CEO's Runaway Lover: My Cold Ex Begs For My Love Again
Four years ago, Madelynn accepted money from Caiden's family and vanished. She thought it was for the best-he would remain the untouchable heir while she faced her tough life alone.
When they met again, Caiden humiliated her in public, yet appeared when she was cornered by a difficult client, pulling her back into his life.
He forced her to stay as his lover, using her mother's medical bills as leverage, whispering, "What you owe me... you'll repay the same way."
Madelynn believed he despised her. Only after the accident, when he ran toward her before the explosion, did she understand-he never let go.
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Chapter 3
"Why are you giving me this envelope?" Madelynn asked, her brows tightening slightly.
Danny tapped the envelope in front of him. "The Dawson Group is holding the quarterly meeting tomorrow. I need you to deliver a written apology to them. You won't have to meet anyone; just leave it at reception."
He paused for a moment. "It's nothing more than procedure. Once that's done, the matter should settle itself."
Madelynn looked at the envelope but made no move to pick it up.
"I understand this feels unfair," Danny said, his tone gentler now. "But that's the nature of this industry. When the client asks for something, we comply. Just consider it helping the company."
After a brief pause, Madelynn reached out and took the envelope.
However, instead of heading back to her desk, she went straight downstairs.
It was a little past eleven when her taxi pulled up outside the Dawson Group building.
Inside, the receptionist, a young woman, straightened the moment Madelynn mentioned Caiden's name. Her expression immediately turned cautious. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No," Madelynn replied. "Just please give this to him."
She had just placed the envelope on the counter when someone called out behind her.
"Miss Douglas?"
She turned around.
Standing near the elevator was Jed Rogers, his expression stiff with recognition and something close to reluctance.
As Caiden's assistant, he had interacted with her often in the past.
"I'm only here to drop something off," Madelynn said, indicating the envelope. "Since that's done, I'll be leaving now."
"Hold on." Jed stepped closer, his gaze dropping briefly to the envelope. Noticing it hadn't been sealed, he raised a brow. "An apology letter?"
Madelynn didn't deny it, saying nothing.
Jed fell silent for a moment before speaking again. "Mr. Dawson is currently in a meeting. You can wait upstairs."
"That won't be necessary."
"It is," Jed said, his tone gaining a firmer edge. "You know how Louis behaves. If this isn't resolved today, he'll keep making an issue of it. That would complicate things for Mr. Dawson."
Madelynn looked at him quietly.
Jed avoided her eyes, saying, "Come with me."
The twenty-eighth floor hadn't changed. Everything looked exactly as it had years ago.
Madelynn found herself standing in the hallway outside the break room, with nowhere to sit and not even a glass of water offered.
Jed had told her, "Please wait here for a moment," but never returned.
She remained by the wall as time dragged on—ten minutes, then twenty, thirty...
A familiar, gnawing pain began to coil in her stomach.
She hadn't eaten breakfast that morning. And the night before, she had barely managed a few spoonfuls of soup.
It was a habit her body had never forgotten—something left over from those years when she juggled multiple jobs and ate only when she could.
Things had improved once, briefly. Back when she was with Caiden, he had been almost obsessive about her meals, making sure she ate on time, even arranging for food to be delivered to her at school.
During that time, the pain had nearly disappeared.
But after they parted ways, it came back as if it had been waiting.
Madelynn pressed her back against the wall and closed her eyes, steadying herself. Just ten more minutes, she decided. If Caiden didn't come out by then, she would leave.
The minutes slipped by.
She opened her eyes.
At the far end of the corridor, the conference room doors swung open. A group of executives stepped out, their polished appearances and composed expressions marking the end of the meeting.
Caiden emerged last, walking alongside someone as he listened, his posture relaxed yet distant.
Then, almost as if something had drawn his attention, he looked up.
From across the wide hallway, his eyes found Madelynn. For a fleeting second, he paused.
And then, just as quickly, he looked away. His conversation resumed, his steps continuing toward his office as though nothing had happened.
Madelynn didn't move.
She watched him getting closer and closer until he passed by her completely, without a glance, without a pause, as if she were no more significant than the décor lining the walls.
Her fingers tightened around the envelope.
