The Billionaire I Rejected Became My Boss

12 hours ago, I was standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows of a Greystone Row high-rise in a couture suit, looking down at the world beneath me. Now I looked like a deranged homeless woman—barefoot, caked in mud and blood, sitting in a freezing interrogation room at the police station. All because of that man. "You have to believe me! He's insane... That monster!" My arms were crossed tight over my chest, my body shaking beyond my control. The brutal December rain had soaked through my thin silk nightgown. My bare feet were filthy, covered in mud and scratches. The dried blood on my right palm was from hours ago, from when I drove a shard of glass into his shoulder. I stared at the police chief across the table, my voice raw with terror and fury. "He's been stalking me like a psychopath for three months. He planted himself as my boss. He used his position to—last night, at the dinner, he slipped something into my wine and knocked me out. He locked me in some estate outside the city, like a medieval dungeon!" I nearly lunged across the table to grab his uniform. "Call the FBI! Run his name—Ivan Klein. He controls Manhattan's entire underground network!" A sharp commotion erupted from the front lobby, cutting me off. Then came the heavy thud of a door. The interrogation room door swung open from the outside, pushed by someone with deference. The paper cup of water froze halfway to my lips. A tall, shadowed figure strolled in, unhurried. Ivan Klein. He wore a fresh, pure black couture overcoat. Beneath the fabric at his left shoulder, thick white bandaging was barely visible. He was still elegant. Still regal. Like a king surveying his domain. That pale, sickly face, hauntingly beautiful like a vampire, didn't carry a trace of anger. And the police chief—who'd been shouting at me to calm down just moments ago—was now scurrying toward Ivan like a dog greeting its master, face split in an eager grin, bowing slightly. "Mr. Klein, in this terrible rain, you didn't have to come in person." Ivan didn't look at him. Those pale gold eyes cut through the air like frozen searchlights and locked onto my face. "I'm here to take my fiancée home," he said with a smile. "Fiancée? He's lying!" I shot to my feet. The cup tumbled, hot water splashing across my bare feet. "Chief, arrest him! Did you not hear a single word I just said?!" Raymond Donovan turned to me, his expression caught somewhere between sympathy and helplessness. "Ms. Reid, I'm sorry. Mr. Klein's legal team has already presented full medical documentation. You've been suffering from severe persecutory delusions brought on by work-related stress. Last night, you had an episode at the estate and even stabbed your fiancé." I stood paralyzed. As if struck by lightning. Medical documentation? Nothing but a forgery, fabricated by the Klein family's bottomless reach. Against absolute power, my truth was worth less than tissue paper. "Let go of me! You corrupt bastards! He's the criminal!" Raymond waved his hand. Two muscular officers stepped forward and hauled me out of my chair. I screamed until my throat tore, thrashing with everything I had—but against them, I might as well have been an ant trying to topple a tree. Ivan stepped forward, calm and poised. He dismissed the officers with a gesture. He was a predator, sated and satisfied, having cornered his escaped prey once more. He looked down at my mud-streaked body, trembling with despair, and slowly extended his hand. Those long, pale fingers brushed a streak of blood from my cheek with impossible gentleness. His thumb pressed hard against my lips, forcing them slightly apart. In a voice only the two of us could hear, he leaned to my ear and murmured, "The chase is over, darling." His scent closed in around me, expensive cologne laced with money and despair. "You see, no one in this city can save you. Not the police. Not even God." He wrapped his arm around my waist, victory radiating from every pore. "Be a good girl and go home with me. We have a debt to settle... for what you did to my shoulder with that glass." ***** I didn't know how I ended up inside that black Maybach. The partition rose, sealing the back seat into a suffocating, lightless capsule. The heater was on, but I felt colder than I was in the winter rain outside. Ivan sat beside me. Then, without warning, he removed his black overcoat. The sharp, metallic scent of blood hit the air instantly. The upper left of his white shirt was drenched red, the hastily wrapped bandages already soaked through. My handiwork. But he acted as if pain didn't exist. He leaned in, trying to kiss me. "You're insane... You're literally bleeding..." I clenched my jaw, pressing myself flat against the car door, desperate for distance. "Worried about me?" He tilted his head. Those golden eyes glinted with something sick and delighted. "Baby, this is your mark on me. Every time the wound pulls, I think of the way you launched yourself at me like a little wildcat with her fur standing on end. It makes me more excited than usual." Insane. Completely and utterly insane. I forced myself to take a deep breath. I summoned every ounce of the composure I'd built across years of business negotiations. "Ivan, let's talk. If you let me go right now, I'll sign over my equity stake. I'll give you access to every client resource I have. You're a businessman. You know keeping me locked up has zero financial value." "Businessman?" He let out a low laugh, as if I'd told the funniest joke he'd ever heard. The next second, his massive frame loomed over me. His good right hand clamped around both my wrists like an iron vise, pinning them above my head against