Choosing The Assistant Over The Ruthless CEO

I signed my own divorce papers thinking they were an investment in our future.

Craig handed me the stack of documents with a smile, telling me it was to secure assets for our unborn children. I trusted him more than gravity, so I didn't read the fine print.

Hours later, at his promotion party, I watched him announce his engagement to Chanel, the company heiress.

I rushed to check the folder I had signed. It wasn't a trust fund. It was a complete dissolution of our marriage.

I received no alimony. He kept the house and the stocks. And the box for "no child visitation" was already checked.

The cruelest twist came the next morning. I stared at a pregnancy test with two pink lines.

I was pregnant with the child of a man who had just tricked me into a divorce and called me "dead weight" in a text to his mistress.

When I tried to disappear and rebuild my life, Craig didn't let me go. His ego couldn't handle my silence.

He kidnapped me, locking me in a warehouse to "fix" our marriage, delusional enough to believe we could be a happy family after he caused me to lose the baby.

I thought I would die in that cold, dark room.

Then, a truck rammed through the wall, engulfed in flames.

Felix, the quiet assistant I had barely noticed for five years, walked through the fire to get me.

As he carried me out of the burning wreckage, leaving Craig behind, I realized he wasn't just an employee.

He had been waiting to save me all along.

Chapter 1

Dessie POV

I signed my own divorce papers thinking they were an investment in our future.

The champagne bubbles in my glass rose in a steady stream-tiny, effervescent hopes that vanished the moment they hit the surface. I stood anchored in the center of the corporate ballroom, watching my husband, Craig, bask in the applause. He looked every inch the king. I felt like the queen who had pawned her crown to buy him the throne.

The applause washed over us, a wet, rhythmic thunder echoing off the marble floors.

"To Craig Hunt!" a voice boomed above the din. "The new Regional Director!"

Craig beamed. It was the smile that had disarmed me five years ago-wide and dazzling-but tonight, the warmth didn't quite reach his eyes when they flickered toward me.

I touched the diamond solitaire at my throat. It felt cold against my skin. I remembered the sacrifices. I remembered turning down the Chimera Project, the biggest software architecture opportunity of my life, just so I could support his transfer to headquarters.

"You're the best wife a man could ask for, Dessie," Craig had whispered only an hour ago, his breath warm against my ear.

He had pressed a heavy stack of documents into my hands then. "Investment papers," he'd called them. Essential for securing our assets before the promotion went public. For our future children.

I signed them all. I didn't skim a single line of fine print. Why would I? I trusted him more than I trusted gravity.

A group of colleagues walked by. I recognized Sarah from HR.

"It's a crying shame about the Chimera Project," she murmured as she passed, her voice pitched low. "You would have been perfect for it, Dessie."

"Craig needed me," I replied, the response automatic.

Sarah gave me a look I couldn't decipher. Pity? Or maybe it was confusion.

Craig was working the room, moving through the crowd with the predatory grace of a shark in a tank of guppies. He stopped near the bar. A woman was waiting for him there.

She was stunning, draped in a red dress that looked as if it had been painted onto her skin. I recognized her instantly: Chanel Murphy. The daughter of the company's majority shareholder.

Craig leaned in, whispering something in her ear.

It wasn't a business whisper.

His hand lingered on the curve of her lower back. It was a touch I knew intimately. It was the touch of ownership.

My stomach bottomed out, as if I were in an elevator with a snapped cable.

I walked over to them, my legs feeling like lead.

"Craig?"

He recoiled from Chanel perhaps a fraction too quickly. His eyes darted around the room before landing on me.

"Dessie." His voice was tight, clipped. "I was just discussing strategy with Miss Murphy."

Chanel smirked-a small, cruel twisting of crimson lips.

"Strategy," she purred. "Something like that."

"Who is she really, Craig?" I asked.

"Don't start," Craig snapped, grabbing my elbow. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of my arm. "Not here. Did you sign the papers?"

"Yes," I said. "I left them in your office."

"Good," he said, releasing my arm. "Go home, Dessie. I have more networking to do. It's for us."

I went to his office instead.

The party noise was muffled here, reduced to the roar of a distant ocean. I saw the folder on his mahogany desk. The one I had signed.

I opened it. I needed to know what investment we were making.

My eyes scanned the legal jargon. The words blurred and then sharpened into terrifying focus.

Dissolution of Marriage.

Asset Division.

Waiver of Spousal Support.

I stopped breathing. The air in the room simply vanished.

I flipped to the last page. My signature was there. The ink was still fresh. Beside it was Craig's signature.

And the date was yesterday.

I scanned the clauses. No alimony. I kept the car. He kept the house, the stocks, the savings.

There was a section regarding child custody. We didn't even have children, yet the box for "no visitation required" was checked.

It was absurd. It had to be a sick joke.

I looked at the document again. I felt a laugh bubbling up in my throat, but it tasted like bile.

He had tricked me. He had looked me in the eye, told me he loved me, and handed me the knife to cut my own throat.

The door to the office was slightly ajar. I heard footsteps.

"She signed it?" It was Chanel's voice.

"Hook, line, and sinker," Craig said. He sounded bored. "She thinks it's a trust fund setup."

"You're terrible," Chanel giggled. "I love it."

"It's done," Craig said. "We can announce the engagement next week. Once the ink dries."

Engagement.

I stared at the paper. The letters seemed to crawl off the page like insects.

My phone buzzed in my clutch. A notification from the company intranet lit up the screen.

BREAKING: Craig Hunt appointed Regional Director. Sources say a merger with the Murphy family is imminent.

I stood there in the dark office. A slice of light from the hallway cut across the desk, illuminating my signature.

It looked like a scar.

I picked up the pen. I wanted to stab the paper. I wanted to stab him.

Instead, I sank into the chair. Numbness washed over me. My hands shook so violently that I dropped the pen. It rolled across the divorce papers and fell to the floor with a soft, final click.

The lights in the hallway flickered and went out. I sat in the darkness, holding the end of my marriage in my trembling hands.