Love After Divorce: The CEO's Hard-win Beloved

"I need you to come to Goldshore right now."

Madison Graves groggily glanced at the clock. It was half past two in the morning.

"Now?" she asked, barely able to hide the exasperation in her voice.

The man on the other end of the line sneered, "You have to be on call 24/7 to be my secretary. If you can't do that, find another job."

In addition to having been woken up in the middle of the night, Madison had a bad cold and had been light-headed after taking her medicine, but she immediately sobered up after hearing this.

She took a deep breath, pinched her thigh, and forced herself to wake up. "Okay, I'll be there soon."

She got dressed and went downstairs to her car. Goldshore was a famous bar located in the bustling downtown, so she knew it would be impossible for her to find parking nearby.

Madison had no choice but to park her car at the entrance of the alley and walk to the bar in her four-inch heels. When she finally arrived at the door of the bar, she glanced at her watch again.

2:57 AM.

Fortunately, it had only taken her twenty-seven minutes to get here.

She smoothed her hair and walked in.

The bar was brimming with people, but Lorenzo Edwards was still the most eye-catching man in the room.

Wearing a crisp black suit, he sat in a booth, holding a wine glass in his hand, leisurely swirling its contents. Thanks to his handsome features and alluring aura, he always stood out in a crowd.

Just then, he raised his wrist and looked at his watch, frowning slightly.

Without any hesitation, Madison quickened her pace and stopped beside him. "I'm here, Mr. Edwards."

Lorenzo didn't say anything, but someone else reacted to Madison's sudden appearance.

"Oh, my God! It's 2:59! She actually arrived before three o'clock!"

"Lorenzo, you're a prophet. She got here in half an hour."

Only then did Madison realize that there were three other people in the booth-two men and one woman.

Two men sat side by side across the table from Lorenzo, while the woman was sitting on Lorenzo's lap.

Lorenzo smiled and looked at the woman in his arms smugly. "I win."

The woman punched him lightly on the chest and pouted. "Okay, fine. You win. What do you want me to do?"

The two men laughed excitedly.

Madison frowned. "What are you guys talking about?"

One of the men kindly offered her an explanation. "Lorenzo said that his secretary is always on time. No matter when he calls her or where she is, she always arrives in half an hour. None of us believed him, so we made a bet. If you made it here in half an hour, Lorenzo would win."

As he spoke, he slid his car keys in front of Lorenzo with great regret. "I just bought this car, and it's a limited edition. I haven't even taken it out for a proper ride yet!"

Lorenzo took the keys and toyed with them. Smiling, he said, "Well, we had a bet."

Then he turned to the other man and raised one eyebrow. "And what about you?"

"Okay, okay. Here you go. This is the key to my house. It's yours now." After saying that, the man glared at Madison unhappily and said, "How much do you make in a month? You're really dedicated to your job, aren't you? Thanks to your punctuality, you made me lose a villa worth hundreds of millions to this scumbag!"

Madison pursed her lips tightly and said nothing.

Then she looked at the woman sitting on Lorenzo's lap.

The lights in the bar were dim and she hadn't paid much attention to the woman just now. However, the moment she saw her face, she immediately broke out in cold sweat.

This woman was none other than the popular actress, Zoe Harris.

But more importantly, she looked so much like someone.

And she looked like that person even more than Madison did.

Lorenzo was completely expressionless. He leaned back with his long legs crossed, one arm around the woman.

Glancing at Madison, he said flatly, "Okay, you can go now."

Madison took a deep breath and asked slowly, "So you called me here in the middle of the night for a bet?"

Lorenzo raised his eyebrows and cracked a charming smile. "So?"

Before Madison could say anything, one of the men asked, "Lorenzo, I didn't expect your secretary to be this pretty. She's gorgeous. Doesn't your wife get jealous knowing that you have such a hot secretary at your beck and call?"

Lorenzo looked at Madison with a faint smile and said, word by word, "I don't have a wife."

Madison's heart sank to the pit of her stomach.

She had been Lorenzo's secretary for three years, but in those three years, she had also been his wife.

On paper, she was Mrs. Edwards, but in reality, she was just his secretary who followed his every order. She wasn't even qualified to question him why another woman was sitting on his lap.

After all, she and Lorenzo didn't get married out of love.

They got married because the woman he loved was dead, and she happened to look like that woman.

Lorenzo hired her to be his secretary at first, but because his grandfather kept urging him to get married, he decided to marry her.

Why did he choose her?

First of all, she always obeyed him and was good at her job. But the most important reason was because of her looks.

After marrying him, she had been determined to be a good wife. She had tried her best to cooperate with him at work, help him with every decision he made, and meet each and every one of his strict requests, including one in particular-that no matter the time or place, as long as he needed her, she must appear in front of him in thirty minutes.

Throughout their three years of marriage, she had never complained about it-not once.

But in those three years, she didn't live like herself at all. It was like she was but a shadow of that dead woman.

And now, Lorenzo found someone who looked even more like the girl he loved; the woman who was in his arms right now.

"Wait. You're not married? Your grandpa mentioned something about your wife the other day..."

Lorenzo's expression darkened and his eyes turned ice-cold. "I said, I don't have a wife."

The two men sitting opposite him sensed that he didn't want to talk about this, so they immediately changed the subject.

"Since he says he doesn't have a wife, then he doesn't. This secretary is really hot. If I had a secretary like her, I wouldn't even want to leave work!"

"You wouldn't want to leave work? You don't even go to work!"

"If I had such a beautiful secretary, I'd go to work every day!"

"Are you even competent enough to do it every day?"

"What do you mean? I am a perfectly healthy man!"

Listening to the two men's brazen words and seeing them look at her up and down, Madison felt disgusted.

