Undercover Heiress: The Ruthless CEO's Trap
Eleonore was the secret apprentice of a master jeweler and the hidden heir to the Pierce family legacy.
She spent two years in brutal training, hiding her immense talent from the world.
But just as she was ready to step out of the shadows, her grandfather's final masterpiece—the lost symbol of her family—surfaced at an auction.
Before she could even place a bid, it was bought in a private sale by Keaton Kaufman, the ruthless CEO of the Carlyle Group and her mentor's greatest enemy.
Eleonore desperately tried to buy it back, offering double the price through powerful connections.
Keaton coldly refused all offers.
Instead, he went on live television and announced that the priceless Pierce family artifact would be used as a mere corporate carrot.
"This piece will be the grand prize for our internal design competition," Keaton declared to the cameras.
Eleonore's fingernails dug into her palms until they bled.
He didn't care about the craftsmanship or her family's history; he was just using her grandfather's legacy as a pawn to stress-test his own employees.
The wall between her and her family's heirloom was made of billions of dollars, and she had no way to break it down from the outside.
So, she made a reckless decision.
She deleted her elite background, stripped away her protective armor, and created a fake resume as a desperate, entry-level nobody.
She clicked send on her job application to the Carlyle Group.
If she couldn't buy her family's legacy back, she was going to infiltrate his empire and win it back herself.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 3
Cherie took a sudden, aggressive step forward.
She blocked the path just as Eleonore and Bradley were about to walk away.
Cherie shoved the heavy leather portfolio directly into Eleonore's chest.
"Since the Master thinks so highly of you," Cherie said, her voice dripping with venom, "why don't you give me some advice?"
The crowd around them went dead silent. People leaned in, waiting to see the unknown girl humiliate herself.
Kierra opened her mouth to yell at Cherie, but Eleonore reached out and grabbed Kierra's forearm.
Eleonore's fingers dug into Kierra's skin, a silent command to stop.
Eleonore took the portfolio. The leather was warm from Cherie's sweaty hands.
She flipped open the heavy cover to the first page. It was a sketch of a massive diamond necklace.
Eleonore stared at the drawing for exactly two seconds.
When she looked up, her eyes were completely different. The shyness was gone. They were cold and sharp.
"The load‑bearing structure..." Eleonore started, but immediately caught herself. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she realized where she was. She couldn't expose her expertise here. Not yet. She lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper, leaning toward Kierra. "The prongs are too thin for a stone this heavy. If cast, the main diamond will fall out within a week."
She meant for it to be private, but Cherie, standing aggressively close, caught the whisper. Cherie's eyes widened in outrage.
"What did you just say?" Cherie snapped, her voice piercing the quiet room. "Did you just criticize my filigree wiring?"
The crowd held its breath now, sensing a real confrontation brewing. A few guests exchanged amused glances, eager for blood.
Eleonore kept her face perfectly blank. She carefully closed the book, making sure not to make a sound. She handed it back to Cherie with a polite, deferential nod.
"I said your work is incredibly intricate, Ms. Washington," Eleonore lied smoothly, her voice calm and entirely devoid of the sharp edge from a moment ago. "The metal alloy choices are certainly... unique. You must be very proud of your award."
She refused to take the bait. She refused to be the spectacle.
The older, experienced jewelers in the crowd lost interest, turning back to their champagne, dismissing Eleonore as just another clueless amateur intimidated by a professional.
Cherie snatched the book back. Her chest heaved up and down.
She spun around on her heels and pushed her way through the crowd, practically running toward the exit.
Kierra let out a loud, piercing whistle. Bradley smiled proudly.
Eleonore reached into her small velvet clutch to grab a tissue. Her palms were sweating.
She dug her fingers into the bottom of the bag.
She stopped. Her stomach dropped.
Her custom sketching pen was gone.
Panic flared in her chest. She needed that pen. She patted the sides of the small bag frantically.
"I lost my pen," Eleonore whispered to Bradley and Kierra. "I must have dropped it outside."
In her mind, she flashed back to the few minutes she had spent in the rear garden before rejoining the crowd. The pen must have slipped out then.
She didn't wait for them to answer. She turned and pushed her way out of the dense crowd.
She walked quickly toward the back of the hall and pushed open the heavy glass doors leading to the outdoor garden.
The cold night air hit her bare shoulders like a physical blow. She shivered.
The garden was pitch black, lit only by a few dim yellow lights near the ground.
She kept her head down, staring at the stone pathway, searching for the silver clip of her pen.
She walked quickly, turning the corner around a massive rose bush.
She didn't look up.
She slammed face‑first into a solid wall of muscle.
