All Chapters of THE CEO ALREADY KNEW : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

227 Chapters

Chapter 82: The Dress Was White.

Celeste chooses my gown for the Monaco gala like she already knows what makes me dangerous.The morning after, I wake up alone in the hotel suite with sunlight cutting through the curtains and the taste of champagne still on my tongue. Her side of the bed is cold. No note. No lingering warmth. Just the indent of her body on the pillow and the quiet hum of the air conditioning.I lie there for a full minute, cataloging.Last night: I transferred the files. Celeste knew. She held my hand on the terrace and asked if I'd stay, and I told her the truth for once — I don't know, but I want to.This morning: She's gone. The laptop is gone. And the wire is still sitting on the nightstand where I ripped it out of my hair at 3 a.m., small and black and full of everything Adrian heard.Including the part where Celeste said she'd known all along.Including the part where I didn't deny it."You're an idiot, Vega," I mutter, swinging my legs out of bed.The suite is enormous — all marble and fresh f

Chapter 83: Fake Girlfriends Shouldn't Get Jealous

The billionaire heiress touches Celeste's arm like she belongs there.I notice her immediately — because I notice everything, because noticing things is how I've stayed alive in rooms full of people who would happily watch me drown. She's young, maybe twenty-five, with dark hair and a smile that's been polished by the best surgeons money can buy. Her hand rests on Celeste's forearm like a claim. Her body angles toward Celeste like gravity.And I hate her instantly.Which would be easier to explain if I weren't supposedly running a con.We're at a private dinner in Monaco — the last night before we fly back to Paris. The restaurant is carved into a cliff overlooking the sea, all white tablecloths and candlelight and the kind of quiet that means every word carries. Celeste was invited by an old business associate. I was invited as the girlfriend.The fake girlfriend. The one who's supposed to smile and nod and let other women touch her woman's arm without fantasizing about creative ways

Chapter 84: The Woman Beside Me Never Misses Anything

"You're distracted," Celeste says over champagne.We're back in Paris, three days after Monaco, sitting in a private lounge at the Shangri-La. The Eiffel Tower sparkles through the window behind her, all gold and false promises. She's wearing black again — severe, elegant, the kind of dress that says don't touch me while simultaneously begging to be touched.I'm wearing a green gown I borrowed from her closet. Because apparently that's my life now. Borrowing clothes from a woman I was hired to destroy."I'm thinking," I say, taking a sip of my own champagne."About?""Adrian."It's not entirely a lie. Adrian's network is still burning — Celeste's worm worked better than either of us expected. His buyers are defecting. His intelligence channels are compromised. He's a wounded animal, and wounded animals are the most dangerous kind.But that's not what I was thinking about.I was thinking about Marguerite's words on the terrace. She doesn't look at people the way she looks at you unless

Chapter 85: Adrian Is Listening to Everything

The first sign that something is wrong comes at 3 a.m.I wake to darkness and the soft weight of Celeste's arm across my stomach. She's still asleep — rare for her, precious, the kind of vulnerability she only shows when she's too exhausted to remember she's supposed to be untouchable.For a moment, I just lie there, listening to her breathe.Then my phone buzzes.It's on the nightstand, facedown — the burner I keep for emergencies, the one Adrian doesn't know about. Except Adrian knows about everything, because Adrian has been playing this game longer than I have.I slide out from under Celeste's arm as carefully as I can. She stirs, murmurs something in French, settles back into sleep.The phone buzzes again.I grab it and slip into the bathroom, closing the door behind me."You thought you could hide from me?"The message is already open. No sender ID. Just those words, glowing on the screen like a threat.My blood turns to ice."The wire was cute, Daphne. Did you really think dest

Chapter 86: The Way She Says My Name Should Be Illegal

The next forty-eight hours are a masterclass in pretending.Celeste moves through Paris like nothing happened. Board meetings. Investor calls. A press interview where she smiles at the cameras and talks about the future of Laurent Axis like her father's ghost is still haunting the hallways.I watch from the shadows, playing the devoted girlfriend, and try not to think about the recordings Adrian has stored somewhere.Ask her about the first test subject.I did. And now I know that Celeste Laurent watched her father die and didn't call for help. She built a machine to predict betrayal and then used it to let a man bleed out on his office floor.I should be horrified.Instead, I understand.Because I've watched people die too — not from heart attacks, but from the slow erosion of everything they loved. My mother, in a hospital bed, alone because I was running a con in another country. My partner, Emilia, was bleeding out in a safehouse while I negotiated for a medic who never came.We a