Lorenzo didn't move. Holding the wine glass in his hand, he looked both noble and nonchalant, with a mocking smile on his face. He didn't say a word even as the two men insulted his wife.

Madison could only clench her fists and take two steps back to hide herself in the dimness of the bar, separating herself from the two annoying idiots.

Lorenzo frowned and looked back at her. "Anything else?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Then why are you still standing here?"

"Then... I'll leave now."

Lorenzo grunted indifferently.

He didn't even glance at her since he asked her to leave; he just proceeded to swirl the red wine in his glass.

With a heavy sigh, Madison turned around and left.

Just as she had for the past three years, Madison listened to his orders. At times, she even wondered if she was a robot.

Behind her, she could still hear their obscene conversation. "Zoe, Lorenzo always surrounds himself with pretty women, but he has never taken any of them to meet his friends. You're the first. Don't forget about us when you marry him, okay?"

Blushing, Zoe suddenly sat up straight and said shyly, "I'm not married to Lorenzo just yet."

The two men laughed and one even said, "He isn't saying anything, which means he has acquiesced in it. You'll be his wife sooner or later."

The other man chimed in, "You're so considerate. How are you able to accept that there's such a beautiful woman who sees Lorenzo every day? Why don't you have her fired so that she could work for me?"

"Come on, you don't even work. Why do you need a secretary?"

"Well... We're all men here. You know why." The man whispered a few words, then burst into laughter.

"It all depends on whether Lorenzo is willing to dismiss her or not."

When Madison heard this, she suddenly stopped in her tracks.

The world seemed to stop moving, and everything around her turned into a blur. She could only hear Lorenzo's magnetic voice saying, "If you like her, take her. I don't mind."

Madison froze in place.

One of the men stood up and strode over to her, intending to slip his arm around her waist. "Since Lorenzo agrees, then..."

As he spoke, he began to stroke her cheek.

Swallowing the anger in her heart, Madison stepped back from the man and rushed to Lorenzo's side. "Mr. Edwards, I'm your... Well, say something!"

Lorenzo gave her a warning look and silenced her, "I've told you that you must do whatever I ask since you're my secretary."

"But you know exactly what he wants from me!" she cried, barely able to conceal the rage and hurt in her voice.

"So what?" Lorenzo asked nonchalantly.

Tears welled up in Madison's eyes and a lump formed in her throat. "Lorenzo, it's been three years. I've never said no to you before, but you can't insult me like this."

Lorenzo's eyes turned cold.

"Oh, is she rejecting me? That's too bad," the man grumbled.

"Forget it. You like someone else, so I don't want you anymore. How about this? You drink this bottle and I'll let this go."

Bang! An unopened bottle of liquor was placed in front of Madison.

Glancing at the label, she saw that it was actually vodka.

She bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. "I can't drink that."

Because of her colds, she had just taken some medicine.

If she drank alcohol now, she could die.

The frivolous man was obviously dissatisfied with her refusal. He instantly pulled a long face and said to Lorenzo, "Your secretary is being rude to me. Are you going to let her refuse me like this?"

Frowning, Lorenzo turned to glare at Madison and warned, "You should remember your place."

"I took pills before I came here, so I can't drink."

Lorenzo sneered, "Is that so? You've disobeyed me twice today."

Wiping the tears on her face with the back of her hand, Madison took a deep breath and asked, "What if I insist on not drinking?"

"Then you should never show your face in front of me again."

Madison didn't know how she drove back home that night.

She checked the time. It was already some time after four o'clock in the morning.

It took her less than thirty minutes to get to the bar just now, but it took her over an hour to drive back home. She'd probably get a load of tickets for speeding earlier.

But it didn't matter. This had happened countless times over the past three years anyway.

She smiled bitterly and sank into bed. Looking at the starry sky outside the window, she felt dead inside.

Truth be told, she always knew that she would never replace the woman in her husband's heart.

Sometimes, she thought that although there were many people in the world who resembled that woman, finding someone who looked so much like her as she did was nearly impossible.

She hoped that as long as she stayed by Lorenzo's side for long enough, he would gradually get used to her and one day, he would start to see her.

But she didn't expect that she'd have to leave him after only three years of marriage.

Because someone who looked even more like the woman he loved than she did appeared.

So what was the point of enduring the past three years?

Just then, the door unlocked with a click and swung open.

A strong, pungent smell of alcohol greeted her.

Lorenzo stumbled in. He took off his tie and irritably threw it aside as he climbed on top of her. His hands were a little cold, and she shivered violently at his touch, but his lips were warm, and she could not refuse him.

"Lorenzo..."

"Hush. Don't say anything."

Tears rolled down from the corners of her eyes. She turned her head to avoid his kiss and grumbled, "Did Miss Harris fail to satisfy you?"

"Who's Miss Harris?"

His response took her aback. She looked back at him and asked in surprise, "Zoe Harris. You were in the bar together just now, remember?"

He frowned and mumbled, "I don't know who you're talking about. You're the only woman I love. How could I be with another woman?"

Then he lowered his head and started kissing her again.

Bewildered, Madison almost thought she had misheard him. She pushed him with all her strength and asked, "Are you drunk?"

Otherwise, how could he say such sweet words in such a gentle tone to her?

"I'm not drunk, Elena. I really miss you."

Madison froze.

Elena Clarke was the woman he loved so deeply.

Hearing him call her that, Madison felt as though a bucket of ice-cold water was poured over her head.

She flicked on the bedroom lights.

The dazzling white light illuminated everything in the room, including her face.

She could clearly see the haze in Lorenzo's eyes slowly dissipated, and his desire for her also died down.

"Oh, it's you." Frowning, he got out of bed and buttoned his shirt with his back to her. "Get out."

But Madison didn't budge. Smiling bitterly, she said, clear as day, "Lorenzo, let's divorce."