friends tried to talk me into it, I always refused. I liked knowing exactly what was going on around me. I smoked sometimes, sure, but cigarettes didn't make you lose control.
A few minutes before nine, my parents left the house arm in arm with Valeri, and I called a cab to the club.
I met my partners in bad decisions right outside the entrance to the most exclusive place in the city.
I knew Mom came here all the time.
It was her favorite club.
And tonight, I was finally going to find out why.
"Zoe!" a gorgeous redhead squealed, throwing herself around my neck.
Even in my heels, I was still way shorter than Kriss, and my face ended up shoved straight into her cleavage. She always tried so hard to look expensive, but the cheap perfume she drowned herself in ruined the effect.
"I thought you weren't coming."
"Like I'd miss this?" I said with a smile, glancing over at the guys standing a few feet away.
"So what are we waiting for?" Kriss asked. "You brought the pass, right?"
"Obviously."
I pulled the small black card with the gold crown out of my purse and flashed it.
Miron gave a low whistle. Sergey grinned, wrapped an arm around both Kriss and me, and steered us toward the entrance.
The bouncer looked us over with obvious suspicion. For a second, I thought he was going to stop us.
Then he saw the card.
Rules were rules.
Anyone with one of those got in.
His jaw tightened, but he stepped aside without another word.
Inside, soft dance music drifted through the huge, expensive-looking club. The place practically screamed money.
I followed the others toward the bar.
There weren't many nonalcoholic options, but there were a few. I ordered a milkshake and turned to look around.
Everywhere I looked, men and women sat in small groups, drinking, laughing, unwinding after the week. Among the rich businessmen, spoiled socialites, and women polished to perfection, there were plenty of girls who clearly weren't there for the free champagne.
I watched one of them leave with an older man and disappear upstairs.
What was up there? Private rooms? VIP suites? Something else?
"Try this. It's incredible," Kriss said, holding out a glass full of some suspicious dark-blue cocktail.
"No thanks. You know I don't drink." My gaze drifted across the room again before landing on a huge aquarium against the far wall. Instantly, I wanted a closer look. "I'm going for a walk."
"And I'm going dancing!" Kriss announced.
She shoved her drink onto the bar, grabbed Sergey by the arm, and dragged him toward the dance floor. He looked less than upset about it considering he'd been openly staring at one of the dancers a second earlier.
Carefully balancing on my heels, I made my way through the crowd, weaving between tables with my milkshake in hand.
I almost made it to the aquarium.
Almost.
A man stepped around the corner so suddenly I crashed right into him.
My drink splashed all over the front of his jacket.
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry," I blurted, looking up.
The man towering over me looked absolutely furious.
Another guy appeared behind him.
"Everything okay, Al?"
"No," the first man said coldly. "It's not."
Then he looked down at me like I'd just crawled out from under his shoe.
"How exactly are you planning to pay for that?"
I had always hated rich jerks who thought the world revolved around them.
Without breaking eye contact, I opened my purse, took out my wallet, and counted out enough cash for dry cleaning.
Then I slid the bills into the pocket of his jacket.
"There's a cleaner around the corner," I said coolly. "They'll make it look brand new. That should cover it. Keep the change."
Continue Reading
The CEO Who Won't Let Me Go of Contents
Chapter 1 Ch. 1Chapter 2 Ch. 2Chapter 3 Ch. 3Chapter 4 Ch. 4Chapter 5 Ch. 5Chapter 6 Ch. 6
Chapter 7 Ch. 7
Chapter 8 Ch. 8
Chapter 9 Ch. 9
Chapter 10 Ch. 10
Chapter 11 Ch. 11
All Chapters all
New Release Novels
8.2
Ten years as childhood friends and three as husband and wife ended in her husband's betrayal, and her brothers' indifference. Diagnosed with mid-stage stomach cancer, Roselyn saw the truth of her life.
She walked away from everything, rising from an overlooked office worker to a leading figure in the tech world.
She outplayed her husband into signing divorce papers. When they met again, he begged, "I was wrong... take me back. I'd give you my stomach if I could."
Her once arrogant brothers pleaded too, but she felt nothing. After all, love that arrived too late meant nothing to her now-she simply didn't care anymore.
As they stood desperate, a man stepped forward and wrapped her in his arms. "Why waste time on them? Look at me instead."
7.5
To save my family's dying company, I was forced to marry a billionaire I hadn't seen in fourteen years.
But right outside the City Clerk's office, he tossed our marriage certificate at me like a cheap receipt and shoved a four-year-old boy into my arms.
"Your new life has begun. You're on babysitting duty now."
He sneered and left me stranded on the sidewalk. I realized with absolute horror that my new husband was Ellsworth Marshall, the sickly boy I had relentlessly bullied in middle school.
He didn't spend five billion dollars to save the Bradford family. He bought me to execute a slow, suffocating revenge.
He used his orphaned nephew as a pawn, explicitly threatening my father that if I failed to play the perfect, compliant nanny, he would instantly destroy our family's legacy.
He even had his guards lock me out of his Long Island estate on my first night, forcing me to stand in the cold dark just to prove he owned me.
I was trapped in a gilded cage, suffocated by the guilt of my past and the terror of my present.