the car window in one effortless motion. "Money and power bore me now, baby." Those golden eyes locked onto mine, unblinking. "All I want is you, Evelyn. Even if I have to break your wings and pin you like a specimen under glass, you'll stay in my cage. You're the only thing keeping me alive. Don't you understand?" I was forced to tilt my head back, my spine pressed flat against the leather seat. His iron grip held my wrists pinned, keeping me trapped beneath him. "Ivan... let go of me..." I struggled with fury, but the absolute difference in physical strength between us left me hopeless. "You ran out dressed like this?" His gaze slid down from my face, slow and dangerous. "What I wear is none of your business!" I snapped, turning my head away. I was wearing nothing but a paper-thin white silk nightgown, the one he'd changed me into last night after the drug knocked me out. Nothing underneath. The rain had turned the fabric nearly transparent, clinging to every curve, rising and falling with each breath. His breathing roughened. His eyes darkened to something like molten gold churning beneath the surface. The temperature between us was climbing, and I could feel his body responding against me. Pervert. "Were you trying to seduce every man out there, Evelyn?" His rough fingertip grazed across the peak of my chest through the soaked silk. "Mm—!" My back arched like I'd been shocked. The humiliation flooded my eyes with heat. "Get your dirty hands off me!" "Dirty?" He dipped his face down, his nose nearly brushing my lips. "Your body is far more honest than your mouth. They are already hard. Are you scared... or horny?" He crushed his mouth against mine. The faint taste of blood spread between our lips. I shook my head frantically, trying to escape, but his palm cupped the back of my skull. His other hand traced down my waist to the hem of my nightgown, sliding directly underneath. The instant his cold fingers met my inner thigh, every hair on my body stood on end. "No... don't..." A whimper escaped my throat. "It's just us now, darling." He left my lips and trailed kisses down my neck, his voice rough and dangerous with want. "You owe me for running. Time to pay up." By the time we reached the estate, I'd been kissed until my brain was starved of oxygen, my legs too weak to hold me. He scooped me up and carried me inside, ignoring the rows of staff who stood with their heads bowed in terrified silence. He climbed the spiral staircase, kicked open the heavy carved wooden door of the master bedroom. The door slammed shut. Locked. He threw me onto that absurdly vast black bed. I scrambled to get up, but his weight bore down on me again. He didn't rush to tear the translucent nightgown from my body. Instead, he looked down at me from above, his fingers undoing the buttons of his own shirt, slow and deliberate. The bloodstained shirt hit the carpet, revealing his sculpted chest, all hard lines and taut muscle. "Do you know what I was thinking when I saw you in that police station earlier?" His voice was low and thick, like poisoned honey. He gripped my slender ankle and forced one leg to bend. The cold metal of his belt buckle grazed my skin, and I flinched. "What did I ever do wrong?" My eyes burned red with unshed tears. The shame was unbearable, and I turned my face away. "I just wanted to pay off my mortgage. Take care of my sick mother. Why did you have to destroy my life?" "I didn't destroy your life. I've simply become all of it." He leaned down, hands braced on either side of my head. His burning chest pressed against mine through that single layer of silk, the heat nearly setting me on fire. "Evelyn, you're resisting me. But your body is doing the opposite." His hand slid up from my calf, slow and deliberate. Fingertips trailing electricity—over the hollow of my knee, brushing the tender skin of my inner thigh. "Get off—Ah!" My furious words shattered into a broken moan. Through the thin, damp silk of my underwear, he found the most sensitive spot with devastating precision. He didn't rush. His rough fingertip circled and pressed with a maddening, unhurried rhythm. I bit down hard on my lower lip, holding back the moan. My hands fisted the black silk sheets beneath me. But I couldn't control my body's response. The accumulated shock, the cold, the suffocating pressure of his dominance, every nerve ending was amplified to an unbearable extreme. "Look at you..." Ivan brought his lips to my ear, warm breath washing over the shell of it, raising goosebumps in its wake. "You say you hate me, but you're soaking through the fabric." He deliberately increased the pressure, pushing down hard through the cloth. "Mmn..." I lost control. Tears of pure physical response leaked from the corners of my eyes as my hips arched upward of their own accord, as if meeting his touch. This was unbearable. I hated him. Hated his power, his obsession. But my body, under this relentless provocation, had honestly melted. "Beg me." His lips traced along my jawline, scattered kisses falling on my collarbone. "Tell me you want me, Evelyn. Apologize to me. Say you shouldn't have run away. Say you'll never... leave me again." "In your dreams... you psycho..." I panted, glaring at him with stubborn defiance. "Still talking back." Something dangerous flickered in the depths of his eyes, and his hand stopped abruptly. The pleasure that had been building toward a crest vanished. In its place, a maddening emptiness and ache. I squirmed involuntarily. Ivan let out a low, dark laugh. Two fingers hooked the edge of my underwear. He didn't pull them off, just nudged the fabric aside, barely an inch. Then a long, burning finger pushed inside without warning, into that slick heat...