Moving On: The CEO's Ultimate Downfall

Seven years with Weston. I backed him when his bank account was empty, right up until his net worth cracked nine figures. Seven years. I actually thought I was his endgame.

Then came his company's victory gala. And the sudden return of the girl he never got over. That night, my temperature spiked to 102.

Sweat soaked through the sheets, my vision blurring into a dizzying haze. He still grabbed his car keys. "Cora, she just got back to the States. She doesn't have anyone here.

She only has me." The room tilted. I reached out, my trembling fingers clamping down on his wrist. I held on like my life depended on it. He didn't even flinch.

He just pried my fingers off his skin. One by one. He walked out. The door clicked shut. Staring at the empty space he left behind, a biting chill finally sliced through the fever.

You can't warm a dead heart. No matter how much of yourself you burn. Chapter 1 The proof of Melody's return lit up right on Weston's nightstand.

He was trashed that night, the shower running in the master bath. His phone lay faceup on the mattress. The screen flashed. Then it flashed again.

The caller ID was saved as just Melody. The notifications rolled in, one after another. [ Weston, freezing at the airport. ] [ How far out are you? ] [ It's been seven years.

I barely recognized you. ] I gripped the metal casing, an icecold numbness creeping into my fingertips. Weston had a strict zerotolerance policy about his phone.

Seven years together, a dozen password changes, and I never knew a single one. Boundaries, he called it. I always respected that. I never pushed.

But tonight, the screen unlocked on a glitch. My thumb hovered over the glass, then swiped. The chat history was wiped clean, save for tonight's incoming texts.

But right at the very top, anchored to the screen, sat the automated system timestamp. [ You are now connected with Melody. ] [ Added: Three months ago. ] Three months.

Static filled my ears. I stared at the timestamp until the numbers blurred. Three months ago was when the late nights started.

When he told me the company was expanding, keeping him at the office until 2 a.m. Three months ago was when he forgot my birthday.

He made up for it the next afternoon with a diamond pendant, blaming the slipup on backtoback board meetings. It was a stunning piece. I wore it every single day.

Looking back, it wasn't a gift. It was a guilt offering. The water shut off in the bathroom.

I dropped the phone exactly where I found it, slid under the duvet, and squeezed my eyes shut. Weston stepped out in a cloud of damp heat.

I heard the faint rustle of him checking his phone, then the shift of his weight beside the bed. "You asleep, Cora?" I kept my breathing slow and even.

The mattress dipped as he settled in next to me. Within minutes, his chest rose and fell in a steady, deep rhythm. My eyes snapped open in the dark.

I stared at the ceiling fan blades until the sun came up. By the time I dragged myself out of bed, his side of the mattress was cold.

A paper bag with a croissant sat on the nightstand next to a scrawled Postit. [ Client dinner tonight.

Don't wait up. ] I forced the pastry down, applied a flawless coat of foundation, and drove to the office. Routine. It was the exact same routine I'd played out for seven years.

Weston's perfect girlfriend. The unofficial cofounder of his empire.

Every socialite in our circle thought I hit the jackpot—a broke college grad who clawed her way to the billionaire's table. But I knew the ugly truth. I was just the stepping stone.

The girl who held the flashlight while he dug his way out of the dirt. Nothing more. On day three of Melody's return, Weston's name flashed on my caller ID right at noon.

Unprecedented. "Cora. I have a dinner tonight. You're coming with me," he said. The phone nearly slipped from my grip. He never brought me to corporate dinners.

His usual excuse played on a loop in my head: It's just a bunch of suits talking margins, babe.

You'd hate it. "Okay," I said, ending the call, a sickening knot tightening in the pit of my stomach. I knew.

When the waiter pulled open the heavy mahogany doors to the private VIP room that evening, my gut instinct crystallized into reality.

A woman sat at the far end of the long dining table. She was impossibly fragile, looking like a strong gust of wind would shatter her bones.

Porcelain skin, delicate features, swathed in a flowing white silk dress. Untouched. Pristine. Her gaze locked onto Weston.

