The Phantom CEO's Runaway Contract Lover

The first thing Hope did the next day was take out the burner phone. The one she had only ever used to contact Drake.

His name was the only entry in the contacts.

Drake.

She deleted it.

A prompt appeared. Block this number?

She tapped Yes.

Then she went into the settings, wiped the phone, and restored it to factory settings. For good measure, she dropped it into a Ziploc bag, poured in half a bottle of bleach, and buried it at the bottom of the trash.

Done. Erased. He was a tool she was finished with, a loose end now tied up.

She opened her laptop and started her research. McCarthy Global Holdings. Project Skydome. She didn't need to understand the deal. She just needed to find a way to make Arley fail.

Across town, at the Simmons Group headquarters, Arley was in hell. He hadn't slept. He was fielding a constant barrage of hysterical texts from Kenia while trying to prepare for the most important pitch of his life.

He slammed his fist on the conference table. "This is all you could find?"

Projected on the screen were a handful of grainy, long-lens photos of a man's back, a shadowed profile getting into a car. The press called him "The Ghost of Wall Street."

"I don't care what it takes," Arley roared at his terrified team. "I want a meeting with Algernon McCarthy within the week!"

In her own office down the hall, Portia was more methodical. She was on the phone with a high-level headhunter, arranging to poach a mid-level executive from McCarthy's European office. Anything for an edge.

The entire Simmons family was obsessed, consumed by the need to impress a man they had never seen. A man they treated like a god.

At the top of the McCarthy tower, Algernon was in a video conference with his Zurich team.

His assistant approached silently and placed a new, sealed phone on his desk.

"Sir," the assistant said, his voice low. "The number you were using... it's no longer able to reach Ms. Perry."

Algernon held up a hand, silencing the Swiss banker on the screen. He picked up the new phone, which was a clone of his "Drake" device, and dialed her number.

A recorded voice, sterile and impersonal, answered. The number you have dialed is no longer in service.

His jaw tightened.

She hadn't just blocked him. She had scorched the earth. Thrown away like a piece of trash.

A cold, unfamiliar anger burned in his chest.

He looked down at the Simmons Group proposal he had planned to ignore for another week.

He changed his mind.

He uncapped a heavy fountain pen and scrawled his signature across the bottom of the letter.

"Reply to Simmons Group," he told his assistant, his voice dangerously calm. "Tell them I'm intrigued. My Director of Project Acquisitions will meet with them next week."

He would join their little game.

He wanted to be there. He wanted to see Hope Perry's face when she realized the toy she'd thrown away was the very god her enemies were praying to.