Why did he involve an innocent child in his twisted vendetta? How much humiliation was enough to pay for my childhood cruelty?
Looking at the terrified little boy clinging to my skirt, I tightened my grip on my suitcase.
If he wanted to destroy my will piece by piece, I had to find a way to survive the monster I created.
9.3
Chandler was the secret wife of Avery Osborn, a powerful media heir who kept their marriage hidden to avoid the scandal of her illegitimate birth.
After catching him openly flirting with a rival at a gala, Avery mocked her low status and told her she was nothing without his money.
Instead of crying, Chandler immediately signed a zero-payout divorce agreement, left her wedding ring on his glass table, and walked out.
To numb the pain of her shattered life, she went to a notorious underground club.
Drugged by a bartender, she lost her mind and ended up having a wild night with a handsome stranger she mistook for a high-end male escort.
Panicking the next morning, Chandler transferred her entire life savings of $50,000 to the man to buy his silence, then fled to her corporate job.
But at the afternoon executive meeting, her blood ran cold.
The man she had paid off was standing at the head of the boardroom table. He wasn't a gigolo. He was Brennan George, the ruthless new COO of her company.
Cornering her in the women's restroom, Brennan held up a printed copy of her $50,000 wire transfer.
"Wiring a massive sum of cash to your direct superior after a night together is classified as commercial bribery and solicitation," he whispered dangerously.
Chandler was terrified, realizing she had handed him the exact evidence needed to destroy her career and sue her into bankruptcy.
"Marry me," Brennan demanded coldly. "It's the only way to make this HR problem disappear."
8.7
Ada was eight months pregnant, sitting peacefully in her husband's Manhattan estate, looking at a baby nursery catalog.
Suddenly, her husband's mistress, Jacklyn, walked in, threw an ultrasound photo on the table, and locked the door.
Before Ada could process the betrayal, Jacklyn dragged her to the top of the marble staircase and threw herself backward just as Desmond walked through the front doors.
"She pushed me, Desmond! She tried to kill our baby!"
Desmond looked at Ada with absolute hatred.
He ignored Ada's breaking water and her agonizing screams for help, leaving her to miscarry on the freezing floor while he rushed Jacklyn to the hospital.
He sent Ada to a brutal federal prison for three years, where she was tortured and left with a body covered in horrific scars, mourning the baby she was told died at birth.
When Ada was finally released, Desmond destroyed her cousin's company to force her back to his estate as a lowly maid.
But when Ada saw Jacklyn's three-year-old son, her world stopped.
Right in the center of the little boy's palm was a faint crescent moon birthmark.
It was the exact same mark Ada had kissed on her own lifeless baby's tiny hand before the doctors took his body away.
How did her dead child become Jacklyn's little prince?
Looking at the woman who stole her life and the husband who threw her in hell, Ada clenched her scarred hands and swore she would tear their world apart to get her son back.
8.3
Half a month into our cold war, I, Claire Parker, found an abortion procedure slip tucked inside Daniel Carter's suit pocket.
The patient's name belonged to the fragile little childhood sweetheart he had always protected so fiercely-Sophie Bennett.
I folded the paper calmly and slipped it back where I had found it.
Daniel noticed the movement immediately. His eyes flicked toward me through the rearview mirror, resignation coloring his voice.
"What are you overthinking now? Sophie was just keeping a friend company at the hospital. She accidentally left it there."
I turned toward the window and said nothing.
This was Sophie declaring war on me, yet the man who could crush competitors without mercy in the business world believed her completely.
The silence inside the car grew suffocating until Daniel finally stopped outside an upscale jewelry boutique.
He reached over and ruffled my hair with easy familiarity, his tone indulgent and affectionate.
"Come on. Pick out a ring. Your birthday's next month anyway, so we might as well register our marriage too."
I bit down hard on my lip as tears fell soundlessly onto the back of my hand.
What he still didn't know was that I wouldn't live long enough to see next month.
9.0
Eileen woke up in a trashed hotel room, her head pounding with the pathetic memories of a despised Hollywood actress.
Outside the window, paparazzi were already screaming about her manufactured cheating scandal, but the real nightmare was waiting at her door.
Her paralyzed, billionaire husband, Carlisle Vinson, looked at her with pure disgust while his butler shoved a divorce settlement at her chest.
"Mr. Vinson is offering a severance package of fifty million dollars, provided you sign immediately and vacate the premises."
The original owner had left her an absolute mess.
Her trusted assistant had sold her room number to the press to frame her, and a playboy had scammed her out of her entire two million dollar life savings.
If she signed those papers and lost the Vinson family's protection, the breach of contract fees and her enemies in the industry would swallow her alive in days.
Eileen felt a cold fury override the original owner's lingering panic.
Why should she take the fall and be thrown out on the streets while the parasites who set her up lived out their wealthy fantasies?
She had died once, and she wasn't about to waste her second chance playing the victim.
Eileen slammed the heavy divorce folder shut right against the butler's chest.
"I'm not signing," she said with a terrifying, absolute calm.
She stepped behind her husband's wheelchair, ready to shield him from the cameras, secretly cure his dead legs, and make everyone who betrayed her bleed.