Instant, brimming tears welled in her eyes. "Weston." Weston let go of my hand and stepped forward. No. That wasn't right. He didn't even formally let go.

The warmth of his palm vanished, leaving my fingers grasping empty air. Chapter 2 He stopped right in front of her.

When he spoke, his voice held a soft, yielding tone I had never heard before. "You lost so much weight." Melody ducked her head, a fragile smile playing on her lips. "I just couldn't get used to the food over there." I stood by the door, an extra who wandered onto the wrong movie set.

Weston finally remembered I existed. He turned and waved me over. "Cora, come here." I walked over. "This is Melody," he said, introducing us. "An… old friend." An old friend.

Melody held out her hand, her eyes locking onto mine with a bright smile. "It's so nice to meet you. Weston talks about you all the time." I took her hand.

Her skin was freezing, like ice cubes fresh out of the freezer. "Melody just got back to the States.

She doesn't have a support system here," Weston said. "Look out for her, okay?" "Okay," I said. I spent the rest of the dinner as a ghost. Weston kept his focus entirely on Melody.

He asked about her time abroad, her sudden return, her living arrangements. Melody answered every question, her voice soft and airy. "I haven't found a place yet.

Just staying at a hotel for now." Weston's brow furrowed. "Hotels aren't secure. I have an empty apartment.

You can stay there." My knife slipped against the porcelain plate, producing a sharp clink. That apartment was the very first place we rented when we moved to the city.

We were dead broke. It was a shoebox studio. Drafty in the winter, leaking in the summer. When Weston finally made his first millions, he bought the unit in cash.

He said he wanted to keep it as a milestone. A monument to the trenches we crawled out of together.

Now, he was handing the keys to Melody. "No, no," Melody waved him off. "That's too much trouble." "It's no trouble." Weston looked at her.

His gaze held a heavy, grounding intensity that I had never been on the receiving end of. "You're all alone.

I won't have peace of mind with you in a hotel." I won't have peace of mind. I lowered my head and focused on cutting my steak. I chewed, swallowed, and kept my eyes on my plate.

It tasted like ash. Three days after Melody moved into the apartment, I dropped off some groceries. Weston's request. Melody doesn't know the area, Cora. Show her around.

I lugged the heavy paper bags up the stairs and knocked. Melody opened the door in a loose sweatsuit, her hair twisted into a messy bun. No makeup.

Even barefaced, she was stunning enough to make a sudden, heavy weight settle in my chest. "Cora, come in," she said. I set the bags on the kitchen counter and took in the room.

The bones of the apartment were the same, but the soul was wiped clean. Her canvas paintings hung on the walls. Her potted succulents lined the windowsill.

And right in the center of the coffee table sat a framed photo of her and Weston.

They looked barely twenty in the picture, standing in front of their college campus with blinding, carefree smiles. Melody followed my line of sight.

She walked over and swept the frame into a drawer. "Just some old pictures. I forgot to pack them away.

Don't read into it." I pulled my lips into a polite smile. "It's fine." It was fine. Really.

What could possibly be wrong with a man's first love keeping their photos on prime display? I grabbed my purse to leave. Melody followed me to the entryway.

She called out just as my hand hit the doorknob. "Cora." I looked back. Her gaze was unreadable.

Half pity, half drawn battle lines. "I've known Weston for twelve years." "I know," I said. Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "You don't." Chapter 3 The door clicked shut behind me.

I gripped the steering wheel the whole drive home, her words playing on a loop. What didn't I know? That they had twelve years of history? That she was the ghost he never exorcised?

That he never stopped thinking about her? I knew. I knew all of it. During our first year together, Weston got blackout drunk.

He pulled me into his chest and mumbled Melody into my hair. I knew right then that he was harboring a ghost. Someone he wanted but couldn't keep.

I genuinely believed time would erode the memory. But time didn't erase her. It only eroded my value in his life. Month one of Melody's return.

Weston's presence in our house practically flatlined. Even during his worst corporate takeovers, he always made it home for dinner at least twice a week.