Chapter 87: Someone at the Gala Wants Her Dead

The meeting with Adrian is set for noon at a café in the Marais.I don't tell Celeste the location. I don't tell anyone. I slip out of the penthouse at 11 a.m. wearing jeans and a leather jacket, no wire, no phone—okay, one phone, the burner he doesn't know about, hidden in my boot.The Marais is crowded with tourists and locals pretending not to notice each other. The café is small, unremarkable, the kind of place where conversations disappear into the noise of espresso machines and idle gossip.Adrian is already there when I arrive.He's sitting at a corner table, back to the wall, watching the door. He looks older than I remember — lines around his eyes, gray at his temples. The past few weeks haven't been kind to him."Daphne." He gestures to the chair across from him. "Sit."I sit."Thank you for coming.""I didn't come for you.""No. You came for the truth." He signals the waiter, orders two coffees. "You always did have a weakness for things you shouldn't know.""You said you h

Chapter 88: You Learn Strange Things When You Love Trouble

The car is parked on a side street near the Seine. The engine idles. Rain has started falling, soft and relentless, blurring the world beyond the windshield into something almost bearable.Celeste is sitting beside me, her silver gown bunched around her thighs, her hands still shaking. She looks smaller than I've ever seen her — and I realize, with a jolt, that this is the first time I've seen her truly unmoored. No mask. No performance. Just a woman trying not to fall apart."You asked for everything," she says."I did.""Then listen. And don't interrupt." She stares out the window, watching the rain. "Oracle wasn't just a surveillance system. It was meant to be a shield. A way to see betrayal coming before it arrived. My father funded the early research because he believed in control — total, absolute control over everyone who worked for him."I stay quiet."When I took over Laurent Axis, Oracle was still in development. I finished it. Expanded it. Made it something he never imagine

Chapter 89: The Bullet Missed. Barely.

The morning after the gala, Celeste insists on going to the office."You're joking," I say, standing in the doorway of her closet while she selects a suit like she almost didn't die twelve hours ago."I don't joke about work.""Celeste, someone tried to kill you.""Someone tries to kill me every other Tuesday." She pulls a charcoal blazer off its hanger, inspects it. "Today is Monday. I have a board meeting at ten.""You're insane.""I'm focused." She turns to face me, the blazer draped over her arm. "Adrian wants me hiding. He wants to scare me. The moment I stop showing up is the moment he wins.""You can't win if you're dead.""Then don't let me die." She walks toward me, stops inches away. "Stay close. Watch my back. That's what you're here for, isn't it?"I stare at her. At the calm in her eyes, the steadiness of her hands. Twenty-four hours ago, she was shaking in a car, telling me about her father's heart attack and the nurse who lied. Now she's standing here like nothing happe

Chapter 90: The Safehouse Has One Bedroom

The universe clearly enjoys humiliating me.Because surviving an assassination attempt is one thing — sharing a bed with Celeste Laurent is something else entirely."Security protocols," Hana says, her voice clipped through the car's speaker. "The penthouse isn't safe. Adrian knows the location. We're relocating you to a secure property until we've finished sweeping for additional threats.""A secure property," Celeste repeats. She's sitting beside me in the back of the black SUV, her hand still loosely wrapped around mine. "You mean a safehouse.""I mean a place where you won't die before the board meeting tomorrow.""How reassuring."Hana ignores the sarcasm. "ETA twenty minutes. The property is in the suburbs. Private. Guarded. No one knows about it except my most trusted team.""And me," I say."And you." Hana's eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. "Don't make me regret that."---The safehouse is a farmhouse.I'm not joking. An actual farmhouse, tucked into a valley outside Par

Chapter 90: The Safehouse Has One Bedroom

I wake up at 3 a.m. and find Celeste already awake, staring toward the window like danger has a schedule. This is becoming a pattern. The safehouse is quiet — too quiet, the kind of silence that feels like holding your breath. Outside, the valley is black, no lights for miles, just the stars and the moon and the wind moving through the fields. Celeste is sitting up in bed, her back against the headboard, her eyes fixed on the curtained window. She doesn't look at me when I stir. Doesn't acknowledge that I'm awake at all. "Celeste." Nothing. "Celeste." I reach out, touch her arm. She flinches — barely, just a tiny recoil — but it's enough to make my heart clench. "You should sleep," she says finally. Her voice is flat. Distant. The voice she uses with board members she's about to destroy. "I could say the same to you." "I don't sleep well in strange places." "We've been here for two nights." "Exactly." She finally looks at me. Her eyes are dark, shadowed, ringed with exhaus

...

7 8 9 10 11

...

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP