Too Late CEO: The Runaway Wife Returns
Corrie lay restrained on the sterile hospital bed, her wrists bleeding against the thick leather straps.
Her husband, Damon, walked in with eyes entirely black with disgust and ordered the nurse to drain her rare blood.
He believed Corrie had pushed Kara, the woman he claimed as his savior, and he was willing to drain Corrie dry to save her.
"As long as she doesn't die, keep drawing. Kara's life is worth a hundred of hers."
He ignored the frantic beeping of her heart monitor and walked out, leaving her slipping into hypovolemic shock.
Using her last ounce of strength, Corrie escaped the clinic and hailed a taxi in the freezing rain, just wanting to survive.
But the driver locked the doors and deliberately drove the speeding car straight off the bridge into the raging Hudson River.
As the icy water swallowed her and she tried to swim out of the shattered windshield, a black-gloved hand grabbed her ankle.
The inhuman grip dragged her down into the crushing, dark depths, filling her lungs with liquid fire.
As her vision faded to black, Corrie's heart shattered into a million pieces.
Why did the man she loved believe a lying stranger over his own wife?
And who was the assassin in the dark water making sure she died?
Five years later, Corrie walked out of the airport with a new, untouchable identity and a pair of genius twins.
The freezing river had permanently ruined her heart and lungs, but it had also forged her into a ruthless survivor.
She swore to never let the Holloway family touch her again, until her son's identical icy blue eyes caught the attention of the billionaire CEO she thought she had escaped.
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Chapter 1
Damon pushed the heavy metal door open.
The sharp click of his leather dress shoes hitting the sterile tile floor echoed in the windowless room. On the hospital bed, Corrie flinched. Her body shrank back against the thin mattress, an involuntary reaction to the sound of his approach.
She tried to sit up, desperate to explain. The thick leather restraints secured to the metal bedrails jerked her wrists back. The rough material bit into her pale skin, leaving angry red marks.
Damon walked straight to the side of the bed. He didn't look at her face. Instead, he raised his hand and threw a piece of fabric directly at her.
The ruined evening gown landed on her face, blocking her vision.
The heavy, metallic smell of fresh blood instantly filled Corrie's nose. Her stomach cramped violently. She shook her head side to side, fighting to get the fabric off her face.
"I didn't push her," Corrie gasped, her voice raw. "Damon, I swear I didn't push Kara."
Damon ripped the bloody dress away. His large hand clamped around her jaw. His fingers pressed hard into her bones, forcing her to look up at him. His blue eyes were entirely black with disgust.
"You stole her life," Damon said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "You stole her identity as my savior, and now you tried to kill her. You are a liar, Corrie."
Corrie's eyes burned red. Tears pooled, blurring his harsh features. She stared right back into his eyes.
"Why?" she choked out, her throat tight. "Why would you rather believe a stranger over your own wife?"
Damon let out a cold, sharp laugh. He released her jaw, wiping his hand on his slacks as if touching her made him dirty. He turned his back to her and looked at the man standing quietly in the corner of the room.
"Draw one thousand milliliters of her Rh-null blood," Damon ordered Head Nurse Evans.
Head Nurse Evans shifted his weight, his face pale. "Mr. Holloway, that volume exceeds the safe limit. Taking that much blood at once will induce hypovolemic shock. She could go into cardiac arrest."
Damon didn't even blink. His jaw clenched tight. "As long as she doesn't die, keep drawing. Kara needs that blood. Kara's life is worth a hundred of hers."
The words hit Corrie physically. It felt like a heavy stone dropping straight through her chest.
The light completely died in her eyes. Her struggling stopped. Her body went as stiff and cold as a corpse.
Head Nurse Evans swallowed hard. He picked up a thick, terrifyingly large needle from the metal tray. He walked over to the bed and wiped a cold alcohol pad over the crook of Corrie's pale arm.
The needle pierced her vein.
Corrie sucked in a sharp breath. The pain was a hot slice through her skin. She curled her fingers inward, her nails digging so deeply into her palms that the skin broke.
Dark red blood rushed through the clear plastic tube, pooling into the empty bag.
Damon stared at the blood bag. As the red liquid filled the plastic, the tight line of his jaw finally relaxed.
Minutes dragged on. Corrie's chest began to heave. Her breathing turned short and shallow. The heart monitor beside the bed started to beep in a fast, frantic rhythm.
