The CEO'S Contract Bride

A Note from Evelyn Monroe

To the world-I want you to know something no one tells you early enough: you can't have it all.

You can be born into wealth, like I was, and still go to bed starving-for love, for sincerity, for someone who sees you, not your last name.

You can chase love, and maybe you'll find it-but love rarely comes without a cost. Sometimes, it steals your focus. Sometimes, it steals your freedom.

You might have success. Or family. Or peace.

But never all three at once.

Life will always ask what you're willing to lose in order to gain what you want.

Me?

I gained the world-and lost something I didn't even know I needed... until it was too late.

So read this not as a fairytale, but as a confession.

Because behind every empire is a sacrifice.

And behind mine... is a broken heart.

- Evelyn Monroe.

The Cost of Love

Evelyn's POV

Betrayal has a scent-bitter like rusted iron. I could almost smell it in the air as I stared at the empty wine glass on my counter. Another man. Another heartbreak. Another goodbye without warning.

This was the fifth time.

I counted them the way a soldier counts his wounds-one by one, each scar deeper than the last. Men who saw me for my last name and my family's money. Not my soul, my softness, my hunger for something real.

And now, tomorrow morning, I would become the official owner of a multi-billion dollar empire-my father's empire. All his companies, houses, and shares would be transferred into my name as part of his final will on his seventy-second birthday.

It was his last grand gesture, a parting gift before the I took the rest of him.

And yet, all I could think was-I don't want this.

I didn't want more properties or accounts with too many zeros. I wanted a man to hold me and mean it. I wanted a home with laughter curled under a blanket, not another headline about my inheritance.

I wanted love... not leverage.

But love had never stayed.

Not when they found out who I was. Evelyn Monroe. Heiress to Monroe Conglomerate. Daughter of steel, oil, real estate and boardroom wars.

I was born into wealth but starved for love.

And then I met him.

Henry Desmond.

It started like a slow, unexpected, but warm in all the right places. We met online, through a private forum for entrepreneurs and investors.

I was bored, sipping black coffee on a Sunday afternoon, trying not to cry over another failed "connection" with a man who ghosted after googling my net worth.

Henry's message stood out.

"There's something tragic about building empires alone. Want to talk about it?"

He didn't compliment my looks or ask for my last name. He didn't comment on my body like the others. Instead, he talked about feeling lonely at the top.

About building something for someone, only to find yourself eating dinners alone in hotel rooms. It sounded too familiar.

We talked every day for weeks-texts, voice notes, video calls. He was charming but not aggressive.

Kind, but not clingy. When I told him about my father's declining health, he didn't flinch. He asked if I was okay. When I admitted that I feared my father wouldn't live to see my wedding or grandchildren, he went quiet for a moment before saying, "Then let's give him a reason to hope."

No one had ever said that to me.

Not like that.

The timing couldn't have been more twisted. My father had decided to legally transfer all his companies to me the morning of his birthday. Henry and I were still virtual then.

He didn't even know my full name yet. But I was already falling.

I wanted to believe it wasn't just coincidence.

But I knew better.

The morning of the will signing, Henry flew in to meet me.

He was tall and devastatingly handsome. Black hair swept back with a curl and warm brown eyes that could read your lies before you said them.

He smiled like he'd been waiting to find me his whole life.

My father, despite his fragile state, liked him immediately.

"Finally," he said, holding onto my wrist as if it gave him strength. "A man who doesn't flinch in my presence. Maybe he's not here for your trust fund."

I laughed weakly. "Don't get your hopes up."

But I was hoping.

The will was signed. My father watched with watery eyes as I took on the empire he spent forty years building.

I wanted to believe he was proud-but I also saw the guilt. He knew what he was leaving me was power laced with poison.

That night, Henry stayed.

In my room. In my arms. In my life.

I remember the way he held me like I was made of fire-precious and dangerous all at once. He kissed my forehead and whispered, "This doesn't scare me, Evelyn.

You don't scare me."

God, I was a fool.

Because three months later, he vanished.

No note. No call. No trace.

One day, we were looking at beachfront villas in Santorini. The next, I woke up to an empty bed and a phone number that no longer existed. I called airports, checked his social handles, even begged my father's private investigators to track him down.

Nothing.

It was like he'd never existed at all.

Except he had.

Inside me.

I found out two weeks later, curled over the toilet bowl, retching from morning sickness and heartbreak. The pregnancy test turned pink before I could even finish the prayer in my head.

Positive.

I was pregnant.

By the man who vanished with my heart-and probably a few of my passwords, too.

The nausea wasn't just from hormones. It was from shame.

I, Evelyn Monroe, heir to a multi-billion-dollar empire, had been played. Again.

Only this time, the stakes were higher. There was a life growing inside me. A tiny, fragile piece of Henry that I hadn't signed over to any lawyer or sealed behind a contract.

I didn't know whether to scream or sob.

Instead, I did what I always did-put on a dress, brushed out my hair, and showed up for the world like nothing had shattered inside me.

My father couldn't know. Not yet. He was barely holding on, and I couldn't risk stressing him further.

But late at night, when the lights dimmed and the city in silence, I would sit with my hand over my belly and ask myself the same question:

Do I raise this child alone? Or do I hunt him down?

(HENRY DESMOND) If that was even his real name.

I'd trusted him too quickly. I'd ignored the signs. The fact that he was always vague about his job. That he never showed me his family or mentioned where he lived.

That he insisted on flying out to meet me but always booked the flights himself. That he asked about the will before he asked about my birthday.

But it felt real.

Real enough to risk everything.

Now I'm left with the fallout-and a child who didn't ask to be born into betrayal.

Part of me wanted to erase it all. Book a discreet procedure, vanish for a few weeks, and come back like it never happened.

The tabloids would never find out. My father would never suspect. I'd still be the perfect Monroe daughter with a diamond spine and no scandals.

But the other part-the part he touched with every late-night message and gentle word-burned for something more.

Not just justice.

Revenge.

I wanted to find him. I wanted to look him in the eye and ask why. I wanted to see if the regret was real-or if the entire thing had been a performance. I wanted to know what he took from me besides my heart and my trust.

I wanted to know if he'd planned it all from the start.

Because if he had...

Then he didn't just steal from me.

He declared war.

And I've never lost a war in my life.

The next morning, I stood beside my father's bed, holding his withered hand as he smiled up at me.

"Everything is yours now," he said weakly, his voice little more than a whisper. "Do good with it."

I nodded, tears threatening to escape.

"I will."

He didn't know the battle I was already planning.

He didn't know that behind my polite smile and designer dress, I was building something more ruthless than Monroe Corp ever dreamed of.

A plan, a trap and a reckoning.

And when I find Henry Desmond... he'll wish he never touched me.

Because I'm not just Evelyn Monroe.

I'm the heir to an empire.

A mother-to-be.

And now?

I'm out for blood.