The CEO’s Temptation
Claire thought her life couldn’t get any worse when her boyfriend broke her heart, but a night out with her best friends turned her world upside down. A spiked drink, an unforgettable one-night stand, and an awkward morning-after encounter lead her straight into the arms of Mackenzie Allister—a powerful CEO and the man who now claims she’s destined to be his wife.
Mack’s offer seems absurd, but his charm, persistence, and a shocking family rivalry involving her ex-boyfriend, Liam, pull Claire into a whirlwind of passion, deceit, and schemes. Forced into a marriage of convenience, Claire navigates the complications of corporate power plays, bitter betrayals from her closest friends, and a family determined to tear her apart from Mack.
As enemies close in, Claire must decide who she can trust and whether she’s willing to risk her heart for a man whose motives may not be entirely pure. Will she succumb to the chaos of revenge and ambition, or can love and loyalty triumph against all odds?
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Chapter: Chapter 271: A Promise Beyond Tomorrow. *********************************Claire’s POV****************** The house was quieter than I’d ever known it to be. Not silent, no—silence was heavy, a void that pressed down. This was different. This quiet was alive. It carried the faint hum of distant voices, the occasional ripple of laughter drifting through the wide halls, the muffled chirps of birds beyond the terrace. It was the kind of quiet that told you everything was exactly as it should be. I leaned against the balcony rail, watching the gardens below. The grand fountain shimmered in the late morning light, each drop catching sunbeams as though even the water itself wanted to sparkle. For a long time, I’d been afraid I’d never stand here again—that I would remain trapped in Liam’s cage, forced into a life that was never mine. Yet here I was. Alive. Safe. Home. And in love. Behind me, the door creaked softly. I didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Mack’s presence filled a room even before he spoke. He moved closer,
Last Updated: 2025-08-28
Chapter: Chapter 270: Morning Light. **********************************Claire’s POV****************** The first thing I felt was warmth. Not the jagged fire of fear or the bone-deep chill of dread that had haunted so many of my nights these past months, but warmth that settled low in my chest, that wrapped itself around me like a silken blanket. My eyes fluttered open to a room flooded with pale gold light, spilling through the wide windows of the grand bedroom. The curtains swayed with a lazy breeze, and beyond them, the faint song of birds carried in from the gardens. For a moment, I didn’t move. I let the reality sink in, the quiet truth of it: I was safe. I was home. I was wrapped in sheets that smelled faintly of lavender and Mack’s cologne. My skin still held echoes of his touch, the tender ache of his love from last night. It almost felt like a dream, but then I turned my head and saw him. Mack stood near the doorway, balancing a tray with one hand like it was nothing. He was dressed casually—just loose gray s
Last Updated: 2025-08-28
Chapter: Chapter 269: At Last. ***************************** Claire’s POV************************* Dinner had ended in laughter, the kind that warmed the soul and felt like sunlight after too long in the dark. Liz had been teasing Rowe mercilessly about his so-called “plans,” while Rowe turned the color of ripe berries and tried to dodge her barbs. Mack had been quieter, watching the banter with an expression I knew well—something caught between pride and longing, his hand resting at the small of my back as though afraid to let me out of reach. The plates were being cleared, wine glasses half full, when Mack suddenly stood and, without a word, bent and scooped me into his arms. I squeaked, startled, clutching at his shoulders. “Mack!” Liz’s laughter bubbled over, Rowe grinning into his napkin. Mack’s arms were steady, strong, as though I weighed no more than a feather. His grin was wolfish, boyish at the same time, flashing teeth and dimples. “Excuse me,” he announced grandly, looking at Liz and Rowe as
Last Updated: 2025-08-27
