Mr. CEO, You Look Strangely Familiar

So, Zoe Ellsworth opened the closet and took out an outfit and a pair of black stockings.

She went into the bathroom.

She took off her clothes and put on the stockings.

Then she draped the pink gauze over her body.

She got into the bathtub.

The water level rose bit by bit.

It crept up to her chest.

Holding her phone, she took a picture, angling it from top to bottom.

Then she sent it to him, adding a few lines of text: "Friendly reminder: after you see this, don’t get too excited... or you might have a nosebleed. Take care of your health. Your life is precious."

She added a few laughing emojis at the end of the message before successfully sending it.

Then she took her bath, turned off her phone, and went to sleep.

Meanwhile, Herman Hawthorne had been ready for bed. He opened the message, not expecting that she would actually give in to his goading and send something.

His eyes lit up as he looked at the temptation in the water, at the parts of her that were just barely visible.

He looked at it again and again.

Lying there, he found it harder and harder to fall asleep.

He had brought this on himself.

Ever since Jean Grant and Nicholas Ainsworth had their brutally honest conversation in his office, they had treated each other with icy respect.

Their relationship was so cold, it was as if they were complete strangers.

Nicholas Ainsworth came home as usual every day, but he no longer slept in the same bed as Jean Grant and rarely spoke to her.

Mr. Ainsworth and Sharon Ainsworth gave her the cold shoulder as well.

The main reason was that she had aborted the child. Because of the situation with Marlon Marshall, Nicholas Ainsworth probably felt he’d been cuckolded. To save face, he hadn’t told Mr. Ainsworth or Sharon Ainsworth.

As a result, life was not easy for Jean Grant.

The mental anguish made her feel that the whole world had turned gray.

Another bleak aspect was that she ultimately blamed her many misfortunes on fate, believing her luck was just terrible.

She had wanted to ask her brother to help her escape this sea of suffering and force a divorce, but Quentin Grant wasn’t in the country. He had his own affairs to deal with, so how could he possibly manage hers?

After several days of this, she became very depressed.

She would sleep until noon, then get up to wash, her hair a mess. Looking at herself in the mirror, Jean Grant was stunned. She had looked in the mirror like this before.

That unhappy marriage with Marlon Marshall was over on the surface, but in reality, it wasn’t.

Their tangled, messy relationship had forced her to take drastic measures to resolve it.

’I thought I was about to step into a happy marriage,’ she reflected. ’I thought my spring was finally here.’

Who knew that fate could be so cruel?

Her current marriage had also run into trouble not long after it began.

She quickly took a shower, dried her hair, put on a stylish outfit, and did her makeup. By the time she was done, it was almost two in the afternoon.

When she went downstairs, both Sharon Ainsworth and Mr. Ainsworth were there.

They saw her but completely ignored her.

Not wanting to stay home and be subjected to their sour faces, Jean Grant slung her bag over her shoulder, put on her high heels, and walked out the door.

She wanted to have a serious talk with Nicholas Ainsworth.

When she arrived at Ainsworth Group, the secretary told her that Nicholas Ainsworth had left for a business trip to Kaelen that morning.

’He went on a business trip without telling me,’ she thought. ’It seems he plans to continue this cold war.’

But she wouldn’t agree to be an unhappy puppet for the next several decades.

"Write down the address for his business trip for me."

The secretary nodded, wrote down the address, and handed it to her.

Jean Grant drove for several hours to the location of Nicholas Ainsworth’s business trip.

She stood waiting right outside the door of his meeting room.

When Nicholas Ainsworth came out after the meeting, he saw her immediately. "What are you doing here?"

"I want to have a proper talk with you."

"I was just about to head back."

He started walking ahead, and Jean Grant hurried after him.

Jean Grant had one of Nicholas Ainsworth’s assistants drive her car back, while she sat in the passenger seat of Nicholas’s car.

He drove, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Do you want to treat me like this for the rest of our lives? Or do you want to live with me like this forever? Don’t you feel uncomfortable?"

"Well, do you want to live a good life with me?" he retorted, his voice still cold and detached.

"I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t. Let’s never talk about that incident again. Let the past be the past."

"Then will you help me get my dignity back?" he asked, his meaning clear.

"What... dignity...?"

"The dignity your brother took from me at the bidding conference, of course. In front of all those people, your brother didn’t give me a chance. His company is so powerful and wealthy, yet he wouldn’t yield even once. He even publicly declared that I was incompetent and had become a laughingstock for relying on a woman. Jean Grant, do you think I’m going to forget that?" he said, practically grinding his teeth.

Jean Grant said awkwardly, "If you’re asking me to help you now, isn’t that also relying on a woman? What my brother said... wasn’t entirely wrong..."

"That doesn’t count. I won’t feel like I’m relying on you. Even if you do end up helping me with something, I’ll only think it’s what you’re supposed to do. You need to weigh your options: do you want this marriage, or do you want your brother to continue like this? You decide."

"I... of course I choose you... As long as you treat me as well as you did before... I’m willing to take another risk for you." After thinking it over, she still felt that happiness wasn’t something her family could give her.

Between her family and her husband, she chose the latter.

"Very good. Just do whatever I tell you to do."

"Are you trying to destroy the Grant Group? If so, I won’t help you," Jean Grant couldn’t help but say.

He stopped the car and gave her a rare smile. "I’m not going to destroy the Grant Group. A company that big... I can’t take it down by myself. I just want to make its assets ours. Do you want to be the wife of the man who runs the world’s number one enterprise?"

Jean Grant was a little frightened. "You... have such huge ambitions. Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell my brother after you’ve told me all this?"

"You won’t," he said with certainty. "Besides, I might as well tell you that someone else from your Grant Family is also working with me. Haven’t you heard the old saying? With enough effort, you can grind an iron rod into a needle."

Jean Grant’s mind was in turmoil. "Who from our Grant Family is secretly working with you?"

"You’ll find out in due time."

His hand lifted her chin. "Jean, you can only choose between me and your brother. Pick the right side. Don’t make the wrong choice. You need to understand who will be with you for the rest of your life. It’s me, not him. Don’t you want to have children again? To have our own happy little family?"

Jean Grant was stunned for a long moment before she uttered a single word, "Yes."

"Good. As for what happened before, if you don’t bring it up, I won’t either. We’ll wipe the slate clean. From now on, we’ll live a good life together. I’ll treat you well."

Jean Grant threw herself into his arms and nodded.

Having spent a quiet day, eating fruit when hungry, a sudden downpour began in the evening. Fortunately, there was no wind; otherwise, the simple shelter would have been quickly wiped out.