From Secret Lover to Wall Street Queen

Year seven as Julian's dirty little secret, and his controlfreak family finally arranged a billionaire corporate marriage for him.

The night we ended it, the air in the penthouse was thick with a suffocating, unbearable tension. "I'll pack up and move out of here as soon as possible," I said. "No need." The man sat hunched by the window, slowly clipping a cigar as he issued his final, calculated orders. "I'm transferring the deed of this penthouse to you.

It's closer to your office." "That old car of yours is past its prime and needs replacing, and I've deposited some funds into your usual account.

As for the future… if you run into any trouble and it's inconvenient to reach me, call Secretary Quinn." He spent a long time clipping that single cigar.

The cut was flawlessly smooth, yet he kept his eyes lowered, inspecting it over and over, refusing to light it, refusing to look up.

His jaw locked tight, and the sharp intake of his suppressed breathing stretched his perfectly tailored shirt over the aggressive, coiled lines of his muscles.

I forced my eyes away from his suffocating physical presence, straightened my spine, and refused to show even a sliver of weakness.

Behind him, perfectly even flakes of snow were drifting down against the glass. My mind suddenly flashed back to Christmas Eve years ago.

Under the grand holiday lights of Fifth Avenue, surrounded by a sea of people and a sky full of swirling snow. A twentysevenyearold Julian gripped my hand tightly.

Held it until our palms were slick with sweat. He still refused to let go. Chapter 1 The snow outside was getting heavier, thick and suffocating.

This kind of citycrushing storm was nothing like the mild, snowless winters I remembered in London. Julian didn't stay. I suppose he wanted us both to keep our decency.

I sank into the sofa, staring blankly at the email on my phone. It was laughably absurd.

Six months ago, I had secretly applied for a highly competitive executive transfer, a role that would mean finally escaping his financial cage.

The approval had hit my inbox this afternoon. I was supposed to be the one to walk away first. I had spent weeks agonizing over the script.

I wanted to tell him that the distance was too much, that I couldn't keep doing this.

But I was terrified that he would look at me with that same indulgent, helpless gaze, using that calm, steady voice that always made me feel small. "Celeste, we've handled eight thousand kilometers before.

If you're throwing a tantrum, fine. Just don't keep using 'breakup' as a threat, okay?" Julian was a man who always knew how to hit the jugular while offering a graceful way out.

And every single time, I had surrendered like a coward. I had rehearsed that breakup speech a thousand times in my head, but I would never let him see me crumble.

I was going to walk out like a winner, stepping out in my highest heels. Every draft I wrote felt pathetic and weak. But fate had a twisted sense of humor.

He had unwittingly done the heavy lifting for me, stripping away the awkwardness. A dry laugh escaped my throat as I tilted my head back, exhaling a long, sharp breath.

The timing was perfect. Our ending was just as coincidental as our beginning. I was twenty then, a sophomore in college.

Thinking back to our first meeting always leads back to Roxy, the standup star who's everywhere these days. It was a Saturday night.

My roommate's boyfriend was feeling flush and decided to treat the whole suite to a comedy show.

I was about to decline, but then I caught my roommates whispering as they touched up their makeup in the mirror. "Just go.

He's on a high right now—don't be a buzzkill," one said. "Exactly. If we don't show up, people will think we're just jealous. I'm not about to look petty," the other agreed.

Social circle rules in this statusobsessed world are often just plastic tests of obedience.

To keep from raining on someone else's parade, you put on the mask and play along with the charade, even if you would rather be anywhere else.

Chapter 2 I only realized when we sat down that our seats were in the very front row.

In this kind of underground comedy club soaked in alcohol and hormones, sitting in the front row meant throwing your personal life straight into the spotlight to be slaughtered.

I instinctively shrank into the seat furthest on the edge. But the tight red dress I wore today clearly had no intention of letting me lay low.

It perfectly hugged my curves, radiating a lethal attraction under the dim neon lights that even I hadn't noticed. Julian was there that night.

I found out later that the comedian on stage was his best friend's girlfriend—a loud, unapologetic spitfire. She was still a rookie back then, and ticket sales were dismal.

To keep her happy, Spencer would obsessively track the numbers, buy out every unsold seat, and then spam everyone he knew with invitations just to pack the room.

Coincidentally, Julian was seated right behind and slightly to the side of me. Because of the cramped layout, the edge seats of the two rows were practically touching.

From the stage's perspective, we looked like we were sitting shouldertoshoulder in the front row. Even more coincidentally, my dress was the exact same shade as his buttondown.

Even the tiny charm on my velvet scrunchie matched the logo on his baseball cap. Roxy had eyes like a hawk, and there was no way she was letting this readymade material slide.

Every time she called us out, the crowd went wilder. Back then, crowd work at these indie clubs had zero boundaries.

To hype up the room, she just fully leaned into roasting us as the hot couple. The mic was shoved back and forth between us, and her crowdwork skills were relentless.