The impact knocked the breath out of her lungs. She stumbled backward, her heels slipping on the smooth stone.
Before she could fall, a massive hand shot out of the darkness.
Long, hard fingers wrapped around her wrist like a steel vice.
Eleonore gasped. She jerked her head up.
She stared straight into a pair of eyes that were as dark and cold as frozen water.
The man was tall. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit that seemed to absorb the shadows around him.
A heavy, intoxicating scent hit her nose – sharp cedar mixed with dark tobacco.
He was holding an unlit match between his fingers.
He stared down at her, his jaw clenched tight.
You may also like
9.7
Eighteen months ago, the man I loved shattered my heart, claiming everything between us was a mistake. Now, he's back, a ghost of his former self, a rookie tryout in my pro esports team. And I will make him regret crawling back.
Clifton, captain of a legendary esports team, was secretly battling a severe wrist injury that threatened his career, every match a fight against his own body. He pushed through the pain, ignoring doctors' warnings, desperate to maintain his god-like status.
His world was already on the edge, but nothing prepared him for seeing Justice Terry again in the team basement. Justice, pale and trembling, his eyes wide with naked terror, was now a rookie tryout.
Clifton had spent a year and a half trying to forget that rainy Chicago alley, the raw revulsion in Justice's eyes, the whispered "it wasn't real" that had left him heartbroken. Justice had vanished, and Clifton had erased every trace. Now, the boy who once looked at him like he was the sun was back, flinching at his touch, displaying a deep, primal fear. Amidst sponsor pressure and whispers of being "washed," Clifton saw Justice's return as a chance for vengeance. He publicly humiliated Justice on a live stream, forcing him into a suicide mission, then coldly benched him.
Yet, the satisfaction never came. Instead, a hollow emptiness and a torrent of questions: What had truly happened in the past? Why was Justice here, and what trauma had carved such fear into his bones?
Clifton, unwilling to be fooled again, swore to uncover every secret and every lie. He would force Justice to explain why he had returned, even if it meant tearing down everything they both had left.
8.7
I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella.
Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark.
But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved.
Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies.
When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel.
While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest.
The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella.
He ordered my father to punish me.
I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth.
That night, the love in my heart finally died.
On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape-the only proof that I was Seven.
Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney.
By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.
7.2
Allie Patterson poured fifteen years into her husband Grayson’s tech startup, living in a cramped San Jose apartment. Every penny, every late night coding session, was for their shared future, built on his constant claims the company struggled, always on the verge of its big break.
Then, a grant deed arrived: a stunning $4.2 million Atherton villa, paid in full, listing Grayson and an unknown Kacey Schmidt as joint tenants.
Her coffee mug shattered as Allie’s world imploded. Driving to the mansion, she found Kacey in silk pajamas, flaunting a massive pink diamond and, beneath it, Grayson’s grandmother’s heirloom ring – the one he’d tearfully claimed to have lost years ago.
Kacey purred, "He's in the shower. We were so tired last night."
The words were a serrated knife, twisting, confirming years of lies.
Humiliation and rage burned out, leaving a terrifying, absolute silence. All her sacrifice and trust were a cruel, elaborate joke, orchestrated by the man she loved.
Allie calmly took photos, then gave herself one minute in her beat-up car to mourn. When it passed, her tears stopped, replaced by cold, calculated murder in her eyes. She typed a text to Grayson:
"Come home early tonight. I have a surprise for you."
7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
9.6
When a global anomaly awakens dormant powers within them, a neuroscientist, a physicist, and an artist discover they are connected by a force that defies time itself. Mert sees the memories of strangers. Elena witnesses the fabric of reality crack. Kai paints symbols from a past he never knew. Thrown together by fate, they are not alone. Across the globe, others are awakening too-gifted with extraordinary abilities. But they are not the only ones. A powerful cabal-a ruthless financier, a tech mogul, and a charismatic influencer-sees the anomaly not as a warning, but as a weapon. Their ambition shatters the timeline, scattering the group across history: from the smog-choked streets of Victorian London to a transhumanist future, and into a terrifying parallel present. Broken into three teams, the group must hunt their enemies through time itself. To survive, they must master their new powers and forge bonds of love and loyalty strong enough to bend the laws of physics. Their final battle will not be fought in any single era, but at the crossroads of all realities, where the key to existence-the very heart of time-is at stake.
8.1
On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes.
She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia."
Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours.
He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity.
But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture."
I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her.
And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm.
Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite.
He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet.
He is wrong.
I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door.
And I changed the groom.
As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears.
The Reaper.