Escaping My Cold And Jealous CEO
For five years, I was Barron Santana's elite bodyguard and loyal shadow. I stood between him and bullets, giving him my youth and my entire heart.
But last night, the CEO announced his engagement to a flawless socialite on national television.
Heartbroken, I got blackout drunk and ended up crashing on the couch of Cassidy Gross, a billionaire tech CEO who saved me from a bar creep.
When I showed up late to work, Barron locked me in his freezing office. He pinned me against the glass, smelling Cassidy's cologne on my clothes.
"Are you already looking for your next meal ticket?"
He snarled the words, treating me like a cheap whore. When I defended myself, he pulled out a silk handkerchief and wiped his fingers, acting as if my very touch contaminated him.
Then, he coldly ordered his assistant to draft my termination papers.
Five years of risking my life for him, thrown away like garbage just because of his twisted ego.
Devastated, I ran out and collapsed in the hallway, sobbing uncontrollably until a kind coworker gently pulled me into his arms to comfort me.
I didn't know Barron had followed me out.
Seeing me clinging to another man, his legendary control completely shattered, replaced by a dark, violent possessiveness.
But it was too late. I was done playing his obedient dog, and it was time to take Cassidy up on his offer.
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Chapter 7
The yellow cab slammed on its brakes outside the towering glass monolith of Santana Corp.
Alexandrea threw a crumpled fifty-dollar bill over the seat. She didn't wait for the change. She kicked the door open and sprinted across the concrete plaza.
She burst through the revolving doors into the massive marble lobby. The security guards at the front desk gave her startled looks as she slapped her ID badge against the turnstile and shoved her way through.
She ran to the executive elevator bank and slammed her hand against the call button.
The silver doors opened. She stepped inside and hit the button for the top floor. The doors slid shut, sealing her in the metal box.
As the elevator shot upward, the familiar, suffocating grip of claustrophobia wrapped around Alexandrea's throat. The walls felt like they were shrinking. The air grew thin.
Sweat broke out on her forehead. Her chest heaved as she took short, shallow breaths. She reached out and gripped the metal handrail, her knuckles turning white. She squeezed her eyes shut and counted backward from ten, forcing her military-grade mental discipline to push the panic down.
Ding.
The doors slid open. Alexandrea gasped for air and stepped out onto the executive floor.
The atmosphere hit her instantly. It was wrong.
Usually, this floor hummed with the quiet, efficient energy of billion-dollar deals. Today, it was as silent as a graveyard. The air pressure felt heavy, oppressive.
Every single employee was glued to their monitors. No one was talking. No one was walking around. The only sound was the frantic, terrified clicking of keyboards.
Alexandrea kept her head down and walked quickly toward her cubicle.
As she passed the glass-walled breakroom, a hand shot out, grabbed her arm, and yanked her inside.
It was Annie. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with terror.
"Where the hell have you been?" Annie hissed, keeping her voice barely above a whisper.
"I overslept," Alexandrea whispered back, her heart racing. "Is it bad?"
"Bad?" Annie let out a hysterical, breathless laugh. "He's acting like a psychopath. He fired three VPs before 9 AM. The Director of Planning came out of his office crying."
Alexandrea's stomach twisted into a tight knot.
"And worse," Annie grabbed Alexandrea's shoulders. "He's called my desk five times asking if you've badged in. He is hunting for you."
Alexandrea felt the blood drain from her face. Barron was a tyrant, yes, but he never cared about the comings and goings of a low-level assistant. This level of rage meant something else.
Before Alexandrea could process the fear, a sharp knock hit the breakroom glass.
Both women jumped.
M. Thorne stood on the other side of the glass. His face was a blank, emotionless mask. He pushed the door open and looked directly at Alexandrea.
"Miss West," Thorne said, his voice clipped and cold. "Mr. Santana is waiting for you."
Annie shot Alexandrea a look of pure pity and scurried out of the breakroom, rushing back to her desk.
Alexandrea's legs felt like they were made of lead. She forced herself to walk.
She followed Thorne down the long, carpeted hallway. Every step felt like a march to the executioner's block. She could feel the eyes of her coworkers burning into her back.
Thorne stopped in front of the heavy frosted glass doors of the CEO's office. He stepped aside and gestured toward the handle. He wasn't going in with her.
Alexandrea took a deep, shaky breath. Her hand trembled as she raised it and knocked on the glass.
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9.0
Adaline Poole thought she had escaped her family's toxic corporate grip by moving to London and adopting a stray cat named Monty.
But when she returns to her empty apartment, her father delivers a chilling ultimatum: he has kidnapped the cat and will euthanize it by morning unless she accepts an arranged marriage with Barron Cooke, a notoriously elusive billionaire.
