LOGINSeven years ago, the Gold family took me in after my parents were killed. They turned me into an unpaid maid, stole my fortune, worse, I got married their son thinking he loved me. But then he cheated on me with my best friend. I stayed quiet and took the abuse—until they let the only person who loved me die, just so they could save money for a flashy birthday party. That was their last mistake. They think I’m just a poor, broken ex-wife hiding as a low-level worker at the Delacroix company. They have no idea I actually own the whole empire. One by one, I am going to ruin their careers and destroy everything that makes them happy. But then there’s Christopher. The powerful, cold billionaire boss who moved his whole team into my building just to protect me. Behind closed doors, his scary mask completely falls off. He traps me against the wall, his blue eyes holding me captive, completely obsessed with keeping me safe."If revenge is all you have left," he whispers, his breath hot against my skin as he holds me close, "then use me as your weapon to burn them down." I swore I’d never trust a man again...but I dunno what to do about this one...he keeps softening my towered walls.
View MoreCarlos came over at midnight.Not the usual midnight visit, with the grocery bags and the pretend errand. This one, he came through the connecting hallway in his coat, still buttoned, and when Anika said the name — Shawn — the change that came over his face was something she'd only seen once before.The last time, he'd been standing in a burned-down garden."Say it again," Carlos said quietly."Shawn. He said to ask you about Shawn."Carlos sat down on the terrace chair, slowly, like a man whose knees had been consulted. For a moment he looked every one of his seventy years, and then some, and then a few more on top of that."Shawn Delacroix," he said. "Of course. Of course it would be Shawn." He pressed his hands together in front of his mouth. "Young mistress, how much do you know of your family's... wider branches?""Almost nothing. My memory's a burned photo album, Carlos. You know that. I know my parents. I know the house. I know the nickname — he knew the nickname.""He would,"
For three days after the night of the noodles, the penthouse was — there was no other word for it — soft.Anika kept catching herself doing things that would have embarrassed the old her. Humming while she made coffee. Wearing one of Christopher's sweaters on the terrace like a person with nothing to prove. Letting him kiss her cheek before they took separate elevators to the same car, and not checking who saw."He's insufferable now, by the way," Casey reported over the phone, delighted. "He did a full cardio session yesterday whistling. Whistling. The trainers think he's having a breakdown.""He kind of is," Anika said, and hung up smiling.The softness even carried into work. The Mercer file was moving. Kessler had a new packet due Friday — she'd found something on the black car at the service gate, she wouldn't say what over the phone, only come in person, bring no one. Everything, for exactly three days, felt like a city at peace.Anika would think about that later — how the univ
Christopher found out on a Tuesday, from a dry cleaner.Not literally. But nearly. Carlos, who knew about the PI because Carlos knew about everything, had let it slip to Ravi as a security matter — "keep an eye near the dry cleaner's, the young mistress has a private arrangement there" — and Ravi, who took his job with monastic seriousness, had flagged it in his daily log. And Christopher, who was a lot of things but not stupid, had read the log line and put it together with three weeks of "work files" and a wife-shaped hole in the no more secrets deal, and by the time Anika got home that evening, he was sitting on the couch in the connecting hallway with the log on his phone and his face wiped of all its humor."Margaret Kessler," he said. No hello. "Private investigator. Retainer paid from your personal account, not the company's. Meetings at a dry cleaner's on Ninth, nine days ago and again this afternoon." He looked up. "The fire. You're investigating the fire. Behind my back. Aga
The next toxic boss, as it turned out, had a name like a nature documentary: Grant Mercer, Head of Commercial Partnerships."Mercer," Tobey said, spreading his laptop across Anika's desk at 8:40 p.m., the tower empty around them and the cleaning crew vacuuming two floors down. "Presenting: two protected juniors who've each had 'performance conversations' with five women in two years. Every woman he 'coached' out the door got the same words in their file. 'Not a culture fit.' Meanwhile his two favorite account guys got promoted with the same numbers the women got fired over. That's a pattern with a paycheck."Anika scrolled the spreadsheet, and it was ugly and tidy, like most of the things they'd been finding lately. "Complaints?""Three filed. All three 'resolved informally.' Guess who resolves them informally. His golf partner in HR.""So it's not just Mercer. It's a pair." She pulled a legal pad over. "Same play as Santiago, then. We don't touch him while the wounds are fresh. We bu
Immediately, everyone began to laugh out loud. Anika was too stunned to even understand the situation. How could she be this humiliated like this?Anna grabbed her purse, "I'm gonna head out. Bye, friend." Then ran away. They laughed and kept chatting as if Desiree had not just bullied her. Anika
Anika just stared at him as he explained, then, to back up all of his points, he paused, opened the black bag he'd been carrying, and brought out a neat brown envelope. She frowned but collected it from him to open it. This was his proof after all. NOTICE OF INHERITANCE. To Ms. Anika Delacroix
Christopher felt his leg turn into a log of wood. He wanted to run, to hide his shameful face from her? Why was this death so personal to him? He had killed the poor woman. Suddenly, her eyes met with his. He could see fire burning in them. "You!" Rage overwhelmed her as she ran towards him. "You
No one might had known Anika had cried all night. She always raised her head up high and smiled through it all. "You're basically Cinderella at this point," Anika's friend Anna said to her. Anika had just finished the laundry. "Exactly. Because I'm married to my prince charming," she smiled, thro






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