Now, catching him once a week was a luxury. When he was physically present, his mind was miles away. His thumb lived on his phone screen, firing off texts at rapid speed.

I woke up at 3 a.m. one night to an empty bed. I padded down the hallway and found him slumped on the living room sofa.

The blue light from his screen illuminated a wide, genuine grin on his face. I hadn't seen him smile like that in seven years. "Not sleeping?" I asked from the stairs.

His head snapped up. The smile was still fading from his lips. A sharp crease formed between his eyebrows as he instantly clicked the screen black. "Just handling some emails.

Go back to sleep." I didn't push. The next morning, I cleared the coffee table and spotted a leatherbound photo album tucked under a stack of magazines.

I flipped the heavy cover open. Melody. Page after page of Melody. Melody on their college quad. Melody spinning in a white sundress. Melody laughing on a beach.

Melody standing shouldertoshoulder with him under blooming cherry blossoms. Tucked neatly behind the very last page was a folded slip of paper.

The handwriting was unmistakably hers. "Weston, I'm leaving. Wait for me to get better. Wait until I'm worthy of you, and I'll come back.

Wait for me." I closed the leather cover and slid it exactly back where I found it. Weston tore through the house the second he walked through the door that evening.

Drawers slamming, cabinets opening. "Did you see a photo album around here?" "No," I said. He eventually found it buried in his home office.

The rigid tension bled out of his shoulders. He shoved the album into the deepest drawer of his desk and turned the brass key in the lock.

I stared at the rigid line of his back. "Weston. Do you still love me?" His spine went stiff.

He slowly turned around, crossed the rug, and wrapped his arms around my waist. "Don't be stupid.

Of course I do." His chest radiated heat, exactly like it had a thousand times over the last seven years. But standing there, wrapped in his arms, the chill in my bones didn't thaw.

Day fortyfive of Melody's return. A fever hit me like a freight train. 103 degrees. Every joint in my body ached, pinning me to the mattress. Weston actually happened to be home.

He was running a video conference from his study. The deep, authoritative cadence of CEO Weston seeped through the heavy wood door.

I fumbled for my phone and typed out a text. [ I have a fever. Can you grab me a glass of water? ] Nothing. Thirty minutes ticked by.

I sent another. [ Do we have Tylenol? ] Radio silence. I dragged my heavy, aching limbs out from under the duvet.

The room spun as I shuffled down the hall to raid the medicine cabinet myself. As I passed the closed door to his study, his voice filtered through the wood. He was on a call.

It wasn't a business call. Chapter 4 His tone was soft. So impossibly soft it rooted my bare feet to the hardwood floor. "Did you eat dinner?

Stop living off takeout, it's garbage for your stomach." "I'll take you to that new dim sum place tomorrow. The Cantonese spot.

Your favorite." I leaned my heavy head against the drywall. A dry, raspy laugh scraped up my throat. Must be the fever frying my brain.

I dragged myself to the bathroom, dug a bottle of Advil out of the cabinet, and dryswallowed two pills with a mouthful of tap water.

I stumbled back to the mattress and shut my eyes. The bedroom door swung open.

Weston stood in the doorway, shrugging on a tailored jacket over his dress shirt. "I have to head out." My eyelids fluttered open. I stared at him. "Melody isn't feeling well.

She's home alone. I can't just leave her there," he said.

The fever was baking my skull from the inside out, turning my thoughts to sludge, but every single syllable he dropped rang crystal clear. I reached out.

My clammy fingers clamped down on his wrist. "Weston, my fever is 103." His forearm went rigid. "I know. But she's already at the ER.

She's by herself, she's completely disoriented, and I need to handle her intake forms." Completely disoriented?

The woman survived the last seven years living overseas alone, and he was using that as an excuse?

My chest convulsed with a laugh that never made it to my mouth. "She can hire a translator," I rasped. A deep crease formed between Weston's brows. "Cora, don't do this right now.

She just got back to the States." "She doesn't have a support system. She only has me. You have me. She has nothing." You have me. Did I? The room tilted.

