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Chapter 1
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2025-12-18 17:51:05Isabella POV
The air in the Vane Diamond Gala smells like vintage champagne and expensive lies. I adjust my silk Dior gown. The two million dollar sapphire resting against my throat feels like a lead weight.
I am looking for Julian. I want to tell him my father agreed to fund his tech venture. I want to see him smile.
I find him on the terrace. He is not alone. He is whispering to a woman in a red dress. I stop behind a marble pillar. My heart hitches.
The sapphire? Julian's voice is a sharp blade. It is a dog collar. A very expensive one. I will wear it until the wedding. Once the Vane billions are in my account I am sending the Ice Queen to a villa in Switzerland. I will never look back.
The woman giggles. You do not love her?
Julian snorts. I can hear the ice in his tone. Love Isabella? She is a calculator in a dress. Cold. Boring. She thinks her legacy matters. Without her last name she is absolutely nothing.
I stand frozen. My heart does not break. It turns into a diamond. Hard. Cold. Unbreakable.
Nothing without my name? I think. A dangerous smile touches my lips. Let us test that.
Twelve Hours Later
The floor of my penthouse is littered with labels. Chanel. Gucci. Prada. I ripped them all out. I tossed them aside.
I stand before the mirror. I used kitchen scissors to hack my hair into a messy bun. I am wearing a fifteen dollar blazer from a thrift store. It scratches my skin. It smells like laundry soap and dust.
I look plain. I look invisible. I look like a girl who belongs on a city bus.
My phone buzzes. It is a text from my father’s lawyer. Isabella where are you? The board meeting starts in ten minutes.
I pick up a cheap plastic burner phone. I type two words. I hit send.
I quit.
I leave the Vane estate. I carry one small bag. I walk to the bus stop. The morning air is cold. A man bumps into me. He does not apologize. He does not even see me.
A strange surge of power rushes through me. I am a ghost with a ten billion dollar secret.
I reach Sterling Tech. The building is a monolith of glass. Liam Sterling owns this place. He is the man who wants to destroy my father. He is the only person in the city who hates the Vane name more than I do right now.
The lobby is a swarm of people. I walk to the front desk. The receptionist does not look up. She chews gum.
Name.
Bella Smith. For the assistant interview.
She points to a row of chairs. Six women sit there. They have perfect hair. They have expensive suits. I look at my scuffed shoes. My stomach twists. My heart hammers against my ribs.
I am a fraud. I am a liar.
The door opens. A man walks out. He is tall. His suit fits like armor. His jaw is a sharp line of granite. This is Liam Sterling. He looks at the candidates. His gaze is a physical weight.
He stops in front of a woman in a red suit. He looks at her resume. He drops it on the floor.
Too slow. Next.
The woman leaves in tears. Liam moves down the line. He is an executioner. He is a machine. He hates weakness.
His eyes land on me. He stares at my messy hair. He stares at my cheap glasses. I feel his heat. I feel his suspicion.
You. Smith. Office. Now.
I stand. My knees are weak. I follow him. The door shuts with a heavy thud. The room is silent.
Sit.
I sit. I keep my back straight. I hide my shaking hands in my lap.
Liam leans across the desk. He does not look at my resume. He looks at my face. He studies me like a complex equation.
You look like you are hiding something.
My breath hitches. My pulse thunders in my ears. I force myself to meet his eyes. I use the cold stare my father taught me. I soften it.
I am hiding my nerves. Sir.
Liam tilts his head. He narrows his eyes. Why should I hire a girl with no experience and a bad haircut?
My temper flares. My insecurity turns into heat. I lean forward.
Because those women care about your money. I care about the work. You need someone who can survive you. I can.
Liam taps a pen against the desk. The sound is a ticking clock. Most people want to be me or date me. Which one are you?
Neither. I want a paycheck.
Liam laughs. The sound is dry. Honesty. I hate liars. If you lie to me once you are gone. Understand?
I swallow hard. The irony tastes like ash. I nod. I understand.
Liam throws a thick folder onto the desk. It hits with a crack. This is the Davis account. It is a mess. Fix the data. I want it on my desk by 8:00 PM. If it is wrong do not bother coming back.
