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Chapter 36
تاريخ النشر:
2026-03-09 01:10:11
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Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 49
When the elevator doors opened into the penthouse, Mrs. Chen was already in the kitchen. She took one look at their faces, asked absolutely no questions, and turned back to the stove. Elara and Alexander sat at the dining table. Mrs. Chen set down two plates of food and a pot of fresh coffee before quietly withdrawing to the far end of the apartment. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city moved through an ordinary Saturday morning, unhurried, indifferent, and entirely unaware. Elara pushed a piece of toast around her plate. The food smelled fine, but she had absolutely no appetite. "In his mind, engineering us was how he showed care." She set her fork down. "Creating optimal conditions for our development was how he loved us. The fact that we became exceptional scientists was his proof that it worked." Alexander picked up his coffee cup. "That's experimentation. It isn't love. Love means valuing someone for who they are, not for how well they validate your theories."
Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 48
The silence between them was different now. Not the careful, professional distance that had governed every interaction since the contract was signed. Something had shifted in the hours they had spent on the floor, and neither of them moved to reconstruct the old boundary. "I don't know how to forgive myself for not seeing what he was." The words came before Elara had decided to say them, rising from somewhere past her usual control. "I idolized him. I spent my entire career trying to become what I thought he wanted. Every paper, every grant, every late night in the lab — I was doing it for a man who was cataloguing my emotional responses in a research journal." She pressed her thumb against the edge of the manila envelope. "And I was just data to him. Just Subject One." "Your father was wrong." Elara looked up. "Not about the science." Alexander's jaw worked. "He was wrong about what made you valuable. He designed a protocol and got a person, and he never had the capacity to unde
Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 47
As the sun rose higher, golden light flooded the laboratory. Elara rested her head against the steel cabinet. The violent crying had hollowed her out, leaving behind a strange, empty calm. The worst had already happened. The revelation was complete, leaving nothing else to shatter. Her eyes were swollen, her throat raw, her fingers still bearing the faint half-moon impressions from where she had dug them into her own arms. She didn't move to fix any of it. Alexander sat beside her on the floor, his tailored suit hopelessly rumpled, his tie pulled loose and hanging open at the collar. He looked less like the man who controlled boardrooms and less like the man who had stood in her doorway two hours ago with his armor intact. He stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the skyline, his focus somewhere beyond the glass. "My brother, Sebastian, died three years ago." The words dropped into the quiet room without preamble. Elara turned her head. "Car accident." Alexander kept his gaz
Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 46
Elara pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The tears didn't come gently. It was a violent, physical ache that hollowed out her chest. She broke down with complete abandonment, the ragged sound of her own sobbing echoing in the empty lab.She cried for the father who had never existed. The man she had spent five years grieving was an illusion, constructed strictly to manage an experiment. Every moment of warmth, every rare smile of approval, had just been positive reinforcement. She hadn't been a daughter making her father proud. She had been a prototype hitting a baseline metric.The grief twisted into something sharper, bleeding into pure agony for Isabella. A sister who could have been an ally. The only other person on earth who could have understood the specific damage Arthur Vance inflicted. Instead, he had deliberately engineered them to destroy each other. He had designed a system where connection was impossible, feeding Isabella the data needed to era
Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 45
Elara didn't make it to the elevator. She had packed the folder and switched off the overhead lights, intending to follow Alexander up to the penthouse. But the manila envelope felt impossibly heavy. Her legs gave out before she reached the glass doors. She slid down the side of a stainless steel biosafety cabinet, the metal cold against her spine. The folder slipped from her grip. Papers and photographs spilled across the sterile tile. She didn't pick them up. She just sat on the floor in the dark. The ambient glow from the equipment monitors cast long, pale shadows across her father’s face in the scattered photos. Always controlled. Always clinical. A memory surfaced, uninvited and razor-sharp. She was nine years old, sitting at the kitchen table late at night, crying in frustration over a complex chemical modeling kit. She had wanted to quit. She had looked up at him, expecting comfort or a hand on her shoulder. Instead, Arthur Vance had simply sat across from her, watch
Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 46
Alexander stood in the doorway. He took in the scattered documents, the photographs spread across the tile, and the woman curled against the steel cabinet. He didn't speak. He just watched, assessing the total devastation and understanding exactly what she had learned. He crossed the laboratory. His leather shoes clicked against the tile with slow, deliberate purpose. He didn't hesitate or pause. He walked straight to where Elara sat in the dark and lowered himself onto the cold floor beside her. His tailored suit jacket brushed against the metal. He stretched his legs out, ignoring the dust collecting on his polished shoes and the scattered evidence of Arthur Vance's betrayal. Alexander Thorne—the billionaire who commanded boardrooms and dismantled entire corporations—sat on a laboratory floor at three in the morning because she needed him there. He didn't offer empty platitudes or try to minimize the pain. He just sat beside her. Solid and present. Elara kept her eyes on t
Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride CHAPTER 12
The moment Elara set the pen down, everything changed. Not externally. The study appeared unchanged. The city beyond the windows hummed with its usual rhythm. Thorne remained perfectly still in his chair. But Elara felt different. She stared at her signature on the cream paper. Dr. Elara Vance
آخر تحديث : 2026-03-20Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 14
The car pulled up to the penthouse building. The doorman opened Elara's door before the driver could move."Congratulations, Mrs. Thorne," he said.Word traveled fast.Elara stepped out onto the sidewalk. Alexander followed. Mrs. Chen exited from the front.They entered the lobby. The elevator ride
آخر تحديث : 2026-03-21Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 16
Sunlight pierced the gap in the heavy velvet curtains and struck Elara directly in the eyes. She blinked against the harsh glare and reached for her phone on the nightstand. The digital clock read 8:17. She had not slept past sunrise in three years.She sat up slowly and took a deep breath. Her t
آخر تحديث : 2026-03-22Betrayed, I Become The CEO'S Contracted Bride Chapter 15
Elara woke to darkness.She sat up. Disoriented. The room was unfamiliar in the shadows. Then she remembered. The penthouse. The wedding. Dr. Morrison's examination.She'd fallen asleep.The clock on the nightstand read seven forty-two. She'd slept for almost four hours.Elara turned on the lamp. A
آخر تحديث : 2026-03-21
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