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 4
LUCIEN
I watched her run upstairs.
The sound of her steps faded quickly, but the tension she left behind stayed in the room.
My mother exhaled slowly.
"Lucien, why did you have to do that like that?"
I didn't answer.
She turned toward me. "She just got back. It's too soon."
I folded my napkin neatly beside my plate before responding.
"I've waited long enough."
My father leaned back in his chair, watching me the way he always did when he was deciding whether to argue or not.
Seraphina shook her head. "I know you have," she said. "But you could have waited a little longer. Ava is only twenty two."
I looked at her, then responded, "That means she's old enough."
She pressed her lips together, clearly unhappy with that answer.
Across the table, my father sighed.
"And how exactly do you plan to get her to agree?" he asked. "You saw how she ran upstairs."
I leaned back in my chair.
"She'll be fine."
Seraphina frowned. "Lucien."
"She's overwhelmed," I continued, cutting her off without raising my voice. "That's expected."
"Expected," My father repeated.
I met his gaze evenly. "She was always going to react like this."
"Lucien," she said, "you can't decide her life for her."
I held her gaze for a moment before answering.
"I'm not deciding it for her."
Both of them looked unconvinced.
Then I added, calmly, "She is already mine."
My mother parted her mouth in disbelief, which I didn't understand because this was no news to them.
"She just doesn't know it yet," I finished.
The words didn't feel dramatic to me, they felt factual. I had waited longer than anyone realized. I watched her grow, protected her from a distance, made sure nothing and no one claimed her before I did.
I pushed my chair back and stood.
"Where are you going?" my mother asked.
"Upstairs."
She looked alarmed. "Lucien, don't push her tonight."
I paused at the staircase.
"I'm not pushing," I said. "I'm reminding her."
I walked out before either of them could stop me.
The door to her room was slightly open when I got there.
I didn't knock. I pushed it open and stepped inside.
She was standing by the window, looking out, deeply in thoughts.
She didn't turn immediately, but she spoke, "You're supposed to knock."
Her voice sounded calm, but I could hear the tension underneath it.
"I didn't used to knock," I replied.
She turned then.
"That was when I was still a child."
I should have answered her.
I should have said something immediate but I couldn't because seeing her like this, alone, relaxed and unaware of how closely I was looking, undid something I had kept buried for years.
She was ethereal in a way that made you look twice without meaning to.
Her face had matured. She had a clear, flawless skin. Her full lips were pressed in irritation.
And her body...
My gaze dropped before I could stop it.
She had a small waist, and a natural curve to her shape that the gown she wore didn't hide. She had grown fully into a woman.
I dragged my eyes back to her face before I lost control completely.
"What was that downstairs?" she asked.
There it was, the anger and confusion.
I walked closer.
She didn't move, but I could see the way her shoulders tensed as the distance between us closed.
"I meant what I said," I told her.
She let out a short laugh. "You can't be serious."
"I am."
Her eyes searched my face like she was trying to find the joke hidden somewhere.
"You're talking about marriage like it's a business arrangement," she said. "Like you get to decide it on your own."
I stopped a step away from her.
"I've already decided."
Her expression hardened immediately. "You don't get to decide my life for me."
"I'm not deciding it for you," I said calmly.
"Then what do you call what you did downstairs?" she shot back. "You announced it like it was already happening."
"It is."
She stared at me like she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"You're insane," she muttered.
I didn't react.
She took a breath, trying to calm herself.
"You're my brother, Lucien."
"No."
The word came easily, without hesitation.
"I never acknowledged you as my sister. I never called you that."
She laughed, shaking her head.
"Is that why you were so distant too?" she asked. "Why you barely spoke to me growing up?"
I looked away for a second.
Her voice rose. "Is that why you didn't even care when I left?" she went on. "Why you didn't call once?"
She paused, then corrected herself.
"Actually... not when I left. When you told our parents to send me away."
I just kept staring, trying hard to focus on what she was saying.
"You think I didn't know?" she said. "You think I didn't realize it was you?"
I spoke then, calmly. "They're my parents."
She frowned, confused by the correction.
"If anything," I continued, "they'll be your parents-in-law."
She stared at me, stunned.
I stepped closer again, slow enough that she could step back if she wanted to but she didn't.
"You're wrong about the rest," I added.
"About what?" she asked.
"I cared when you left."
She shook her head. "You didn't act like it."
"I couldn't afford to."
Her brows pulled together.
"Sending you away was the only way to stay in control," I said.
"Control of what?" she asked.
"Of myself."
"Lucien, this is madness." She gasped, shaking her head.
"I waited, Ava. I waited for you to grow up."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"I didn't touch you," I continued. "I didn't cross boundaries. I didn't let myself look at you the way I do now."
Her chest heaved.
"You think this is normal?" she asked.
"No," I said honestly.
"Then why-"
"Because you were always mine." I answered.
She shook her head immediately. "No, don't say that."
"You were," I repeated. "You just didn't know it yet."
"That's not love," she said, her voice was shaking. "That's obsession."
I held her gaze. "Yes."
She went quiet, opening her mouth and closing it.
"I don't deny that," I continued. "But obsession doesn't mean I didn't wait for my feelings to be appropriate."
She stared at me like she didn't know whether to be angry or afraid.
"You're still free to say no," I said.
Her lips parted again.
"But you won't," I added.
"Stop saying that like you know me," she snapped.
"I do know you."
"You don't," she argued. "You don't know anything about me anymore."
I watched her for a moment, then said, "I know enough."
Her chest rose and fell faster now.
I could feel the pull between us tightening, not just from me, but from her confusion, her anger, her inability to step away, and that was the moment my control almost slipped again.
Standing this close, close enough to see the faint flush on her skin and way her lips parted when she breathed...
My hand twitched at my side.
Then came the instinct to reach for her, to kiss her senseless and hold her still long enough to make her listen without running, but I stopped myself.
Restraint had carried me this far, I wouldn't break it now.
"You can take time," I said finally.
She looked wary.
"I've already waited years," I continued. "I can wait a little longer."
I stepped back, giving her space for the first time since entering the room. But before I turned to leave, I added one last thing.
"You can deny it all you want, Ava."
She looked at me, guarded.
"But you've always belonged to me, and you always will."
I left the room before she could answer.
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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."