Damon pulled his gaze away from the blood bag and looked at Corrie's face. Her lips were completely white. A flash of irritation flared in his chest. He hated seeing her look so weak.
A wave of intense dizziness crashed over Corrie. The bright surgical lights above her spun. Damon's face blurred into a dark shadow.
"I curse the day I married you," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Damon's phone vibrated in his pocket, shattering the heavy silence. He pulled it out and answered.
Kara's weak, crying voice drifted through the speaker. Damon's eyes instantly hardened again.
"I'm coming," Damon said softly into the phone. "I have the blood. You're going to be fine."
His gentle tone was a physical knife twisting in Corrie's heart.
The blood bag was nearly full. The monitor let out a continuous, high-pitched warning. Corrie's blood pressure dropped past the critical line.
Head Nurse Evans rushed forward, pulling the needle out of her arm and pressing a thick piece of gauze over the bleeding hole.
Damon grabbed the temperature-controlled cooler containing her blood. He turned toward the door, his steps fast and urgent. He didn't look back.
Corrie used the very last ounce of energy in her body.
"Divorce," she whispered to his retreating back.
Damon's footsteps stopped. He didn't turn around.
"You don't have the right to make demands," he said coldly.
He walked out and slammed the heavy metal door behind him.
The room fell dead silent. Head Nurse Evans quickly injected a bag of saline into Corrie's IV line. His pager beeped urgently. He looked at Corrie with pity, then hastily tossed his clipboard onto the rolling metal cart near the foot of her bed to free his hands. The sudden movement dislodged a pair of stainless steel medical scissors clipped to the board, leaving them resting dangerously close to the edge. He gathered the rest of his tools and rushed out of the room to answer the emergency call.
The heavy lock on the outside of the door clicked into place.
Corrie lay alone in the dim room. A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye, tracing a cold path down her temple.
The despair slowly drained away, leaving behind a freezing, hard determination. She turned her head. Her eyes locked onto the pair of stainless steel medical scissors that had fallen from the nurse's clipboard, now resting precariously on the rolling metal cart near the foot of her bed.
She fought through the crushing dizziness. She stretched her right leg out, pointing her toes. Her muscles screamed in protest.
She hooked her bare toes around the metal edge of the cart.
She pulled. The wheels let out a soft squeak against the tile. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
She pulled again. The cart rolled closer to her hand.
Her numb fingers reached out. The tips of her fingers brushed the freezing metal of the scissors. She grabbed them, holding them tight in her fist.
Corrie brought the scissors to her right wrist. She began to saw at the thick leather restraint. Sweat poured down her forehead, stinging her eyes. Her breathing was ragged.
With a loud snap, the leather broke. Just as her right hand came free, heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. They were coming straight toward her door.
Corrie's heart exploded in her chest. She twisted her body, her freed right hand gripping the scissors and sawing frantically at the leather binding her left wrist. The thick restraint resisted, the blades slipping against the tough material. Sweat and tears blurred her vision. The footsteps stopped right outside the door. A key scraped against the lock.
Snap. The second restraint broke.
The doorknob turned.
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9.3
On her wedding night at The Plaza Hotel, Clara went looking for her husband.
Instead, she found him in the dimly lit parking garage, passionately pinning down her bridesmaid.
She couldn't even scream or expose them. Just hours before the ceremony, Julian had tricked her into signing away her twenty percent shares of their co-founded company, leaving her completely penniless and unable to pay her grandmother's life-saving medical bills.
Fleeing in absolute despair, a sudden hotel blackout plunged her into a second nightmare. She was dragged into a pitch-black room and brutally violated by a heavily drugged stranger.
When a shattered Clara returned to the office to audit the books and reclaim her power, Julian demoted her to a dusty desk by the trash cans.
He flaunted his mistress in the executive suite and deliberately sent Clara into a horrifying trap. He arranged for vicious clients to drug and assault her, demanding high-definition blackmail photos so he could divorce her with absolutely nothing.
"Since you want to play rough, you can service Mr. Petrocelli tonight," the thug sneered, locking the VIP room door.
Clara was pushed to the brink of hell. Why was the man she devoted three years of her life to trying to destroy her so completely? And why did the freezing cedarwood scent of the stranger who ruined her in the dark perfectly match Conrad Vance, the ruthless CEO and Julian's untouchable uncle?
