The Phantom CEO's Runaway Contract Lover

Hope's finger pressed the call button.

The phone barely completed a single ring before Kenia answered, her voice thick with a hopeful, tearful tremor. "Arley?"

Arley gestured with his head, a smug jerk, for Hope to start her apology.

Hope brought the phone to her ear, her eyes fixed on the dark garden beyond the terrace, not on him. She let out a soft, breathy sigh, a sound deliberately designed to sound like it came after a kiss.

"Kenia, darling..."

Her voice was a low, husky purr.

On the other end, silence. Arley's victorious smile froze on his face.

"I'm sorry," Hope continued in that same intimate, post-coital tone, "Arley's a little... preoccupied right now."

She let out another small, calculated gasp for air. "He's so impatient to have me fulfill my... wifely duties. You understand."

A strangled noise came from the phone, followed by a hysterical shriek. "ARLEY! YOU BASTARD! YOU LET HER TOUCH YOUR PHONE!"

Arley's face cycled through shades of white, red, and purple. He lunged for the phone, but Hope sidestepped him easily.

"Don't be like that, Kenia," she cooed into the receiver. "We'll be done soon. I'll have him call you back when he's... cooled down. If you can still get ahold of him, that is."

A final, gut-wrenching sob, and Kenia hung up.

Hope tossed the phone back to a stunned Arley. She smiled, an expression of pure, angelic innocence. "Well. It seems she didn't want my apology after all."

He stood there, trembling with a rage so profound he was speechless. His phone began to buzz violently in his hand, Kenia's name flashing on the screen again and again.

He had to go. He had to fix this.

"You... you just wait," he finally managed to choke out, before turning and storming off the terrace, a man running to put out a fire he had started himself.

Hope watched him go, a genuine, triumphant laugh bubbling up from her chest.

Later that evening, in Sterling Simmons Sr.'s mahogany-paneled study, the mood was grim. Sterling, Arley, Portia, and Hope were assembled.

"The single most important objective for Simmons Group this year," Sterling announced, his voice like gravel, "is securing the exclusive North American distribution rights for McCarthy Global's 'Project Skydome'."

He looked from Arley to Portia. "Whoever lands this deal will have a definitive voice on the board."

It was a trial by fire for the position of heir.

Arley, still rattled from his disastrous phone call, puffed up his chest. "I'll handle it, Father. I'll secure the meeting."

Hope listened quietly, filing the information away. McCarthy. Another weakness to exploit. Another way to trip Arley up.

She had no idea.

She had no idea that the reclusive, phantom-like president of McCarthy Global, the man her enemies were desperate to court... was the same man she had paid for a year of his time, and dismissed with a bank transfer just a few days ago.

In his office, Algernon watched the final drone footage. Arley fleeing in a panic. Hope, alone on the terrace, a victorious smile gracing her lips.

A flicker of pride, possessive and dark, went through him. His girl was a fighter.

But then his brow furrowed. She had invented a lover to provoke Arley. This imaginary man... annoyed him. Greatly.

His assistant entered. "Sir, the official partnership request from Simmons Group has arrived."

Algernon's ice-blue eyes were fixed on the image of Hope's triumphant smile.

"Let them wait," he said.