Chapter: Chapter 268: Tides of Tomorrow --- ****************************** (Mack’s POV)********************** The evening light washed over the terrace in shades of soft gold and violet, the kind of light that never lasted long but always lingered in memory. Beyond the balustrade stretched the garden, lush and alive, the roses heavy with late bloom, their fragrance weaving into the air with the scent of the sea drifting faintly from beyond the hills. We had finished dinner hours ago, yet none of us had moved far. The plates were gone, the table cleared, but the laughter kept us tethered here together—like None of us quite wanted the night to end. Claire sat tucked into my side, her hand resting in mine, her smile quiet but radiant in a way that made every scar and storm worth it. Liz and Rowe faced us across the table, the glow of the lanterns painting their features soft. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, there was no wariness, no weight of strategy or grief. Just four people—friends, family, survivors—l
Last Updated: 2025-08-27
Chapter: Chapter 267: The Garden of Quiet**********************************Claire's POV********************* I woke to the hush of morning, a silence so soft it pressed against my ears like a blessing. For a long while, I just lay there, my cheek on Mack’s chest, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat. After everything—the running, the fear, the noise of war rooms and gunfire—I couldn’t quite believe that this was my life now. Safe. Held. Anchored in him. The light that spilled through the curtains was golden, the kind of sunlight I’d almost forgotten existed. I traced absent-minded circles on his skin, watching how his chest rose and fell beneath my palm. Mack stirred faintly but didn’t wake, only let out a sigh, his arm tightening around me as though even in sleep he refused to let me go. For once, I didn’t feel the itch to move or the panic of time rushing forward. I just wanted to stay there forever, memorizing the weight of his body beside mine, the warmth of his skin. When I finally slipped out of be
Last Updated: 2025-08-26
Chapter: Chapter 266: Mack’s Denouement. ********************************Mack's POV*********************** The garden was a world of its own, carved out of centuries, glowing beneath the slant of the moon. I stepped barefoot onto the stone path, damp with dew, and let the coolness ground me. For the first time in months—no, years—there wasn’t the taste of gunpowder or metal in the back of my throat. There was just silence, threaded with the hum of night insects and the faint perfume of roses that someone, probably my mother once upon a time, had planted in neat rows along the hedges. Claire was ahead of me, her dress brushing against the grass, her bare shoulders catching the moonlight like porcelain warmed by silver. She had insisted we come outside, as though she could feel the walls of the house pressing in on me. She always knew when the air was too heavy in my chest. I slowed when I reached her, standing beneath the old stone arch that led into the heart of the garden. My chest ached in that familiar way it always d
Last Updated: 2025-08-26
Chapter: CHAPTER SEVEN: WHAT POWER FEELS LIKE (Elena’s POV)We didn’t utter a word to each other as we walked to the elevator. The walk to the elevator felt longer than it should have, stretching endlessly beneath polished lights and glass walls that reflected my own face back at me—pale, shaken, furious beneath the calm I was forcing to hold. Alaric walked beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed once, then again, like he was making sure I didn’t disappear if he loosened his grip.“Don’t look back,” Alaric said quietly.“I won’t ” I replied, though part of me wanted to—wanted to memorize the humiliation on their faces, the shock, the loss of control. I wanted to bottle it and keep it.The elevator doors came into view.He reached out and pressed the call button before I could stop myself from shaking. The small ding felt too loud.Only then did he turn to me.“Are you alright?” He asked moving closer to me.I laughed softly, the sound hollow. “Define alright.”His gaze softened in a way that un
Last Updated: 2026-01-05
Chapter: CHAPTER SIX: THE BOARD MEETING.(Elena’s POV)Alaric didn’t finish the sentence.The silence that followed his words were worse than anything he could have said.I waited—my heart pounding faster than drumroll, breath shallow just for Alaric to continue. For a name, an identity, a truth that would finally rip the wound open instead of letting it fester.But, he didn’t.He simply moved back like a man who had said enough.“That’s more than enough for today.” He said calmly.The words hit me like a sharp slap.Enough. Is he being serious right now?I stared at him, disbelief rushing like water in my eyes. “You can’t stop there.”“I think I can,” he replied evenly. “And I am.”My hands curled into a fist. “I didn’t ask you anything you were the one that brought up my sister and now…”“ I stated it clearly that I wasn’t offering comfort ,” he said. “Only leverage.”His statement hurt more than anything I have experienced today.He turned away, signaling his housekeeper to attend to me.And just like whatever thread that