My grip on his arm tightened until my knuckles turned stark white.

I didn't even know what I was clinging to anymore—the man standing in front of me, or the last seven years of my life. "Don't go," I said.

The most pathetic two words I had ever choked out. Weston looked down at me. A microsecond of hesitation flickered in his eyes. Just a microsecond. Then he reached down.

He wedged his thumb under my death grip. One by one, he pried my fingers off his skin. "Sleep it off, Cora. I'll be back before you know it." He walked out.

The heavy oak door clicked shut. The muffled thud of his Italian leather shoes faded down the hallway, blending into absolute silence.

I lay flat on my back, tracing the cracks in the ceiling paint. Wet heat slid from the corners of my eyes, pooling in my ears with a maddening itch.

I fumbled for my phone on the nightstand and tapped open his contact. [ Weston, if you walk out that front door tonight, we are completely done. ] Send.

Ten minutes later, a gray bubble popped up. [ Cora, stop being dramatic. She actually needs me. ] I locked the screen. The fever spiked to 104 that night.

At 3 a.m., my shaking fingers dialed 911. The wailing sirens woke the neighbor across the hall.

He cracked his door open as the EMTs loaded me onto the stretcher, asking if I needed him to call anyone. I shook my head.

The ER waiting room was a chaotic blur of blinding fluorescent lights and shouting nurses. I dragged myself to the triage window alone. Swiped my insurance card alone.

Sat in the vinyl chair alone. I stared at the clear IV fluid dripping into my vein, drop by excruciating drop. The hollow cavity in my chest swallowed every last ounce of warmth.

Dawn broke through the hospital blinds. My phone vibrated against the plastic tray table. Weston.

I swiped accept. "Cora, did your fever break?" His voice was thick with exhaustion. "I really couldn't get away last night.

Melody was admitted to the ER, I had to stay with her the whole time. She finally fell asleep.

I'm heading home now." Chapter 5 I stared at the illuminated screen, the familiar caller ID blurring into something entirely foreign.

I had listened to this exact voice for seven years. Today, it belonged to a total stranger. "Don't bother," I said.

His breathing hitched over the line. "What?" "I said don't bother." The syllables rolled off my tongue with a flat, mechanical calm that surprised even me. "Weston, we're done." Dead air stretched over the receiver.

Then, his voice dropped an octave. "Cora, just listen to me for a second—" "There's nothing to explain." I ended the call. The final drop of clear fluid vanished from the IV bag.

A passing nurse stepped in to pull the needle from the back of my hand, her eyes lingering on my pale face like she wanted to say something.

I gave her a polite, empty smile. "I'm fine." The sun was already high in the sky by the time the sliding glass doors of the ER parted for me.

The early winter light washed over the pavement, bright but completely devoid of heat.

I stopped at the edge of the curb, pulled a sharp breath of sterile air into my lungs, and let it out in one slow, measured exhale. Seven years.

That was all it took to burn it down. I took a cab straight back to the condo we shared. No, his condo.

The deed was locked in a safe with only his name printed in black ink, tying none of this prime real estate to me. In seven years, I never once asked him to add me to the title.

Back then, I thought tallying up assets was a cheap way to measure a partnership. When his first startup tanked, I split dollarstore ramen with him on a mattress on the floor.

When the debt collectors came knocking, I stood between them and our front door. While he pulled allnighters drafting business proposals, I brewed the coffee and kept him awake.

I actually convinced myself that surviving the trenches together meant more than a signature on a legal document.

Now, the sheer stupidity of that logic tasted like copper on my tongue. I started packing. Seven years of my life in this penthouse, and my actual footprint was laughably small.

A stack of clothes, a handful of paperbacks, and a few stray bottles of skincare. It barely filled a single carryon suitcase.

I pulled open the bottom drawer of the nightstand and dragged out a rusted tin box. I popped the lid off.

It was stuffed to the brim with polaroids and printed photos documenting the last decade. Our first blurry selfie. The steak dinner he bought me with his first real paycheck.

