REBORN AS THE CEO’s DIVA

New York 2019.

Ethan and Zoey didn’t sleep that night. She curled on his chest and felt his heart beating too fast. His hand kept stroking her hair, gently, like she’d vanish.

“You’re awake.” She mumbled.

“Yeah.” His voice was rough and low due to no sleep.

Then she lifted her head up to him. “Mia’s text about New York 2019, what does it mean?”

Ethan’s jaw went tight suddenly and he sat up. The sheets fell to his waist and Zoey’s eyes fell to the scar on his shoulder, the bullet graze from three nights ago was still pink.

“Nothing you need to know.” He said.

“Wrong answer.” Zoey sat up too and pulled the sheets over her chest. “Clause 12b simply means no secret Ethan, you’re in my bed and I’m meant to be in your business.”

He laughed. “You don’t want this business, Zee.”

“Try me.”

He stood and walked to the window. New York was good at this hour, because it was sunrise. The same city that watched Adrian try to kill her.

“2019,” Ethan said. “Your agency, Silver Screen.”

Zoey went cold. “What about it?”

“I was going to buy it.” He said but didn’t turn around.

“I was going to take over and clean it up for good. Too many girls were getting hurt. Too many Adrian’s victims.”

Zoey’s breath caught. “You never told me this.”

“The deal fell through.” His hands were fists.

“Because I saw a tape.”

Her heart stopped. “What tape?”

He finally looked at her, but with dead eyes.

“Sophia Taylor’s audition tape, 2019. The night before you died.”

The room started tilting suddenly.

“You watched me?” Zoey whispered.

“No.” His voice broke.

“I watched them reject you. The director said you were ‘too dark’, ‘too local’, ‘not a star material’ and I watched you cry in the hallway right after, on camera.”

Zoey couldn’t breathe. Sophia bawled her eyes out that night after Silver Screen said no.

“You could have signed me.” She said. “You could have saved me that day, Ethan.”

“I tried.” Ethan walked over to the bed and knelt. “I called your agent and said I wanted you. I was willing to pay any price to have you. But he told me you’d just signed with Silver Screen and you were ‘taken care of’.”

Lies. Lies from the pit of hell. Silver Screen never signed her. They had used her and let her die coldly.

“I didn’t know.” Ethan said. “I thought you were safe. I thought…someone else saved you.”

He put his forehead on her knee. “I saw the news two days later. Sophia Taylor murdered in the bathroom. Boyfriend arrested. I saw your face and I knew, I knew I’d watched you die.”

Zoey touched his hair with shaky hands.

“That’s why you rejected me,” she said. “When I came back and walked into your office as Zoey. You said, ‘not star material’.”

“I said it because I was scared.” He looked up at her with wet eyes. “Because if I signed you, I’d want you. And if I wanted you, I’d fail you again like I failed Sophia.”

The room went dead quiet.

Then Zoey suddenly grabbed his face and kissed him, hard. She used every muscle fiber, angrily.

“You didn’t fail me, Ethan,” she said against his mouth. “You found me again.”

He pulled back. “Mia has a tape because she was Silver Screen’s assistant in 2019. She kept that tape and she’s going to leak it. She’ll make it look like I watched you suffer and make the whole of New York hate me.”

“Good.” Zoey smiled sharply at him.

“Let her.”

Ethan frowned. “Zee?”

“You have stepped in front of bullets for me.” Zoey said. “And now, it’s my turn.”

She got out of bed, naked and walked to her phone. She went to i********: quickly and opened her Live.

Ethan grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing, Zee?”

“Ending this.” She hit the Live button and 80k people joined in less than 20 seconds.

“Hi.” Zoey said. She didn’t wear any shirt, just Ethan’s sheet wrapped around her chest coupled with a messy hair and neck filled with his marks.

“Mia Williams wants to leak a tape of crying in 2019, after Silver Screen rejected me. The very night before I died as Sophia Taylor.

The comments blew up again.

OMG ZOEY, WE LOVE YOU!

PLEASE DON’T DO THAT.

“So, I’m here to save her the trouble.” Zoey looked straight at the camera. “Yes, I cried and I was broke as hell. I was told I wasn’t good enough, I was even told to go back to the village because I’d never become a star.”

She breathed.

“And the man right here behind me?” She pulled Ethan in front of the camera. He appeared shirtless and tightened his jaw. “He saw that tape and tried to buy the whole agency to save me meanwhile he didn’t know I was already dead.”

Ethan froze while the whole of New York watched.

“So, Mia. You’re free to leak the tape,” Zoey said. “Show them how I cried and show them this, too.”

She grabbed Ethan’s face and kissed him so deeply and possessively, for all of New York.

“This is what a ‘not star material’ gets you now,” Zoey said while she pulled back from him. A man who takes bullets for me, puts a crown on my head and drowns your miserable career in the gutter.”

She ended the Live and her phone started blowing up immediately.

Trendy hashtags started popping in Zoey’s favour.

#EthanTriedToSaveHer

#ZoeyOwns2019

Ethan stared at her in shock. “You just…”

“Claimed you publicly, again.” Zoey dropped the sheet on her body and walked over to him. “Clause 12b is dead, Ethan. We don’t need contracts anymore because New York now knows you’re all mine and I’m all yours, no take backs.”

He picked her up and slammed her against the wall

“You crazy woman.”

“You love it.” She bit his lip.

“I love you.”

The words hung there for the first time. No camera nor contracts. Just him.

Zoey’s eyes welled up. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Zoey Walker.” He said it like it was a vow.

“I loved Sophia when I couldn’t save her, now I love Zoey because she saved herself and I’m never letting go.”

Her phone buzzed with an unknown number yet again.

Message: You won this round, Zoey. But have in mind that Adrian’s not the only man that wants you dead. -M

Zoey deleted the message and smiled.

“Good,” she told Ethan. “Let them come, I’m done running.”

He kissed her. “Then we fight back together.”

Outside, New York woke up.

But inside, a queen and her CEO stopped hiding.