Last Updated: 2026-01-03
Chapter: CHAPTER FIVE: THE CONTRACT OF RUIN AND SALV CSS(ELENA’S POV) “Easy,” he whispered above my ears. “It’s over now.” Not yet but that moment I pretended it was. Alaric didn’t let go of me immediately he allowed me to sob out my heart. His arms stayed around me like he was anchoring me in place, steadying the parts of me that were too hard to hide. I drew in a shaky breath against his chest, and I detested how safe I felt with him—how he filled the warmth in my cold world. “Let’s leave here,” he said low and certain like I have never heard him say before. In a split second before I could get myself ready to leave he guided me out of the lobby, one hand sat the small of my back the other hand shielding me from the curious stares that followed us. When we reached his car—sleek, black, far too expensive for someone that isn’t known in the company—he opened the passenger seat for me. “Is being dramatic just your default setting?” I asked trying to sound composed. “Only when I’m rescuing damsels who pretend they don’t need rescuing
Last Updated: 2025-12-10
Chapter: CHAPTER FOUR: FIRED(ELENA'S POV) "How long are you going to pretend not to see him?" Lana whispered as we stepped out of the coffee shop. "Who said I'm pretending?" I breathed as I clutched my coffee cup closer to my heart. "I just want to focus on my work." That was partially a lie. I just couldn't allow Xavier to take the best of me. But there he was smiling down at his new fiancé like she hung the stars for him. I haven’t had a good sleep for days. Not after everything that’s happened and Alaric’s voice keeps playing in my head like a broken record. “Marry me, be the mother of my child. I will give you the money for your father’s surgery.” I had laughed then. Who proposed marriage like it’s a business contract? Still my chest tightened I could almost hear him saying it again. “Or do you want to know what your sister was doing in the club that night before she disappeared? The last one had carved itself into my brain like a worm. I still don’t know how to react to that—his tone, the way his eye
Last Updated: 2025-12-10
Chapter: CHAPTER THREE: THE PROPOSITION(ELENA’S POV) For a split second, I forgot how to breathe. The rooftop light blurred behind him, the wind caught in my hair and his words kept echoing in my head like a glitch in time. “Marry me, Elena, be the mother to my child and your father will be saved.” I laughed—not because it was funny but because I didn’t know how else to respond. “That’s...crazy. The most unbelievable thing I have heard all day. Did you hit your head on the railing or something?” I asked, as my voice came out louder than I had expected. “I’m perfectly sane, and yet...”Alaric said leaning lazily against the railing. “You didn’t say no.” “This isn’t a joke.” I breathed. “Oh, and I’m not laughing.” He said as he took a step closer, his hands still in his pocket, his expression maddeningly casual. “But I’m a practical man. I need an heir. You need money. It’s a Win-win.” I folded my hands and shook my head. “I’m still processing the fact that a total stranger wants to put a baby inside of me.” “A total s
Last Updated: 2025-12-10
Chapter: CHAPTER TWO: THE OFFER I NEVER SAW COMING (Elena’s Pov ) "$150,000, Miss Hart. That's the cost " the doctor had said. "I'm sorry, but we can’t proceed without a deposit." $150,000. I didn’t even have close to $15,000. My hands trembled as I tried to focus on the pile of reports on my desk. But all I saw was my dying father on the hospital bed, hoping that his daughter would find a means to give him a new heart in the nick of time. "Elena!" My head shot up from my desk to look at the wide eyed and frantic Lana that was holding up her phone and waving it like it was a flag. Her ponytail was a mess, her lipstick smudged and I knew instantly that she had just finished making out with someone and in the employee break room and was in the middle of cleaning up when she got whatever information she did that made her run out like that. "You're not gonna like this!" "What now?" I asked already apprehensive. It’s been bad news after bad news since yesterday and I wasn’t sure if I could take any more. "Look, the board just made
Last Updated: 2025-12-10
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