My CEO Brother Wants Me
He was supposed to be my brother. The cold CEO everyone feared. The man who controlled the entire country's business world.
But one night, he looked at me and calmly destroyed everything I thought I knew.
"We're getting married."
I laughed, but he didn't.
Now every door in my life is closing, every choice is disappearing, and the one man I'm not supposed to love refuses to let me go.
Because to Lucien Hale, this was never forbidden. It was inevitable.
And the most terrifying part? The closer I get to him, the harder it becomes to run.
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Chapter 1
Lucien sat by the window of the long black luxury sedan, his arm resting against the door as he stared outside. The city moved past them in a blur of lights and glass buildings, but he wasn't really looking at any of it.
Across from him, his mother kept glancing his way.
"Lucien," she said gently, "about what happened earlier..."
He didn't turn.
"I told you already," he said. "I couldn't control it."
Seraphina sighed softly and leaned back in her seat.
The outburst that morning had been bad. He had shattered a vase, they'd raised their voices, even one of the house staff had to be sent home in tears.
It wasn't the first time, and they weren't sure it would be the last.
His father, Alaric, sat beside him, calm as always, hands resting on his cane.
"Your therapist made another recommendation," Alaric said.
Lucien didn't react, but he was listening.
"He thinks it might help if we adopted a child," Alaric continued. "A young girl. Someone who could stay close to you. Someone you could bond with."
That got Lucien's attention. He looked over, then said, "No one can replace Lina."
The car went quiet immediately.
Seraphina's expression softened at the name.
"We know that," she said gently. "No one is trying to replace her."
Lina was his younger sister, gone barely a year. The house hasn't felt the same since.
"This isn't about replacing her," Seraphina went on. "It's about helping you heal. If you want to get better, you have to be open to trying what's recommended."
Lucien looked back out the window. He didn't reply again.
The car eventually slowed down as they got to a tall building, Clayview Orphanage. One of the many places the Hale family funded.
The manager, a middle-aged woman hurried forward as they stepped out.
"Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale, welcome," she said warmly. "It's an honor to have you here."
Seraphina smiled politely. "Thank you. We're hoping to meet some of the children today."
"Of course," the manager said quickly. "Please, come in."
Lucien followed behind his parents, uninterested. He didn't want a sister. He didn't want anyone trying to fill Lina's space.
"We're looking to adopt a young girl," Seraphina said as they walked. "Around five or six."
"That's awesome. We have several children in that age group," the manager beemed. "There's a class session currently ongoing."
They entered a classroom and saw children seated around small desks while a teacher wrote on the board. Boys and girls both. Some were curious, some shy while some seemed to be used to visitors to react at all.
The manager smiled. "You can take your time."
Seraphina glanced at Lucien. "Do any of them catch your eye?"
He shook his head immediately. "No."
As he turned to leave, a small body ran straight into him making books and pencils scatter across the floor. The little girl gasped, stumbling back.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said quickly, bowing her head over and over.
Lucien stared down at her. She had wide doe eyes and though she was startled, she wasn't crying. Her hair was packed into two small pigtails, slightly messy like she had done them herself.
She kept apologizing as she gathered her things.
He didn't speak or move. He only watched her.
She picked up her books and hurried to her seat without looking up again.
Seraphina and Alaric exchanged a glance behind him. Seraphina then smiled and turned to the manager.
"We'd like to proceed with her."
The manager nodded quickly. "Of course, Mrs. Hale."
Only then did Lucien speak. "I don't want her as my sister."
They both looked at him. Seraphina frowned. "But you seemed to like her."
Lucien's eyes were still on the girl across the room. She was calm, writing like nothing had happened.
He shook his head. "I want to marry her."
The manager blinked in shock, then laughed awkwardly, assuming it was childish talk.
Seraphina sighed softly. "Lucien."
"I will marry her," he repeated, smug certainty in his young voice. "Don't adopt her."
Alaric placed a hand on his shoulder. "You're fourteen," he said calmly.
Lucien didn't look away from the girl. "Doesn't matter."
Seraphina shook her head. "Lucien, how else would she live with us? We'd have to adopt her formally."
Alaric nodded. "She can't come home with us otherwise."
Lucien looked at them both.
"Then adopt her," he said. "Just don't give her our name."
Seraphina's brows pulled together. "Lucien... she'll feel left out if we do that."
He shook his head once. "I won't let her."
They both paused at that.
"She won't feel left out," he added. "I'll make sure of it."
To his parents, it sounded like childish attachment, a grieving boy redirecting emotion after loss.
The manager cleared her throat politely. "Shall we begin the paperwork?"
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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."
8.0
Finley's stepfather gave her a sickening ultimatum: marry her predatory stepbrother Shane tonight, or he would throw her fragile mother out on the street.
To escape this hell, she used a matchmaking agency and hastily married a complete stranger. Garrison Strickland claimed to be an ordinary data analyst making $95,000 a year, driving a beat-up Honda Civic, and needing a wife in name only. They got their marriage license at City Hall that very afternoon.
But when Finley returned home to pack her bags and threw the certificate on the table, her family just laughed. Dozier ordered Shane to drag her into the bedroom to "teach her a lesson" and trap her forever.
"Come on, little sister," Shane crooned, lunging at her. "Don't fight it."
Finley's own mother just stared at the floor, blaming Finley for ruining the family, watching blindly as Shane cornered her.
