Too Late CEO: I Am Taking Everything
On our third wedding anniversary, I prepared a romantic candlelit dinner, waiting for my husband to return from his business trip.
But an anonymous video shattered my illusion. It showed Julian at a Sotheby's auction, spending two million dollars on a sapphire necklace and tenderly placing it around another woman's neck.
That woman was his stepsister, Seraphina.
When I confronted him, Julian lied without hesitation, then angrily defended her.
"Her mother saved my life. You are my wife, you have to be the bigger person and tolerate her!"
His "protection" meant bringing her into my company as my direct boss. Seraphina stole my designs, ruined my projects, and publicly humiliated me.
When I sought justice, Julian backed her up, forcing me to submit to my abuser. He even tried to buy my silence with his company shares.
I couldn't understand why his guilt meant our marriage had to pay the price.
The final blow came when I caught them intimately entangled in his car, and Seraphina deliberately revealed a sickening truth.
Julian had abandoned me on our wedding night just to hold her hand through a panic attack.
Touching my flat stomach, where my secret pregnancy was growing, the last trace of my love for him turned to ash.
I threw the baby shoes I had prepared into the trash and walked away into the freezing night.
I am going to divorce him, and I will make sure he never finds out about this child.
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Chapter 5
The morning air in Manhattan was crisp, but Eleonora felt nothing but a burning heat in her chest as she pushed through the revolving glass doors of the Sinclair Group headquarters.
She was wearing a sharp, tailored Prada suit. Her face was a mask of absolute, unyielding stone.
The moment she stepped off the elevator onto the design department floor, her assistant, Paige Fuller, rushed up to her. Paige was clutching a stack of files to her chest, her eyes wide with panic.
"Eleonora," Paige whispered frantically, blocking her path. "There's a massive HR shakeup today."
Eleonora's face didn't change. She walked past Paige, heading straight for her Senior Designer cubicle. She dropped her leather tote bag onto her desk.
"Tell me," Eleonora commanded, her eyes fixed on the closed blinds of the Director's corner office.
"The board just parachuted a new Design Director in," Paige babbled. "No one knows her background. No portfolio. The whole floor is freaking out."
Before Eleonora could respond, the Head of HR marched into the center of the open-plan bullpen. He clapped his hands loudly.
"Everyone! Five minutes in the main boardroom. We are officially welcoming our new Design Director," the HR Head announced.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Eleonora grabbed her notebook and a pen. She took a deep, steadying breath, forcing her heart rate to slow down. She walked down the hallway and pushed open the heavy glass door of the boardroom.
Her eyes immediately went to the head of the long mahogany table.
Seraphina Sinclair was sitting in the CEO's chair.
She was wearing a pristine, white Chanel tweed suit. Her makeup was flawless. Her wrists, resting on the table, were perfectly smooth and unblemished. There were no bandages. No cuts. No signs of the "suicidal breakdown" Julian had rushed out to fix last night.
The HR Head smiled broadly. "Team, please welcome Ms. Seraphina Sinclair." He emphasized the last name heavily.
A low murmur rippled through the room. The designers exchanged nervous, knowing glances.
Seraphina stood up. She smiled, but her eyes were cold and arrogant.
"I am so thrilled to bring my disruptive design philosophy to this outdated department," Seraphina said. Her voice was sweet, but the words were a direct insult to everyone in the room.
When she finished her empty speech, her eyes scanned the room and locked onto Eleonora. A vicious smirk curled the corners of her pink lips.
Seraphina clicked her heels against the floor, walking straight up to Eleonora's chair.
She reached out and grabbed Eleonora's hand, squeezing it tightly.
"I look forward to learning from you, Senior Designer Eleonora," Seraphina announced loudly, ensuring the entire room heard. "After all, our relationship is very special."
Gasps echoed around the boardroom.
Eleonora yanked her hand out of Seraphina's grip. She maintained a frozen, professional smile.
"In this building, we are strictly colleagues, Director," Eleonora said, her voice cutting through the room like a blade.
Seraphina's smile faltered. The muscles in her jaw twitched. She turned to Paige, who was standing nervously nearby.
"You," Seraphina snapped. "Go to the artisanal coffee shop on 5th and get me a soy latte. Exactly 140 degrees."
Paige's face fell. "But... that's three blocks away, and the project briefing is in ten minutes..."
Eleonora stood up. "Paige is preparing the quarterly reports. She doesn't have time to run errands."
Seraphina's face flushed with anger. She stepped into Eleonora's personal space, using her new authority as a weapon.
"Are you telling me how to run my department, Eleonora?" Seraphina hissed.
The tension in the boardroom was suffocating.
Suddenly, the glass door banged open.
Sloane Carpenter, Eleonora's best friend and fellow designer, marched into the room holding a plastic cup of iced Americano.
Sloane slammed the cup down onto the table right in front of Seraphina. Drops of brown liquid splashed onto the polished wood.