"Mr. Dawson," she called out.
Though Caiden stopped, he didn't turn.
"What is it?" His voice was calm and detached.
"I came here to apologize."
"For?"
"For yesterday. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
Silence lingered between them for a few seconds.
Then, Caiden finally turned.
His gaze settled on Madelynn, scanning her face before drifting downward, pausing at the box of stomach medication peeking out from her coat pocket.
He then looked back up.
Her pale complexion said enough.
"So this is your way of apologizing?" he asked.
Unaware of what Caiden had noticed, Madelynn met his tone with equal indifference. "If there's a specific way you prefer, I can follow it."
That answer caught Caiden off guard.
For a moment, it seemed as if he might respond, something flickering in his expression, but it disappeared soon.
In the end, he simply extended his hand. "The letter."
Madelynn placed the envelope into his palm.
He didn't open it. Just held it there.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"No."
With that, Madelynn turned immediately, heading toward the elevator.
She had only taken a few steps when his voice came again. "Madelynn."
She stopped but didn't look back.
"I've accepted your apology letter." There was a short pause before he added coldly, "Don't appear in front of me again."
For a second, Madelynn was stunned.
Then, without turning around, she replied quietly, "Understood."
Right then, the elevator doors slid open, and she stepped inside.
Even as the doors closed, she kept her eyes forward, not looking back.
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8.0
Elva used a spare key card to quietly enter the hotel penthouse, only to find her boyfriend of two years panting heavily on the king-sized bed with her own cousin.
Instead of showing remorse, her cousin shamelessly mocked her background, while her ex aggressively lunged at her to destroy the photographic evidence she had just captured.
"You think you can just walk away? Warren already made the deal. By next week, you're being shipped off to marry that fifty-two-year-old crippled freak from the Ramirez family!"
Her ex spat the words to threaten her, and the nightmare only escalated when Elva returned to her uncle's estate, where Warren confirmed he was indeed selling her off for a business connection.
Her family eagerly joined the abuse, threatening to permanently freeze her late mother's trust fund and even plotting to secretly drug her morning milk so she couldn't fight back when the groom's family arrived.
They looked at her like a pathetic, orphaned burden they could bleed dry, fully expecting her to drop to her knees, cry, and accept her miserable fate without a single word of defiance.
But they had no idea that just hours ago, Elva had already signed a marriage certificate with Bronson Ramirez, the undisputed billionaire king of the dynasty, and she was stepping into the living room ready to watch their greedy world burn.
8.7
Brought back from a humble life in Montana, Nora found out she was the true biological heiress of the ultra-wealthy Beaumont family.
But her biological parents didn't love her; they loved the fake daughter, Olivia, much more.
The moment she arrived, her father pushed an engagement termination agreement across his massive desk, forcing her to give up her wealthy fiancé so Olivia could have him.
Her mother looked at her with pure disdain.
"You should know your place. Don't reach for things that were never meant for you."
To break her spirit, they moved her into a cramped, dusty servant's room. They even ordered the butler to feed her cold kitchen scraps and gristle.
They wanted to humiliate her, to make her feel like a piece of trash rather than a daughter.
They expected her to cry, to beg, and to be absolutely crushed by the realization that her own flesh and blood saw her only as a liability to their reputation.
They thought the country girl would easily fold under their united front of cruelty.
But Nora felt no sting of betrayal, only the calculating clarity of a chess player.
She calmly signed the paper, pulled out the Beaumont family trust rules, and looked them dead in the eye.
"Since I am the legal heir, I demand what belongs to me. I'm taking the master bedroom."
9.3
My father ordered me to marry into the cursed Vaughn family.
Their heirs were rumored to die young from a mysterious genetic agony. My sister Kayden laughed, saying she wasn't going to waste her youth planning a funeral. So, I became the sacrificial lamb.
When I refused, my father slammed his hand on the table and threatened to throw my dead mother's ashes into the city dump.
"You are a struggling actress with no money and no power. You have no choice," he told me coldly.
To make matters worse, my own agent drugged my drink at a business dinner, trying to sell my body to a sleazy investor just to secure project funding.
I was completely cornered, suffocating under the weight of their cruelty. I couldn't understand how my own flesh and blood could be so vicious, treating me like a worthless pawn to be traded and discarded.
