Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs Chapter 848: When the Past Comes Calling

Charlotte’s office at Quantum Tech was quiet.

The comfort of it also came from having Amanda Wells—former runaway bride turned executive assistant—handling the day-to-day chaos with the efficiency of someone who’d survived her own personal apocalypse and decided organization was her new religion.

Amanda sat at the smaller desk positioned perpendicular to Charlotte’s, tablet in one hand, phone in the other, hair pulled back in a professional bun that somehow made her look both competent and dangerous.

Like she could schedule your meeting or bury your career with equal efficiency.

Charlotte was reviewing quarterly projections on the transparent giant screens floating in her office—numbers so large they’d lost meaning somewhere around the hundred-billion mark—when Amanda’s phone rang.

"Amanda Wells," she answered, voice crisp and professional. A pause. "Yes, this is Ms. Thompson’s office. How can I help you?"

Charlotte didn’t look up. Phones rang constantly. That was the price of running a company valued at $2.4 trillion. Everyone wanted a piece. Everyone thought their call mattered.

"Mm-hmm." Amanda was making notes on her tablet now. "A meeting request with Ms. Thompson. May I ask regarding what matter?"

Another pause.

Charlotte signed off on a projection showing Quantum Tech would generate $16.84 billion in revenue this month alone. The number should have felt surreal. It didn’t anymore.

That was concerning in its own way—when billions became background noise, when wealth felt routine, when you started wondering if the next zero was just another Tuesday.

"I see." Amanda’s tone had shifted. Subtle. Professional ice replacing polite warmth. "And this is from Kingsley Private Equity. Ms. Aurelia Royce specifically."

Charlotte’s pen stopped moving.

Just froze mid-signature like her entire nervous system had hit an emergency brake.

That name.

Aurelia Royce.

Amanda must have noticed because she glanced over, eyebrow raised in silent question. Charlotte shook her head.

Hard. Emphatic.

The kind of head shake that meant in every language humans had ever invented.

The assistant’s tone suggesting this was that of course Charlotte Thompson would want to meet with Aurelia Royce, that this was an opportunity of a lifetime.

Charlotte’s hands clenched on her desk.

Memories flooding back like a dam breaking. Not recent memories. Old ones. That the scar tissue grown over them but never actually healed.

One year ago.

Before Peter. Before Liberation Holdings. Before Quantum Tech became the most valuable company on Earth.

When she’d just inherited her father’s $8 billion tech company at twenty-five years old and the entire world had opinions about it.

Her mother had convinced her to watch the interviews. Margaret had said gently.

Charlotte had been naive enough to believe that.

Had actually thought that maybe, just maybe, the female CEOs and executives who’d fought their way to the top would recognize a fellow traveler. Would offer support or at least neutral instead of judgment.

Then she’d watched Aurelia Royce’s interview.

Bloomberg had asked the Kingsley Private Equity princess—likely to be coronated soon her father’s retirement—what she thought about Charlotte Thompson’s appointment as CEO of her father’s company.

Aurelia hadn’t hesitated.

she’d said, voice cold and clinical, like she was dissecting a failed business model rather than a human being.

The interviewer had tried to soften it.

Aurelia had cut in smoothly, voice sharpening like a blade finding bone.

She’d leaned forward slightly, and Charlotte remembered how the camera had caught that predatory shift.

Aurelia had continued, warming to her subject now, each word precisely calculated to wound.

The interviewer had actually looked uncomfortable.

Aurelia’s smile had been ice over stone.

Charlotte remembered her mother’s hand on her shoulder, tightening with helpless rage, nails digging in slightly as they both watched this public execution continue.

Aurelia had continued, and her voice had dropped to something almost pitying—which somehow hurt worse than the anger.

The interviewer had tried one more time.

Aurelia had laughed. Actually laughed. Short, sharp, dismissive—like someone who’d just heard the punchline to a joke everyone else was too stupid to get.

She’d straightened in her chair, preparing for the killing blow.

Aurelia had looked directly into the camera then. Directly at everyone watching. Directly at Charlotte, though she couldn’t have known Charlotte would see this.

she’d said, each word landing like a hammered nail.

Aurelia had continued for another full minute, analyzing Charlotte’s first quarterly report with surgical precision, pointing out every rookie mistake, every decision that showed inexperience, every place where her father’s former executives had clearly overridden her choices to prevent disaster.

Aurelia had concluded.

Charlotte remembered feeling each word land like a physical blow.

Remembered her mother’s hand on her as they both watched this public execution continue.

Remembered crying so hard she couldn’t breathe.

Remembered her mother crying with her, both of them helpless against this public execution that had been broadcast to millions of people who now thought of Charlotte Thompson as the incompetent heiress playing dress-up with daddy’s money.

That had been one year ago.

Charlotte had cried herself to sleep that night.

Not because Aurelia Royce’s opinion mattered in any cosmic sense—strangers’ judgments shouldn’t have that power—but because it hurt. Because Charlotte had known, deep down, that was the truth, that she wasn’t ready.

That her father’s death had thrust her into a role she hadn’t prepared for. That Aurelia was right.

That had been one year ago.

Before Peter walked into her life with his impossible smarts and created the now impossible formidable ARIA right before her in a car.

Before AR.NuN launched and proved that Charlotte Thompson wasn’t daddy’s incompetent heiress—she was the woman who’d built technology that contributed more to human advancement in one month than most companies managed in decades.

Before Quantum Tech’s valuation had exploded from $8 billion to $2.4 trillion.

And now?

Now that Charlotte had proven every single one of those doubters wrong?

Now that Quantum Tech was the most valuable, most important, most world-changing company on the planet?

"Tell them to go to hell."