"You look a little overheated, Director," Sloane sneered. "Have some ice."
Seraphina jumped back, clutching her chest in shock. She pointed a trembling finger at Sloane. "You are incredibly insubordinate!"
Sloane rolled her eyes dramatically. She pulled out the chair next to Eleonora and sat down, crossing her arms.
The meeting dissolved into an awkward, hostile silence and was quickly adjourned.
As the room emptied, Eleonora grabbed Sloane's arm and dragged her down the hall into the employee breakroom. She locked the door behind them.
Sloane exploded the second the lock clicked.
"Julian is a psychotic bastard!" Sloane yelled, pacing the small room. "He actually put his little pet snake in charge of you? This is a hostile takeover of your life!"
Eleonora leaned heavily against the water cooler. She rubbed her throbbing temples. She told Sloane everything—the necklace, the lies, and Julian's twisted "family debt" speech.
Sloane gripped the edge of the counter. "She is trying to force you out. Are you just going to let her?"
Eleonora looked down at her stomach. She shook her head slowly.
"I'm pregnant, Sloane," Eleonora whispered.
Sloane gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth. She rushed forward and wrapped Eleonora in a fierce, crushing hug. Tears welled up in Sloane's eyes.
"I'm not telling him," Eleonora said, her voice hardening. "I'm getting out."
Sloane pulled back, nodding fiercely. "I've got your back. But you have to be careful. Stress is dangerous right now."
Eleonora nodded. They unlocked the door and walked back into the bullpen.
As they approached Eleonora's desk, Eleonora's blood froze.
Seraphina was standing inside Eleonora's cubicle. She was holding Eleonora's master sketchbook—the autumn flagship designs she had spent a month perfecting.
Before Eleonora could react, she saw Seraphina's phone, held low against the desk, click silently. The camera shutter sound was barely audible, but Eleonora caught the flash of movement. Seraphina was photographing every page.
"Stop!" Eleonora lunged forward and snatched the sketchbook out of Seraphina's hands. "Do not touch my personal property," she snarled.
Seraphina didn't resist. She slipped her phone into her pocket and shrugged, a look of utter boredom on her face. "Relax. I was just curious. Your designs are incredibly dated and conservative anyway. I'm taking over the autumn flagship project. I will be redesigning it from scratch."
Eleonora's vision went red. She knew Seraphina had just stolen digital copies of her work. "These designs have already passed the initial board review," she stated, her voice shaking with rage. "If you try to scrap them, I will take this directly to the CEO."
Seraphina covered her mouth and let out a high-pitched, mocking laugh.
She leaned in close, her lips brushing against Eleonora's ear.
"Take it to him," Seraphina whispered maliciously. "Who do you think Julian will believe? His precious sister, or an outsider like you?"
Eleonora's stomach clenched. She grabbed her sketchbook, turned on her heel, and headed straight for the executive elevator.
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9.7
For three years, I hid my identity as the sole heiress of a multi-billion dollar tech empire to live in a cramped apartment and support my boyfriend, Ben.
But the day before our engagement, I stood outside a meeting room and overheard him talking to his wealthy boss, Haylie.
"She's just a stepping stone," Ben laughed, his voice full of contempt. "A poor, ambitionless distraction while I work my way up to where I really belong."
He mocked the cheap silver ring he gave me, calling it a necessary prop to keep a naive fool happy.
He bragged about the multi-million dollar merger proposal he was presenting, planning to use it to secure his promotion and build a future with her.
He had no idea that I had secretly negotiated that entire deal using my real connections just to give him his big break.
I had sacrificed my family's comfort, my true identity, and my own career just to watch him rise.
I poured my heart and soul into our humble beginnings, only to realize he saw my love as a pathetic joke and me as disposable trash.
I calmly picked up a pen and voided the merger agreement, tearing my hard work into tiny pieces.
I went home, slid the cheap ring off my finger, and dropped it into his mug of cold coffee.
"Soon, you'll find out exactly who is nothing."
Walking out the door, I pulled out my phone and texted my billionaire father.
"I'm in. Announce the merger."
7.6
Jocelyn Yang lived in the grand Turner Mansion, not as a guest, but as a prisoner. Ever since her father's death, the ruthless billionaire Elam Turner forced her to atone for sins her father never committed.
On her nineteenth birthday, a male classmate secretly sent her a diamond necklace. Elam, who had flown back from London overnight, flew into a psychotic, jealous rage at the sight of another man's gift.
He mercilessly crushed the delicate necklace into the marble floor with his custom leather shoe.
"Did you forget what you are?" Elam hissed, dragging her into a pitch-black storage room. "You take gifts from other men behind my back?"
He pinned her to the dusty floorboards and violently assaulted her. The next morning, a wire transfer of $500,000 hit her bank account. He had humiliated her, broken her spirit, and was now casually trying to buy her silence. Later, when a broken bike left her walking miles through a freezing rainstorm, he just shoved scalding tea into her bleeding hands.