But none of them knew that while escaping the drug-laced dinner, I crashed directly into the terrifying Vaughn heir, Algot.
When his glowing crimson eyes locked onto me during a violent episode of his cursed pain, we discovered an impossible truth: my physical touch was the only cure for his agony.
Looking at the dark bruises he accidentally left on my neck, I chose not to run. Instead, I pulled out the private business card he gave me and dialed his number.
"You need me," I whispered to the dangerous billionaire. "And I am going to use you to destroy them all."
8.9
For three years, Alana acted as the sole tactical brain for the Dawnbreaker squad, keeping them alive despite being labeled a useless "Dud" Conduit.
But right before the crucial Ascension Trials, squad leader Cash handed her a corporate sponsorship contract. The condition? She had to become the "private companion" to a greasy corporate heir just so the squad could get high-tier gear.
When she refused, the teammates she had bled for unanimously voted to kick her out.
"You're just window dressing, a liability."
They revoked her safehouse access, burned her belongings, and the academy advisor even tried to force her into a state-sanctioned breeding program. They left her to freeze in the slums, betting she would desperately crawl into the rich man's bed.
What they didn't know was that her inability to summon an Eidolon wasn't a lack of talent. Her teammate Dallin had been secretly sabotaging her rituals for years, crippling her potential just to keep her chained as their free tactician.
Stripped of everything and pushed to the absolute brink, Alana's despair morphed into a deadly resolve.
Using a million-credit black market loan and a forbidden blood matrix, she forcibly anchored an Apex-Tier cosmic wolf disguised as a harmless silver pup.
When her ex-squad tried to publicly humiliate her and burn her new "pet" alive in the cafeteria, a flash of silver light severed Dallin's hand instantly.
Looking at her screaming former teammates, Alana finally smiled.
7.9
On my wedding day, my fiancé Connor received an urgent phone call.
He told me a D-list actress had broken her leg on set, then abandoned me right at the altar.
In my past life, I cried until my throat bled, begging him not to leave.
But my tears only brought endless humiliation. My mother and adopted sister mocked me, framed me, and forged my signature to steal my multi-million dollar trust fund.
They kicked me out of the family estate without a single dime.
I ended up freezing to death in the minus-twenty-degree New York blizzard, listening to my mother's voicemail telling me to die in the street as long as I didn't bleed on her carpets.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand why my own blood relatives hated me so much, yet treated an adopted daughter like a precious princess.
The only person who showed me any mercy—draping his wool coat over my frozen corpse and giving me a proper burial—was Connor's ruthless, untouchable uncle, Harding Snow.
Opening my eyes again, I was back in the bridal suite, right as Connor was rushing out the door.
This time, I didn't shed a single tear.
I let him run to his actress, then walked straight into the VIP room to face the most feared billionaire on Wall Street.
"The wedding proceeds as planned, but the groom's name changes to yours."
9.3
For five years, I was Ashton Miller's invisible partner, his loyal fiancée, pouring my life into building his empire from the shadows. Tonight, the Bronze Deer exhibition, my masterpiece, was finally opening at the Met, a testament to our shared future.
Then, Bianca, a third-tier actress, stepped into the spotlight in *my* custom Vera Wang wedding dress. My blood ran cold as Ashton's arm circled her waist, his whispered words promising to make her the "new queen of the city."
Five years of trust and sacrifice crumbled. I was a blood bag, drained and discarded. When I publicly exposed their lies, Ashton cornered me backstage, his face twisted in fury, threatening to ruin me, to blacklist me forever. I ripped off his engagement ring, tossing it at his chest. "We're done," I said, walking out as his enraged screams echoed.
The man whose empire I secretly built called me a parasite, his mistress feigning tears, painting me as delusional. My guilt vanished, replaced by freezing, absolute hatred for the man who twisted reality to erase my existence.
Standing in the New York rain, I finally pulled out the military-grade encrypted phone hidden for five years. The line clicked open instantly, a low, gravelly voice asking, "Is it you?" Before I could answer, Archer's voice hardened: "Give me the location. I'll be there in ten minutes. Who touched you? I want his life."