It is 5:00 PM. The file is three inches thick. A normal assistant needs days. I am a genius. I can do it in two hours.
I take the folder. I go to a small desk in the corner. I force myself to slow down. I make a mistake on purpose. I fix it. I feel the shame of mediocrity.
Two hours pass. The office grows dark. My neck aches. I have ten dollars in my purse. I cannot call my driver. I cannot order the food I like.
I am a stranger to myself.
The door opens. Felix walks in. He is Liam’s secretary. He looks terrified. He carries coffee.
The Boss is a monster tonight. He whispered. He lost a deal to the Vane Empire. He wants blood.
He sets a cup on my desk. It is the cheap stuff. It is all we have.
I take a sip. It is bitter. It burns. Thank you. It is perfect.
I finish the file at 7:55 PM. I stand up. I walk to Liam’s desk. He looks up. He looks surprised. He flips through the pages. He stops on page ten.
Who helped you with these projections?
No one. Sir.
Liam slams the folder shut. He stands. He walks around the desk. He stands too close. I can smell his cologne. Cedar. Leather. Power.
Do not lie to me. These are senior analyst numbers. You are a community college girl. How?
My heart stops. My pride betrayed me. I did too much. I study in my free time.
Liam grabs my chin. He tilts my head back. His thumb brushes my lip. My skin tingles. My breath hitches.
I will find out the truth. Bella. I always do.
He drops his hand. Go home. Be here at 6:00 AM.
I grab my bag. I turn to leave. I am shaking.
Bella.
I stop. I do not turn around.
Your blazer is inside out.
I look down. The tag is visible. My face turns bright red. I rush out.
I reach the elevator. I lean against the wall. I am safe for now. But Liam Sterling is watching.
I walk to the bus stop. A black car pulls up. Julian sits in the back. He looks at the poor girl on the sidewalk. He does not recognize me.
Move it. You are blocking the path.
I freeze. I stare at the man I almost married. I feel hatred. I feel power. I am invisible.
The bus arrives. I sit in the back. I watch the city lights.
I reach my tiny room. The walls are thin. I can hear neighbors fighting. I sit on the bed.
I see a news alert. Isabella Vane Missing. Vane Empire Stocks Plummet.
I turn off the phone. I lie back. Tomorrow I face Liam again. Tomorrow I keep the lie alive.
I am almost asleep when a loud knock hits my door.
Isabella. Open up. I know you are in there.
It is not Julian. It is not my father.
It is Liam Sterling.
최신 챕터
The CEO's Undercover Heiress Epilogue
POV: IsabellaThe Oregon coast has a way of stripping a person down to their essentials. There is no marble here to reflect a curated image, no velvet to soften the edges of a hard day. There is only the salt, the cedar, and the relentless rhythm of the tide.I sat at the small, scarred wooden desk in the corner of our bedroom, watching the rain streak the glass. It was a different kind of rain than the ones in Manhattan—it didn’t feel like an omen of a corporate takeover. It just felt like a Tuesday.Before me lay a simple, leather-bound journal. It wasn't a tablet. It didn't have a login, a biometric scanner, or an encryption layer. It was just paper and ink. I picked up the pen and felt the weight of it in my hand.August 14th, I wrote. I forgot where I put my keys today. It took me twenty minutes to find them under a pile of mail. It was the most frustrating, wonderful feeling I’ve had all week.A year ago, forgetting was impossible. My mind had been a search engine, a perfect, cl
The CEO's Undercover Heiress Chapter 80
POV: IsabellaThe Virginia air was thick, heavy with the scent of damp earth and pine—a suffocating blanket compared to the sharp, clean ice of Iceland. We weren't flying private. We weren't even flying as the Rossis. We had crossed the border in the back of a refrigerated truck, buried under crates of produce, two ghosts returning to a haunt we had never actually lived in.Liam stood beside me in the tall grass of the valley, his eyes fixed on the structure ahead. It wasn't a tower. It wasn't a glass fortress. It was an old, converted farmhouse, surrounded by a high electric fence and a sea of black-eyed Susans. To a passerby, it looked like a rural retreat. To me, it felt like the source of a wound."This is where it started," I said. My voice was low, steady. "The 2014 trials. Before the Sterling money made it shiny.""Marcus was right," Liam said. He was holding a handheld thermal scanner Arthur had given us. The screen showed a massive heat signature deep beneath the floorboards