"Look at you," he sneered. "You look like a stray dog ruining my floors."
Jocelyn curled up in the cold, her lips bleeding and her heart shattered. She couldn't understand his terrifying obsession. If he hated her so much, why did he refuse to let her go? Why did he look at her with such manic hunger while systematically destroying her life?
Staring at the massive sum of hush money on her phone, a desperate spark of vengeance flared in her chest. Jocelyn wired every single cent back to Elam's account. She picked up her charcoal pencil, vowing to win the upcoming art competition and buy her escape from this monster forever.
9.1
Alysia lay on the freezing operating table, moments away from donating her kidney to her brother's fiancée.
But as the anesthesia set in, a violent shock tore through her brain, awakening agonizing memories of a thousand brutal deaths across a thousand past lifetimes.
She suddenly realized her family's true plan. Her brother and his fiancée weren't just taking her organ; they were secretly plotting to declare her mentally unfit post-surgery to steal her entire trust fund.
When Alysia abruptly stopped the procedure and exposed the fiancée's kidney failure as the result of severe drug abuse, her family's reaction was chilling.
Her father didn't care about the truth or the law. He ordered his bodyguards to lock Alysia up until she agreed to the surgery, while her brother threatened to freeze her assets and seize her late mother's penthouse.
"You have no heart, Alysia. You don't deserve the Kent name," her aunt spat in disgust.
For lifetimes, she had kept her head down, taking the blame and sacrificing everything for a family that viewed her as nothing more than a disposable blood bag and a financial pawn.
The resignation that had clouded her eyes for so long vanished, replaced by the absolute, zero-degree cold of a glacier.
Ripping the IV from her hand and leaving her family in stunned silence, Alysia walked straight out of the hospital.
She had exactly forty-six hours to find a husband to secure her inheritance, and she knew exactly which ruthless billionaire CEO to target to help her burn the Kent family to the ground.
8.5
Synopsis
It still feels so unreal being dumped by my boyfriend at the courtyard on the day of our wedding.
David didn't show up and when I called him to know the reason why.
He told me right to my face that he had found love with another woman who happened to be my best friend.
My heart was shattered into a million tiny pieces.
I was wallowing in self-pity when I overheard Lucas talking on the phone about needing a replacement for the woman who has collected a part-payment to be his wife.
I agreed to be his wife without thinking twice wanting to get back at my Ex.
What would happen when two strangers' hearts intertwined?
And what started as an arrangement became a bedrock for something real?
Read to find out.
7.4
Avery thought she'd found her happily ever after with Ethan, the charming billionaire who swept her off her feet in Willow Creek. But after one night of passion, he vanished, leaving her heartbroken and alone. She returned home to find her grandmother, her only family, had passed away.
Devastated, Avery discovered a shocking truth: she was the daughter of a millionaire who'd left her a vast fortune. Relocated to New York, she met Ethan again, but this time, he was determined to win her back. Unbeknownst to him, Avery had been hiding a life-changing secret: she's the mother of his twin babies.
As Avery navigates her complicated past and the wicked family members who despise her, Ethan's pursuit becomes relentless. He'll stop at nothing to reclaim the love they shared, but Avery's secrets threaten to tear them apart. Can she trust him with her heart and the truth about their children, or will it drive them further apart?
Ethan's words echoed in her mind: "I've been searching for you for six years, Avery. I won't let you go again." But Avery's secrets were only the beginning. Little did Ethan know, their love story was only just beginning...
7.4
Alaya woke up in the sterile hospital room to a devastating reality: her six-month-old baby was gone, lost in a horrific car crash.
But as the memories crashed into her, she realized she had been reborn. She was back three years before her ultimate death, back to the moment she remembered lying bleeding on the asphalt while her husband, Hardy, shielded his mistress from the freezing rain.
When Hardy finally showed up at the ward, he coldly dismissed the crash as a mere accident and immediately left to comfort his young lover. To make matters worse, Alaya secretly checked her medical files and found a terrifying detail: someone had intentionally slipped beta-blockers into her system, a lethal drug for her transplanted heart. And Hardy didn't care about her dead baby or her irreversible infertility. He only coldly confirmed with the doctor that her heart was still viable.
A horrifying suspicion made Alaya's blood run cold. Why was her husband so obsessed with protecting her transplanted heart while treating her like garbage? And why was his perfectly healthy mistress secretly racking up massive bills at an advanced cardiac hospital?
Realizing she was nothing but a vessel in a twisted, deadly game, Alaya didn't shed another tear.
She packed her belongings, left her flawless diamond wedding ring on the cold marble table, and vanished from their penthouse.
When Hardy finally tracked her down, she threw a thick stack of documents onto the table.
"Sign the divorce papers," she said, her eyes completely dead.