Rather than let Julian win, Clara smashed a glass bottle, held the jagged edge to her own throat to force the men back, and threw herself off the second-floor balcony into the freezing night.
But the bone-crushing impact never came. A massive figure shot out from the shadows and caught her, and her brutal counterattack finally began.
8.1
Desperate for a way out of rejection and poverty, Pearl Augustine accepts a nanny job with an outrageous salary-working for billionaire Ace Warren. What she doesn't expect is his daughter.
Mia Warren is spoiled, sharp-tongued, and feared by everyone in the mansion. Behind her cruelty is a lonely child longing for a mother. As Pearl becomes the only one who can reach her, walls begin to fall-especially those around Ace, a grieving man hiding behind wealth and control.
What started as "just a job" quickly turns into something dangerous: attachment.
Sometimes, healing begins where you least expect it.
8.2
My wedding to Ethan Reed was just weeks away.
After seven years, I was certain of our perfect future.
Then, Ethan claimed "selective amnesia" from a head injury, forgetting only me.
I tried to make him remember, until I overheard his video call.
"Total genius move," he boasted to friends.
His amnesia was a fake "hall pass" to pursue influencer Chloe Vance before our wedding.
Heartbroken, I feigned belief.
I endured his open flirting with Chloe and their taunting selfies.
He mocked my distress, prioritizing Chloe's fake emergency.
After an accident he caused, he abandoned me, injured, choosing to send Chloe to the hospital first.
He even tried to cut me off financially.
How could my fiancé be this cruel, calculating monster?
His betrayal poisoned every memory.
I felt like a fool for trusting such boundless cruelty.
His audacity left me reeling.
But I wouldn’t be his victim.
Instead of breaking, a cold plan formed.
I would shed my identity, become Olivia Carter.
I would disappear, leaving him, my past, and his engagement ring behind forever, claiming my freedom.
7.5
To survive a lethal genetic breakdown, Holden, a legendary mercenary known as "Ghost," was forced into an arranged marriage with the wealthy heiress Julia Ramsey.
But the moment he stepped into the lavish estate wearing an oil-stained jacket, he was treated like absolute garbage.
Julia accused him of being a perverted stalker, pulling a gun on him and demanding he be thrown out. Even after Holden used a forbidden kinetic strike to save her grandfather from a fatal heart attack, the family still looked at him with pure disgust. Julia confined him to a cramped guest room, warning him to stay out of her life. To make matters worse, his other estranged fiancée, an elite military commander, barged into the penthouse just to throw an annulment in his face.
"You are a pathetic, bottom-feeding parasite! You have no ambition. You hide in this woman's apartment like a stray dog. You are entirely beneath me."
She mocked him in front of Julia, completely blind to the fact that Holden had just effortlessly incapacitated her Tier-1 operative with a single strike. They all thought he was just a greedy, low-class thug clinging to their wealth. They had no idea they were mocking an apex predator who commanded the city's underground and hunted mutant monsters for sport.
When Julia forced him to attend a high-society yacht party as part of a trap to publicly humiliate him, Holden just smirked and took a sip of his cheap beer.
He was more than happy to play along, already calculating exactly how he was going to tear their arrogant little world apart.
9.5
Jennifer, a fiercely independent entrepreneur, never imagined that running her company would put her in the orbit of Joseph, a reclusive billionaire with a dangerous agenda. Their professional clashes ignite a forbidden attraction, drawing them into a passionate affair that threatens to unravel everything Jennifer has built. As corporate sabotage, hidden heirs, and dark secrets from Joseph's past begin to surface, Jennifer's world spirals into a web of betrayal, desire, and moral peril. In a story where power and love collide, nothing is as it seems and every choice could be lethal.
9.5
After her step sister ran away from her marriage to the billion dollar heir, they took Emerald Jane Campbell as a stand-in to fill in the position of her step sister. Forced by her evil mother, Emerald can't do anything but to follow. She was tied to the disabled billion dollar heir for three years and all she got was cold treatment from him. Years later, a kidnapper appears in their lives. The kidnapper threatens the life of Emerald until Jude Rafael Sanders- the billion-dollar decides to do what it takes to protect his wife, Emerald.
Secrets began to unravel one by one. But what if Jude finds out his beloved wife has something up beneath her sleeves? Find out how tension intensifies in their roller coaster marriage.