Terrified and desperate, Finley smashed an ashtray over Shane's head and frantically dialed her new husband's number. Shane snatched the phone, mocking the "imaginary husband" before the line went dead. Finley felt a bottomless despair. Garrison was just a normal guy; he would never risk his life against her violent family. She was completely on her own, waiting for the end.
Suddenly, deafening bangs echoed through the house, and Garrison stepped into the living room radiating a cold, terrifying fury. This supposedly "frugal data analyst" effortlessly snapped Shane's wrist, leveled a ruthless death threat that made Dozier tremble, and whisked Finley away in a waiting Bentley. Looking at the powerful man beside her, Finley's heart raced: just who exactly had she married today?
7.6
I am the illegitimate, mute daughter of the wealthy Owen family, kept hidden in the attic like a shameful secret.
To save his failing company, my father decided to sell me off to a repulsive, predatory investor named Grossman.
At the family dinner, Grossman's sweaty hands roamed my bare legs while my half-sister Kaleigh intentionally spilled red wine on my dress, laughing as she watched me suffer.
When I grabbed a steak knife to defend myself, my father slammed his fist on the table.
"Sit down, or I will cut off the maintenance payments for your mother's grave."
My stepmother and sister sneered, treating me like a piece of meat meant to be sacrificed for their luxury. I was starved, locked away, and treated worse than a stray dog, all while my family paraded their high-society status to the world.
I couldn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or who really ordered the hit that killed my mother twenty years ago. The police reports were buried, and I was entirely powerless, trapped in a house of monsters.
But they didn't know that the night before, I had accidentally stumbled into the secret life of Burleigh Livingston—the ruthless, supposedly paralyzed billionaire who was faking his madness.
When Burleigh suddenly crashed our family dinner and threw a limitless Black Card on the table to outbid Grossman and buy me for the night, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, accepted his twisted deal, and prepared to use the devil himself to tear my family apart.
7.1
The night before her wedding to Wall Street billionaire Everette Baird, Deliah Quinn stood happily in her haute couture gown.
Then, her younger sister Arvilla walked in, handed her a drugged glass of champagne, and slammed an ultrasound on the vanity.
"I'm pregnant with Everette's child," Arvilla sneered.
Before Deliah's paralyzed body could react, Arvilla dragged in a canister of industrial gasoline, soaked the bridal suite, tossed a lighter, and locked the heavy oak doors from the outside.
To escape the roaring inferno, Deliah smashed the glass balcony and threw herself into the freezing, violent waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
For five agonizing years, everyone believed the Quinn heiress was dead.
Deliah returned to New York entirely reborn—a top architectural designer and a single mother, having scrubbed her past clean and forgotten the people who destroyed her.
She only wanted a peaceful life with her five-year-old genius son, Leo.
But she had no idea her son was secretly hacking airport security cameras to find himself a wealthy stepdad.
Leo deliberately bumped into a terrifying, cold-blooded tycoon, spilling scalding coffee on his custom suit to get his attention.
When Deliah frantically rushed over to protect her son and apologize, the air in the terminal vanished.
Everette Baird stared at the exact face he had obsessively mourned for five years, his eyes turning pitch black as he crushed his phone in his bare hand.
9.4
I was the eldest daughter of the powerful Kirk family, sent away to a Swiss sanatorium to recover from my supposed mental illness.
But my stepmother, Johnie, never intended for me to get better. She sent her personal cleaners to drag me onto a plane back to Washington D.C.
In my past life, I didn't know they were assassins. I was forcefully injected with heavy sedatives and locked in a secret torture chamber inside our luxury estate.
My stepmother and cousin skimmed my inheritance while watching me suffer.
They framed me as a crazy addict, and my own father, a sitting Senator, turned a blind eye to protect his political career.
"Her political value is gone, just get rid of her quietly."
That was the last thing I heard my father say before I was brutally slaughtered by my own family.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand why they hated me so much.
Why did my father let them force those pills down my throat?
Why was my life worth less than my stepmother's public image?
Opening my eyes again, the freezing sensation of lake water filling my lungs vanished.
I was back in the VIP room of the St. Moritz Sanatorium in 2023.
It was the exact morning before the cleaners walked through my door with uncapped syringes.
This time, I wouldn't just survive. I was going to cut the throat of the Kirk family.
8.2
Ashley was tied to a rusted iron pillar in an abandoned warehouse, the noxious fumes of gasoline soaking her clothes.
Her fiancé Devon and her stepsister Brittany stood before her, revealing a horrifying truth. Devon never saved her from that fatal car crash three years ago; he merely stole the credit.
Worse, Brittany smirked and confessed that Ashley's own father had orchestrated her mother's murder. Before Ashley could process the betrayal, Devon callously tossed a lighter. A wall of blistering heat instantly consumed her. Even when Bennett Hawkins, the cold and untouchable billionaire, rushed into the inferno to shield her with his body, they were both swallowed by the explosion.
As the fire melted her skin, Ashley died with agonizing hatred. Why did her own flesh and blood want her dead? What dark secret were they hiding about her mother's tragic death?
Opening her eyes again, freezing saltwater violently flooded her lungs.
She was back at her twentieth birthday yacht party, right after Brittany had secretly pushed her into the freezing Hudson River.
Staring at the hypocritical faces of her family pretending it was an accident, Ashley didn't cry or beg. She calmly snatched a phone and dialed 911.
"Yes. I need to report an attempted murder."