The night he secured his seed funding, the two of us popping cheap champagne in that drafty studio apartment.

The girl in those photos was smiling so hard her eyes were crinkled shut. I snapped the lid back on. I dropped the tin straight into the trash can.

Moving out into the living room, I spotted the yellow Postit note still stuck to the edge of the glass coffee table. [ Client dinner tonight.

Don't wait up. ] I peeled the sticky paper off the glass and stared at his rushed handwriting. Over seven years, how many variations of this exact excuse had he fed me?

The number was impossible to track.

I just knew it started with a missed dinner here and there, slowly stretching into entire weekends, until his presence in this house became a rare scheduling anomaly.

I always rationalized it as the cost of doing business. The truth was, he just didn't want to come home. I tore the yellow paper in half. Then into quarters.

I let the pieces flutter into the garbage bin. My phone buzzed in my back pocket. Weston's name flashed on the screen. I let it ring out. It lit up again. I let it die.

Then the rapidfire text notifications started pinging. [ Cora, where are you? ] [ Last night was an emergency. She fainted.

I had no choice but to rush her to the ER. ] [ I didn't know you had a fever.

Why didn't you say something while I was still at the house? ] [ Cora, pick up the phone. ] I read the incoming texts as they stacked up on my lock screen.

A dry, hollow sound scraped its way up my throat. He didn't know?

I sent two separate texts begging for a Tylenol while he was pacing his study, whispering sweet nothings to his first love. And he had the nerve to type out that he didn't know?

It didn't matter anymore. I was stripped of the energy to argue, to explain, to waste another breath on a man who had already checked out. I hit block.

Chapter 6 I powered down my phone and dragged my suitcase to the foyer. Pausing at the threshold, I cast one last look over my shoulder. Four years inside these walls.

I had transformed it from a barren concrete box into a showroom, handpicking every single velvet armchair and watering every potted fern. I actually thought I was building a home.

Turns out, I was just playing house by myself. I stepped into the hallway. The deadbolt clicked shut. I didn't look back. I went straight to my best friend's place.

Zoe pulled her front door open, her eyes dropping to the suitcase handle gripped in my hand. She froze. "What happened?" "We're done," I said.

She yanked me inside by the wrist, pushed me down onto her living room sofa, and shoved a mug of hot tea into my palms. "Spill it.

Did that bastard Weston cheat on you?" I turned the question over in my head. Cheating? He hadn't slept with Melody, or at least, not that I knew of.

He just erased my existence the second her flight landed. "Close enough," I said. "Son of a bitch!" Zoe cursed, pacing the rug. "I told you he was trash!" "When you were eating dirt with him in the beginning, I told you it was a bad call.

You don't build a man up from nothing. You just handcraft a monster who stabs you in the back!" I took a slow sip of the scalding tea and kept my mouth shut.

Zoe ranted for another solid five minutes before the rigid line of my shoulders finally made her drop her voice. "So what's the game plan?" "Job hunt," I said. "Keep the lights on." Seven years of bleeding myself dry for Weston's startup.

On paper, I was the supportive girlfriend. In reality, I was the entire backend operation. HR, accounting, administrative logistics, right down to brewing the morning coffee pots.

All of it without an official title, a single paycheck, or a 401k. "Once we stabilize, I'll write you into the equity split," he had promised. I waited four years.

He rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, and my name was nowhere on the cap table. "Once this quarter closes, we'll pick out a ring," he swore. I waited three more years.

Instead of a wedding aisle, I got a frontrow seat to his high school sweetheart's homecoming. Zoe stamped her foot on the hardwood. "You need to sue him!

Squeeze him for everything!" "Seven years of unpaid labor, Cora. You can't just walk away emptyhanded!" I shook my head. "Drop it." It wasn't about taking the high road.

I was just done. I wanted irrevocable radio silence. No severance checks, no groveling apologies, no closure conversations.

I just wanted to wipe the slate clean and put an entire zip code between us. I fired up my laptop that same night and opened the job boards.

A sevenyear employment gap left my resume looking like a cruel joke. An outdated undergrad degree. Zero corporate ladder climbing.

