All Chapters of The Charming CEO I Slept With Is My Ex’s Half Brother: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

ROSELINE’S POVTwelve minutes. That was all that stood between me and the best night of my life.I gripped the steering wheel at red lights and practiced my surprised face in the rearview mirror. Too eager. I tried again. Softer. Like I hadn't been thinking about that little velvet box for three weeks.I'd only seen it once. Tucked inside his gym bag, under a rolled towel, while I hunted for his charger. My heart had done something stupid and wonderful in my chest, and I'd zipped the bag shut like I'd seen nothing.Two years. Two years of patience, of Eric sighing into my hair and saying he could wait, and me believing him. I hadn't slept with him. Not because I was scared or old fashioned, but because I wanted my first time to mean something.And tomorrow it would. Tonight I'd just show up with his favorite takeout and a bottle of the cheap red we'd shared on our first date. He'd laugh. He'd pretend he wasn't nervous.I parked crooked and didn't care.The elevator smelled like someon

The first thing I felt was the sheets.Too smooth. Too cool against my skin. Not mine.My eyes snapped open to a ceiling I didn't recognize, white and high, with pale light bleeding through heavy curtains. My head throbbed in slow, sickening waves. My mouth tasted like vodka and regret.Then the weight of an arm across my waist.I didn't breathe. I couldn't.It all came back at once. Not in pieces, not blurry the way I'd prayed it would be. Every second. His hands. His voice against my ear asking, again, if I was okay. The way I'd said yes, and meant it, and then gripped the sheets and held on.He was my first.A stranger whose name I didn't even know was my first.I slid out from under his arm an inch at a time. The mattress dipped. He shifted in his sleep, made a low sound, and I froze so hard my heart hurt. When he settled, I let out a breath and swung my legs over the edge.My dress was on the floor. My shoes were near the door, one upright, one on its side, like they'd been kicke

"Not here," I said.The words came out thin and fast. Behind him, the last stragglers from the meeting were filing toward the elevators, and I could feel eyes sliding over us. A CEO and a nobody in a doorway. Nothing suspicious about that."Agreed." Henry's expression didn't shift. "My office.""You have an office already?""I've had a desk for four hours."That wasn't an answer. He turned and walked, and I stood there like an idiot until my feet moved on their own. Two doors down, he pushed open a glass door with the previous CEO's nameplate still bolted beside it. Half unpacked boxes lined the wall. A single lamp glowed on the desk.He closed the door. The click made my shoulders jump."Sit.""I'll stand.""Roseline.""Ms. Carter," I said. "You called me that out there."A muscle ticked in his jaw. He set his folio on the desk, slowly, the way you set down something that might go off. "Fine. Ms. Carter. About this morning.""Which part? The part where you left me in your hotel room,

I'd barely sat down when I looked up and found Henry Kingsley standing by the filing cabinets, holding a folder he clearly didn't need."Ms. Carter.""Mr. Kingsley.""Do you have the Hensley account numbers?""Accounting has those.""Right." He didn't move. "I thought marketing kept a copy.""We don't.""Hm."He stood there a beat too long, like a man who'd forgotten his next line. Then he nodded once, tucked the useless folder under his arm, and walked off toward the elevators, the wrong direction for accounting entirely.I stared after him until Mia's chair rolled up beside mine."Okay," she said. "That was weird.""What was weird?""He doesn't need the Hensley numbers. I literally emailed them to his assistant an hour ago." She narrowed her eyes at me over her mug. "Why is the CEO wandering past your desk like a lost puppy?""I have no idea.""You're lying.""I'm working."She didn't buy it. I watched her clock the coffee station twenty minutes later, where Henry was asking the bar

ROSELINE’S POV"You're working with him."Mia said it like a verdict, not a fact, slapping the printed memo onto my desk with two fingers like it might bite her."I'm working with his office," I said. "There's a difference.""Is there?"I scanned the memo again, hoping the words might rearrange themselves into something easier. They didn't. URGENT: Hartman Client Escalation. Marketing and Executive teams to coordinate directly. H. Kingsley to oversee."This is a nightmare," I said."This is delicious," Mia said. "Different word, same letters.""Mia.""I'm just saying. Late nights. Closed doors. A man who pulls file logs to defend your honor." She fanned herself with the memo before I snatched it back. "If this were a show, I'd already be rooting for it.""It's not a show. It's my job.""Sure."I didn't have time to argue. Hartman was our biggest account, and somewhere between the conference room door and nine p.m., it became clear that Henry intended to be in every single meeting abou