I Ran Away After Three Years as Stand in, CEO Went Mad Chapter 01

I Ran Away After Three Years as Stand in, CEO Went Mad Chapter 01

For three years, I was a stand-in—a kept woman for a billionaire CEO.

The night he went to the airport to pick up his lost love, I left a fake suicide note and flew out on the red-eye.

I thought I’d never see him again.

Then I heard he skipped his own mega product launch.

Because someone told him I’d come back from the dead.

“Well, shit.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Guess I’m busted. Time to bounce.”

***

Ever since I was little, there was this voice in my head that called itself “the System.”

The System said, [You’re the female lead in a tragedy novel. When you start working, you’ll meet a CEO named Declan Thorne, and he’s your destined love interest.]

Before the System could explain more, I told my sister.

I’ve always been a blabbermouth—can’t keep a secret to save my life.

Back then, there was no such thing as “transmigrating into a book with a system” online.

My sister, who’s more than ten years older, freaked out and dragged me to a psychiatrist for schizophrenia.

Guess what—curing my schizophrenia also cured the System.

Problem solved by eliminating the person who raised the problem. Perfect.

Fast-forward a decade. I graduated college and started working.

My boss was a CEO, and his name just happened to be Declan Thorne.

I thought about what the System had said all those years ago and fell into deep thought.

But my boss paid really well, and the benefits were great.

I swallowed my doubts and took the job.

Hey, even the female lead in a tragedy’s gotta pay the bills.

So I became one of Declan’s assistants.

The man’s high-maintenance as hell—coffee, meals, everything needs a dedicated person to arrange.

I was the coffee-runner, lunch-planner, and file-fetcher.

The work looked easy but was super annoying.

Running up and down twenty floors every day, I went nuts on my Instagram feed.

[I don’t wanna work. I wanna go live on a mountain and turn into a monkey.]

[Loving my job is basically like loving prison.]

[Go to work—work that makes no sense, work with no future, work that doesn’t pay, work that makes you crazy but you’re somehow still supposed to be happy about it.]

[Mountains, oceans, love, freedom… yeah, right. Gotta get up for that broke-ass job. ]

Because Declan didn’t check Instagram, I didn’t realize I forgot to block him.

One day, he liked more than a dozen of my unhinged posts.

And messaged me: [Do you really hate working that much?]

That was the moment I started sweating bullets.

I scrambled over to Reddit to ask for help from people with better life choices.

No life-choicers showed up. But trolls did.

Comments: [Tell him, “It’s not work I hate—it’s you.”]

[Don’t reply. Show up hanging from the company gate tomorrow.]

[Find another job first.]

That night, I fired off resumes on LinkedIn.

Finally found a decent job. I nervously waited for the HR’s reply.

A notification pinged. I saw a familiar name.

Declan: [Ignoring my message so you can job-hunt?]

I stared at the screen, completely speechless.

Forgot he owns like five companies.