By the end, even after we clarified that we were total strangers, the audience refused to buy it. Chants of "Hook up! Hook up!" crashed over us in waves.

Surrounded by the deafening hoots and hollering, I ducked my head in mortification, politely answering whatever was asked like a total square.

Julian, however, remained entirely unbothered. He leaned back in his chair with infuriating ease.

When Roxy threw a punchline his way, he even fired back a slow, perfectly timed retort that sent the room into an absolute frenzy.

At the end of the set, Roxy flashed a smirk and handed down two VIP vouchers for her next show.

His long, strong fingers, heavy with a milliondollar Patek Philippe, reached unapologetically over my shoulder to snatch the cards.

The highly aggressive scent of cedarwood cologne flooded my senses as he closed the distance right next to my ear.

His low, raspy voice sent an electric jolt straight down my spine. "For you. Bring your boyfriend next time." That was the first time I really got a good look at his face.

Under the harsh overhead lights of the theater, the man possessed the dangerously sensual, chiseled contours of a Greek statue, complete with a cold, sharp jawline that looked sharp enough to cut glass.

Even though a faint smirk played at the corner of his lips, when those impossibly dark, inkblack eyes lowered to rest quietly on me, they radiated an untouchable, chilling distance.

My face burned like a furnace. I waved my hands frantically. "No need. One is plenty for me, thanks." Julian paused.

The smirk on his lips slowly, inch by inch, bled into a full, knowing smile. Later on, we went to a lot of comedy shows together.

But none of them ever made my face burn and my blood race quite like that first night.

We watched Roxy claw her way up from that cramped, dingy little club to become a massive rising star in the industry.

She confessed she had known all along about Spencer secretly buying out her sets. That night was supposed to be her last; she was ready to quit and change careers after that set.

But dramatically enough, the show ended up killing it. Clips of our crowd work went viral online. Ever since then, grabbing a ticket to her shows became nearly impossible.

She said that it was the fated connection between Julian and me that gave her the faith to stick it out just a little longer.

Chapter 3 Back then, she sounded so mysteriously certain. So certain that I actually fell for the delusion too.

I really thought my connection with Julian was strong enough to last a lifetime. After finalizing the handover at the company, I started packing up my life in the penthouse.

This transfer didn't have an exact return date, so I ruthlessly boxed up every single thing I could take with me. Roxy crouched among the sea of cardboard boxes, taping them shut.

The sharp, violent ripping sound of the packing tape echoed harshly across the empty living room. Finally, she snapped. "Damn it, Celeste.

You and that billionaire control freak have been together for years. Are you really going to throw away your spot as his trophy wife just when you're at the finish line?

Can't you just stick it out a little longer?" When it came to sticking it out, Roxy was the undisputed authority.

Armed with a masochistic level of stubbornness, she hadn't just clawed her way back from career death—she had spent nearly a decade surviving the toxic vanity fair of the elite circle, matching Spencer blow for blow.

My hands didn't stop moving. I let out a hollow laugh. "Stick it out how?" It wasn't like I hadn't tried.

Through the worst of it, through the agonizing longdistance, I had held on. "Even if he bought me all of Manhattan, I am absolutely not going to degrade myself by playing his dirty little secret," I said, tossing a stack of folders into a box, my movements mechanical and precise. "Do I really have to wait until things get irreparably ugly before I call it quits?" Roxy sighed. "You don't see guys like Julian in this circle very often.

He treated you with genuine, absolute devotion." It wasn't just Roxy who saw it. Just last month, a few close friends from college called to say they had sent me birthday gifts.

The year we graduated, every single one of them landed offers way out of their leagues, all thanks to Julian pulling strings in the background.

He even took care of two classmates who finished grad school three years later.

Even before that, when he found out my mom was flying in for medical treatment, he personally arranged the chauffeured black cars at the tarmac, the VIP clinic slots, and the private hospital suite.

His overwhelming generosity extended so far that even at the bitter end of our story, the whole world was practically tripping over itself to remind me of his virtues.

They wanted to make sure I knew exactly how good he had been to me.

But the catch was that his goodness was so suffocating, so heavy, that when people whispered the filthiest, most degrading rumors behind my back about how I got my lifestyle, I couldn't even defend myself.

Seeing me staring blankly into the bottom of a cardboard box without answering, Roxy tactfully shut her mouth. She wasn't wrong, though.

Stripping away all the insurmountable realworld barriers between our social classes over the years, he had given me his absolute, undivided favoritism. That was an undeniable fact.

Beyond that, I knew perfectly well that I owed my entire professional evolution to Julian's guidance.

The naive girl who blushed when a comedian pointed at her had morphed into a shark capable of leading major projects and holding her own against executives.

What he probably didn't realize was that the only reason I secured this transfer was because I operated entirely on his cutthroat logic.

He had painstakingly handcarved those predatory instincts into me. I was far more mature and far more selfaware than that twentyyearold girl.

I finally recognized that bumping into Julian at that age was a onceinalifetime lottery ticket. But I also recognized the massive, unnamable chasm between our worlds.

