The CEO's Free Labor

On New Year's Eve, Chloe is working overtime alone in the office when she finds a trending thread about how to manage employees. One commenter boasts that her husband seduces his most capable female employees so they will work themselves to the bone, and posts a photo of a man cooking in their mansion. Chloe recognizes his back, his apron, the mole behind his ear: it is Ethan, the CEO she has secretly dated for five years.

Scrolling further, she learns the commenter is Ethan's legal wife. The wife recalls a phone call in which Ethan coaxed Chloe into calling her "Mom," and posts gifts, a Maldives trip and a riverview mansion bought with money Chloe never saw. Ethan had told her the company was failing, so she took no bonus, no raise and no overtime pay, and delayed visiting her sick grandmother again and again.

When Ethan calls to wish her a happy New Year, claiming he is out of town securing investments, he asks her to host Mr. Wang of the Apex Group in Seattle instead of going home. Chloe, who has not had a day off all year, finally questions him.