Her entire family becomes complicit in her sale. Her mother demands she secure their elite status, and her brother secretly spies on her social media to feed Barron her every move. Horrified to discover Barron is a thirty-three-year-old "fossil" twelve years her senior, Adaline resorts to sabotage. She goes to a Soho club, takes a scandalous photo with a frat boy, and sends it to the old billionaire to disgust him into canceling their upcoming dinner.
But her rebellion backfires horribly when the frat boy spikes her drink with a powerful narcotic. As her body burns with a terrifying, feverish heat, she collapses in a dark corridor. Stripped of her phone and betrayed by her bloodline, she is left utterly defenseless as a predator approaches to drag her away.
Suddenly, the heavy fire door is kicked open by a towering, terrifyingly handsome stranger who effortlessly neutralizes her attacker.
"Please... help me," Adaline begs, deliriously throwing her burning body into his arms.
She has absolutely no idea that the handsome savior she is clinging to is Barron Cooke himself.
9.7
I ran through the freezing rain, desperate to escape the Pennington estate. My adoptive family had raised me for one purpose: to be sold off as a bargaining chip in a wealthy arranged marriage.
But before I could reach the highway, I was cornered. Not just by my family's cruel guards, but by Hollis Wall—a terrifying, ruthless billionaire who snapped my tormentor's wrist and dragged me into his car. He didn't want a ransom. He threw a prenuptial agreement in my lap.
I thought he was insane until he took a scalpel to his own arm, and a burning agony ripped across my flawless skin. Because of a near-drowning accident three years ago, our nervous systems were linked. Every time I bled, he felt the agony. He locked me in his fortress to keep me safe, but when I finally escaped back to my adoptive parents, they didn't protect me. Instead, my adoptive father smiled and showed me a live video of my biological father on life support, a guard's hand hovering over the plug.
"You will marry Douglas Cherry tomorrow, or your father dies," he sneered.
My own family was willing to murder my only real flesh and blood just to secure their wealth. I collapsed onto the cold marble floor, my heart crushed in a vice of absolute, suffocating despair.
"I'll marry him," I sobbed, surrendering to the darkness.
But miles away, in his dark study, the ruthless Hollis Wall violently collapsed to the floor, gasping for air as my severe panic attack bled directly into his chest. Our twisted bond was killing him, and I knew he would tear the city apart to find me.
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.
8.1
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 ex-boyfriend of three years, Axel, married a perfect wealthy heiress.
I attended his wedding, not to mourn our relationship, but because he had spent the last three years bleeding me dry.
He left me with absolutely nothing but a final notice from the hospital for my dying brother's life support.
Instead of feeling guilty, Axel cornered me in the church hallway, crushing my wrist.
"I'll set you up with an apartment. You won't have to work another day in your life."
He thought he could buy my silence with spare change, while leaving my seventeen-year-old brother, Julian, to die when his treatments were cut off the very next day.
When I refused to be his dirty little secret, Axel used his power to utterly destroy my acting career.
He had my talent agency terminate my contract under a fake morals clause, publicly humiliated me on set, and blacklisted me across the entire industry.
I was shoved out into the freezing rain, left with a torn dress and absolutely no way to pay the five hundred thousand dollar medical bill.
He actually believed he could step on my brother's dying body to build his own fake empire.
He thought I was just a weak, pathetic victim who would eventually crawl back to him on my knees.
But he forgot about the one monster he was absolutely terrified of: his legitimate, ruthless billionaire half-brother, Jace Bauer.
Looking at the three positive pregnancy tests hidden in my drawer, I stepped right in front of Jace's armored Maybach.
"Marry me, and I'll give you the heir you need to secure your empire."
8.0
Arletta Lee was dragged out of rural Pennsylvania to be a sacrificial bride for the comatose billionaire heir, Josue Mcconnell.
The moment she stepped into the massive estate, she became the prime target of a vicious, greedy family.
Josue's stepmother and half-brother viewed her as cheap trash. They didn't just want her gone; they wanted Josue dead.
Kyler broke into her room at night reeking of bourbon, and later sneaked into the medical wing with a lethal synthetic neurotoxin aimed right at Josue's IV line.
His jealous cousin even tried to permanently disfigure her face with a thermos of boiling water.
"She's just a cheap good-luck charm the old man bought. We can throw her out with the trash whenever we want."
They relentlessly bullied her, thinking she was just a helpless, terrified country girl who would quietly take the blame for their murder plot.
But what the arrogant Mcconnell family didn't know was that her pathetic, trembling demeanor was entirely manufactured.
They thought they had trapped a frightened rabbit in a den of wolves.
In reality, Arletta was a brilliant underground surgeon.
Using ancient neural acupuncture hidden in a simple wooden hairpin, she flawlessly turned their traps against them, locking Kyler away and winning the ruthless patriarch's absolute protection.
As the supposedly brain-dead billionaire finally twitched and locked his fingers in an iron grip around her hand, Arletta smiled coldly.
It was time to wake him up and let him tear this rotten family apart.