The only bullet point I had was a CPA license I had studied for in secret while he was away on business trips three years ago.

Zoe leaned over the back of the sofa, watching the blank screen reflect in my eyes. "Want to try my firm?" "They're hiring a finance assistant.

The pay is entrylevel garbage, but you'll get your foot in the door." I looked up at her. "Seriously?" "I'll put your name in tomorrow morning." The next afternoon, I walked into the interview.

It was a boutique firm, barely a dozen desks, run by a sharp, thirtysomething woman named Valerie.

Valerie scanned the single piece of paper in front of her, then leveled her gaze at me. "A sevenyear gap." "Yes." "What exactly did you do for seven years?" I met her eyes and handed her the flat, unfiltered truth. "I helped a man build his company from the ground up." The corner of her mouth ticked up. "Are you done building?" "I'm done." Chapter 7 Valerie set the resume face down on her desk. "Start tomorrow.

One month probation." "Three thousand a month to start, bumped to four thousand when you're official. You in?" "I'm in," I said.

The bright midday sun beat down on the concrete as I pushed through the glass lobby doors. I stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. A genuine laugh broke from my chest. Seven years.

The first paycheck with my own name on it. Not funding his empire. Funding me. Day three on the job. Weston found me.

He stood on the pavement right outside my office building, immaculate in a tailored suit, clutching a massive floral bouquet. I had just stepped out for a coffee run.

My steps faltered for a fraction of a second when I spotted him, then I pivoted on my heel and walked the other way. "Cora!" He closed the distance in three strides and clamped his hand around my wrist. "Cora, just listen to me." I ripped my wrist out of his grip and took a hard step back. "Spill it right here, Weston." His eyes locked onto mine.

The rims were bloodshot. "Cora, I screwed up. I know I did." "I never should have left you that night. I never should have let you go to the ER alone.

I've been tearing my hair out these past few days. I can't do this without you." I listened to the speech.

My pulse didn't even spike. "Are you done?" "Cora—" "If you're done, I have a job to get back to." I turned away.

His fingers caught my elbow again. "There is nothing going on with Melody. She's just a ghost from college.

I don't feel anything for her," he begged. "She passed out that night, and I stepped up because it was the basic human thing to do.

I swear I didn't know you had a fever." "If I knew, I never would have walked out that door." "If you knew?" I stared dead into his eyes. "Weston, I sent you two separate texts.

You were pacing your study right down the hall." "There is zero chance your phone didn't ping.

You expect me to buy that you didn't know?" The blood drained from his face. "I swear I didn't check my screen that night…" "Save it," I cut him off. "I'm not even mad that you left for the hospital.

I'm mad that I spent seven years as a placeholder." "You didn't give a damn about me before Melody's flight landed, and you sure as hell didn't after.

I was just the understudy." "The warm body who held the flashlight while you built your company. Now the star is back." "You don't need me anymore.

So I did us both a favor and showed myself out." "No!" Panic spiked in his voice. "Cora, you mean everything to me. You do—" "Everything?" I fired back. "Let's do the math, Weston.

Seven years together. Have you ever met my parents?" He froze. "You haven't. I fly home for the holidays by myself every single December. You always played the CEO card.

Too swamped with endofyear board meetings." "But day two of Melody being back in the timezone, you cleared your entire afternoon to take her shopping.

You were only ever too busy for me." "Let's keep going. What's my favorite food? What am I allergic to? What is my actual birthday?" His jaw worked, but no sound came out.

A dry, hollow laugh scraped my throat. "Look at that. You draw a blank.

Seven years, and you never bothered to learn a single real fact about me." "You just wanted a lowmaintenance placeholder to keep the bed warm and run your errands.

Any girl would have worked. It didn't have to be me." "I just happened to be standing there when you needed the free labor.

That's it." "Cora…" "Let go." I kept my voice dead level. "I don't hate you. But I am empty." "Consider the last seven years a donation.

We are entirely even." I spun around and pushed through the revolving glass doors