Library
Maghanap
Home / Romance / The CEO’s Temptation / Chapter 117: Echoes from the past.

Share

Chapter 117: Echoes from the past.

Author: Love
last update Huling Na-update: 2025-05-29 22:27:30

************************(Claire’s POV)***********************

I stared at the grainy photograph until it burned into my memory. Liam. Meeting with Aliana. The image wasn't perfect

At__just enough definition to recognise the slope of his jaw, the cut of his favourite suit, the way he tilted his head when he thought no one was watching.

The weight in my chest was suffocating.

I wanted to so bad believe that Aliana was just a pawn. A foolish, misguided woman caught in the crossfire. But this..this meeting told another story. One that twisted around my gut with a dozen implications.

“What do you think they spoke about?” I asked aloud, not expecting an answer.

"Not sure but either he threatened her....or she knew too much and tried to strike a deal," Ethan muttered quietly as he sat beside me on the edge of the desk.

Mack’s voice came from behind. “And either way, he wanted her silenced after.”

I turned toward the window, my arms crossed around my body

“So why now? Why go to such lengths?
Patuloy na basahin ang aklat na ito nang libre
I-scan ang code upang i-download ang App
Locked Chapter
Nakaraang Kabanata Susunod na kabanata

Pinakabagong kabanata

  • The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 201: Cracks in the Glass.

    *******************************POV: Liam************************** --- The villa felt different tonight. Quieter—but not the kind of quiet that soothed. This was the kind that buzzed behind your eyes. The kind that warned. Something was off. I stood in the hallway, barefoot, one hand resting against the wall as I listened. The sea pressed against the cliffs below with its usual rhythm, but the sound didn’t calm me like it used to. Not anymore. Not since Claire had started smiling too easily. Speaking softer. Pretending too well. Pretending. The thought lodged in my chest like a shard of glass. I walked toward her room. The hallways were always dim at night, lit only by low sconces along the stone walls. I kept it that way—intimate. Romantic. Like a sanctuary where nothing else existed. No past. No threats. No lies. Only us. That’s how it was supposed to be. And yet… something was wrong. --- I stopped outside her door, not knocking. Just… listening. No footsteps. No brea

  • The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 200: The Quiet Weapon.

    *****************************POV: Henry************************** --- Some men lead with their voices. I lead with silence. It wasn’t just a habit—it was a weapon. Silence gives space to details. To patterns. And ever since Claire vanished, I’d been listening harder than ever. Not just to signals, but to the people cracking under them. The war room had emptied out in waves tonight. Mack left first, his grief heavy and private. Liz followed not long after, shoulders stiff, that haunted look never quite fading from her face. Reeve lingered. Rowe, too. But eventually, even they drifted. That’s when I sat down alone. Screens flickered around me like a digital constellation, casting long shadows across the table. The monitors still pulsed with the signal Claire had sent—only now, it wasn’t at 2:47 a.m. anymore. Tonight, it came at 2:10. That wasn’t a mistake. Claire wasn’t sloppy. It was a deviation. A warning. I stared at the pattern she'd created—buried, encrypted, woven throu

  • The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 199: The Tenth Minute.

    *****************************POV: Mack************************* --- 2:10 a.m. The numbers blinked on the screen in front of me like a dare. The signal came early. Ten minutes earlier than usual. Ten minutes off a rhythm that Claire had built with surgical precision. Claire didn’t do random. If she changed something, it meant something. And that terrified me more than silence. “Run it again,” I said hoarsely. Reeve didn’t question me—just pulled up the packet and decrypted it one more time. The pulse was unmistakable. Subtle. Disguised in the same way as before. A phantom breath hidden inside white noise, layered through dummy frequencies and masked like static—but there. Loud in the quiet if you knew how to listen. Claire’s voice was in the code. Not literally. But I heard her. I felt her. She was reaching. And this time, she was screaming without a sound. Ten minutes early wasn’t just an accident. It was a signal about the signal. A shift in the pattern that meant one th

  • The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 198: Ghost Frequencies.

    ******************************POV: Claire************************** --- The house listened. Not with ears, but with the kind of stillness that crept into your bones and made you feel watched. The quiet wasn’t peace—it was a breath held, stretched across hours. A silence so thick, even my heartbeat, felt like an intrusion. Somewhere off the jagged coast of Montenegro, tucked into a cliffside villa carved from wealth and secrets, I existed in a cage made of glass, stone, and lies. Liam called it a sanctuary. I called it a mirage with locks. Everything about this place whispered of curated comfort—the polished floors, the view of the Adriatic that kissed the horizon, the sea breeze that slipped through tall shuttered windows. But no amount of sunlight could disguise the truth. This wasn’t a home. It was a mausoleum dressed like a honeymoon. He said he brought me here to protect me. But from what? The world—or himself? Each morning bled into the next with the same chor

  • The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 197: The Ghost We Feed.

    ***************************POV: Mack**************************** --- Time didn’t pass anymore—it dragged. Every second without Claire was a hollow ache, I couldn’t shake. It wasn’t just worry—it was torment. Claire wasn’t just missing. She was taken. Stolen from my world, pulled out like the breath from my lungs. She wasn’t just some woman i was chasing after. She was the pulse in my goddamn chest. The only person who ever challenged me saw past the armor and into the fractures I never let anyone touch. And now, she was out there—alone. Maybe scared. Maybe hurt. And i couldn’t get to her. Couldn’t protect her. Couldn’t hold her. That reality gutted me more than any threat ever could. The silence she left behind wasn’t just absence—it was unbearable. Hours turned to gravel in my throat. Every breath I took felt like it scraped the inside of my chest. I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. Sleep belonged to people who weren’t responsible for the woman they loved being dragged into the da

  • The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 196: Ghosts I Let In.

    *****************************POV: Liz**************************** --- I didn’t stop walking until I reached the east garden. My boots crushed gravel beneath me, sharp and fast, like maybe if I moved hard enough, I could shake off the sting in my chest. But it followed me—tight and aching. Aliana. Her face was the last thing I expected to see tonight. The moment I saw her standing in the war room, I swear something inside me cracked wide open. I don’t even know if it was rage or disgust or just the kind of betrayal you don’t ever fully recover from. Claire trusted her. I trusted her. And look how that ended. I pressed my fingers to my temples, squeezing hard. I needed space, air—something I couldn’t get with Rowe standing behind me or Mack trying to keep everything together with bloodshot eyes and cracked knuckles. I leaned against the stone wall beneath the ivy-covered trellis, staring out at the horizon as if I could find Claire in the black smear of sea and sky.

Higit pang Kabanata

Maaari mong magustuhan

Galugarin at basahin ang magagandang nobela
Libreng basahin ang magagandang nobela sa GoodNovel app. I-download ang mga librong gusto mo at basahin kahit saan at anumang oras.
Libreng basahin ang mga aklat sa app
I-scan ang code para mabasa sa App
DMCA.com Protection Status