CEO's Accidental Sugar Baby

Elena had once believed that silence could mean safety. That a gentle hand and a warm cup of tea placed quietly on her desk every morning could be a form of love. Lucien was never cruel—not in the obvious ways. He remembered how she liked her eggs, noticed when she swapped her perfume, and sent flowers on days he knew she wouldn’t expect them. He raised her like one would raise a pet—softly, without question. And Elena, foolish in the way only the very lonely can be, mistook his quiet affection for devotion. She told herself he was reserved. Mysterious. That love didn’t always wear its heart on its sleeve. But when the old flame returned—the one who spoke his language without needing to try—Elena saw it. The difference. He looked at her like a man who had found his lost religion. And Elena? She had simply been convenient. No tears, no scene. Just papers on the breakfast table, beside the eggs he cooked perfectly. She didn’t accuse or beg. She only asked for freedom. He didn’t sign. He chuckled. A soft, dismissive sound. *"A cat raised indoors doesn’t know how to survive on the street, Elena. You’ll come back. You always do."* But she didn’t. She disappeared, like smoke—except she didn’t vanish, not really. She lived. She wore colour again. Laughed at bad jokes. Let strange men hand her coffee and ask for her number. On Dumei Road, she became something of a myth—the poised woman in heels who never said yes, but always smiled like she might. Lucien? He watched. He watched her become someone without him. And it drove him mad. The night he cornered her outside the gallery, rain in his hair and desperation in his eyes, he looked like a man undone. "Elena," he breathed, "please. Look at me. Just once." She did. Calm as ever. "You’re standing in the way, Lucien. I have admirers now." He laughed then, but there was no mirth in it. Only ache. He reached for her, hands trembling slightly, and whispered, "I’ve booked a proposal slot for every day of the next year. One of them has to work." She smiled, bittersweet. "You can’t train a heart, Lucien. It either stays, or it walks away." And hers had already gone.