The CEO's Undercover Heiress Chapter 79
POV: LiamThe facility didn't just feel empty; it felt hollowed out. The silence left behind by the Julian Vane AI was a heavy, physical thing, a void where a god had once lived. Arthur Vance was already moving, his fingers dancing across a handheld terminal as he scrambled the local perimeter sensors."The Pension Board's contractors are landing at the geothermal plant four miles East," Arthur said, his voice clipped. "They aren't here for a deposition. They’ve been authorized to use 'extraordinary measures' to recover the Sterling lifeboat fund. To them, you aren't people—you’re the human passwords to three billion dollars."I looked at Isabella. She was standing by the window, her silhouette sharp against the moonlight. She looked different. The slight, constant tension in her shoulders had vanished. She was breathing with her whole body, her chest rising and falling in a slow, deep rhythm that made my own heart ache with a strange, fierce relief."The routing codes," she said, tur
The CEO's Undercover Heiress Chapter 78
POV: IsabellaThe port of Reykjavik didn't look like a sanctuary. It looked like the end of the world. Sharp, volcanic rock met a sea the color of bruised slate, and the air carried a chill that didn't just bite—it felt like it was trying to hollow you out from the inside.Liam held my hand as we stepped off the freighter's gangway. The dock was empty, save for a single, silver car idling near a stack of rusted shipping containers. There were no customs officials. No police. Just the low, haunting moan of the wind through the harbor cables."The manifest said they were expecting us," Liam said, his voice tight. He hadn't let go of the tablet. "But 'Reykjavik Control' isn't a person. It’s an automated relay.""My father’s voice, Liam," I whispered. "I know it. I lived with it in my head for years. That wasn't a recording. The inflection... it responded to the ship’s call sign.""We’ll find out," he said.We walked toward the car. The door opened automatically. There was no driver. The
The CEO's Undercover Heiress Chapter 77
POV: LiamThe Atlantic didn’t care about corporate hierarchies. It didn't care about the fall of the Sterling name or the death of a digital goddess. Out here, three hundred miles from the nearest coastline, the world was a vast, churning slate of charcoal grey and white foam.I stood on the narrow deck of the Seraphina, a mid-sized freighter that smelled of diesel and salt. The wind was a physical force, a cold hand pressing against my chest, threatening to push me back into the steel railing. I looked down at my hands. The bandages were gone, replaced by thin, pink scars that stung in the salt spray. They were the only physical proof I had left of the night at the medical wing."You should be inside," a voice said over the roar of the engines.I turned to see Isabella—Sarah—standing in the doorway of the bridge. She was wearing a heavy, oversized wool sweater Marcus had found in a thrift shop in Brooklyn. Her hair was pulled back, her face pale but clear. The waxy, translucent look
The CEO's Undercover Heiress Chapter 76
POV: IsabellaThe world was no longer made of data. It was made of cold air, the sharp scent of ozone, and the terrifying, heavy weight of my own limbs. The "Hum"—that constant, electric companion that had lived in the marrow of my bones for years—was gone. In its place was a silence so absolute it felt like a physical pressure against my eardrums.But the silence was a lie."The Share, Liam," my mother’s voice cut through the dark, sharp as a glass shard. "The gold foil. Place it on the table and step back, or I’ll find out exactly how much a human heart can take before it simply quits."I blinked, my vision slowly adjusting to the beam of the flashlight. The barrel of the gun was a dark, hollow eye inches from my face. My mother stood behind it, her lab coat stark and white, her face as motionless as the steel cabinets surrounding us. She wasn't a doctor anymore. She wasn't a CEO. She was a woman who had lost her godhood and was trying to buy it back with a bullet.Liam didn't move.
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