Eventually, I successfully brainwashed myself into happily accepting his sixfigure gifts.

I learned how to read the room, how to decode every twitch of his eyebrow, and how to feed him the exact, flawless emotional response he required.

Chapter 4 On the surface, our relationship looked stable and balanced, but without realizing it, we had reached a fork in the road.

I knew perfectly well that a person shouldn't be too greedy. Over the years, I wasn't blind to the immense pressure Julian had shouldered to protect our relationship.

He even ensured that his mother—the oldmoney matriarch notorious for her ruthlessness and control issues—never got the chance to throw a blank check in my face and force me to leave.

By the time I snapped out of my daze, the sky outside was pitch black.

My phone screen glowed with a cold, eerie light in the darkness, showing two missed calls from Secretary Quinn. Just as I was about to call back, the device vibrated in my palm.

I answered, and Secretary Quinn's strictly professional voice came through: "Ms.

Celeste, when would it be convenient for you to visit the dealership and customize your new vehicle?" I pressed my fingers hard against my temples, a dull ache throbbing behind my eyes. "Next month.

I'll be flying back to Beijing next month." The moment the words left my mouth, reality crashed back in.

Sure enough, the voice on the other end faltered, thick with shock. "…Flying back to Beijing?" My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white.

After a beat of silence, I kept my voice perfectly flat. "I'm transferring to the Shanghai office. I'll be back for a conference next month." Dead silence on the other end.

I took a sharp breath, my tone icy and detached. "Don't sweat it, Secretary Quinn. You don't have to cover for me.

If Julian asks, just tell him the truth." Because the Julian I knew never wasted a second of his time on a done deal.

Which was why, half an hour later, staring at Julian's name flashing on my screen, a muscle in my jaw twitched in surprise. I picked up. Silence.

It stretched for what felt like hours before he finally spoke. "You're moving to Shanghai?" "Yeah." "Do you want me to send a team over to pack up your things?" "No need.

Roxy came by this afternoon. It's done." His breathing hitched for a fraction of a second.

He let out a low mhm, then added, "I'll make some calls to my contacts in Shanghai to—" "I don't need you meddling," I cut him off coldly. "I'm not that little girl begging for your handouts anymore.

I've handled everything." "Right." He paused. "Then… is there anything else you need me to do?" "Nothing," I replied, the word clipped out of my mouth, sharp and final.

The conversation slammed into a brick wall. The line was so dead silent I could hear the harsh, rhythmic rasp of our breathing.

After a moment, Julian said, "Then I'll have someone book your flight." "Don't bother.

It's booked." His voice sounded dangerously hoarse. "When do you leave?" "The day after tomorrow." "Alright." Another suffocating stretch of silence.

He didn't speak, but he didn't hang up either. "If that's all, I'm hanging up," I said. More silence. Not a single sound from his end.

Just as I pulled the phone away to hit end, I caught the faintest, almost imperceptible sound: "Okay." I figured that was it. A classic Julianstyle signoff.

Until 7 PM, when the unmistakable click of the electronic lock echoed through the empty foyer.

Julian pushed the door open just as I was kneeling on the floor, shoving the last flap of my cardboard box closed.

His dark eyes swept over the barren, surgically clean living room before finally landing on the stray strands of hair clinging to my forehead. "You packed up fast." I dusted the dirt off my palms, stood up, and walked straight toward the closet holding my last few coats. "Yeah.

Pretty much." "Not planning on coming back?" he suddenly asked, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

Chapter 5 "Undecided," I said, keeping my voice light, breezy. "I'm going to bust my ass to secure a permanent spot there." Julian's massive frame went rigid for a fraction of a second.

He lowered his eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed as he forced a hard swallow. When he spoke, his voice was tight, muffled. "It's fine.

Shanghai isn't that far from Beijing." That kind of pathetic, selfdeluding comfort didn't sound like something the ruthless Julian would ever say. "Are you absolutely sure you don't need any help?" he asked again, like a man refusing to accept his death sentence. "None." The conversation plummeted back into a swamp of suffocating silence. "You definitely haven't had time to apartment hunt in Shanghai yet." When he finally spoke again, his tone bordered on obsessive. "I just secured an estate for you over there." "An estate?" I froze, dropping the packing tape to stare at him.

He avoided my piercing gaze, tossing the words out like they cost him nothing. "Don't worry. It's right in the city center.

Your commute will be a breeze." I let out a dry laugh. "If I knew you were handing out real estate, I would have applied for the Hong Kong office." He froze, his dark eyes turning into bottomless abysses. "You prefer the properties there?" "If I'm going to sell my body, I might as well pick a sugar daddy who bids higher, right?" I sneered, locking eyes with him in blatant provocation.

Julian just stood there, dead silent, watching the mocking smirk on my face. A deeply foreign, dangerous storm brewed underneath his skin—something I had never seen from him before.

He stared at me for a long, agonizing time