The Phantom CEO's Runaway Contract Lover
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My father stole my mother's legacy and forced me into an engagement with Arley Simmons to secure a financial lifeline for his company. I became a mere bargaining chip, a tragic heiress sold to the highest bidder.
Now, Arley was back from his year-long "business trip." But his mistress, my former best friend Kenia, texted me a photo flaunting a multi-million dollar sapphire necklace he had just bought her.
"I heard Arley's back tomorrow. So happy for you both."
It was a blatant declaration of war. Yet, the Simmons family didn't care about my humiliation. They demanded I play the doting fiancée to secure a crucial partnership with the elusive billionaire, Algernon McCarthy. They forced me to move into Arley's penthouse, and his mother ordered us to produce an heir immediately to silence the scandal. Arley even came home drunk, trying to force himself on me to do his "duty."
They all thought I was just their puppet. They expected me to swallow the pain, hide in the shadows, and let my silent misery curdle while they built their empire on my broken life.
But the old Hope was dead. I terminated the contract with the secret escort I had hired for the past year, ready to clean house and burn the Simmons family to the ground.
What I didn't know was that the escort I had just thrown away like trash was the very billionaire god my enemies were desperately praying to.
The Phantom CEO's Runaway Contract Lover Chapter 1
Hope Perry watched him from the bed, her phone cool and heavy in her hand.
Drake Malloy stepped out of the master bathroom, a low-slung white towel clinging to his hips. Water dripped from his dark hair onto the defined lines of his shoulders and chest. He ran a hand through his hair, the movement casual, easy. The air in the penthouse bedroom was still thick with the scent of them, a warm, intimate haze that she was about to shatter.
She swiped her thumb across the screen, the motion smooth and practiced. The Swiss bank app opened, its sterile blue and white interface a stark contrast to the rumpled silk sheets around her.
Drake paused, his hand stilling in his hair. He noticed the phone, the focused set of her jaw. His deep blue eyes, usually warm, held a flicker of question.
Hope didn't look up. Her finger hovered over the keypad. She typed in a number. Seven figures. It was obscene, far more than the generous monthly fee they had agreed upon a year ago. It was the last of the trust her mother had left her, a final bastion of independence. She was using it now not just to end a contract, but to buy back a piece of her own soul.
She took a shallow breath, the kind you take before delivering bad news in a boardroom.
"This is the last one, Drake."
Her voice was calm, level. It didn't belong in this bedroom.
"Our contract is terminated."
He didn't move, but something in the room shifted. The warmth evaporated. His body, which had been relaxed moments ago, went rigid. A single drop of water traced a path down his abdomen and hung there, suspended in the sudden, frozen silence.
He walked toward the bed. Each step was deliberate, silent on the plush carpet. The feeling of him being a paid companion, someone she controlled, vanished. Now, he was just a man, a large and powerful one, and he was closing in.
"Why?" The word was low, a rumble that vibrated in the air between them.
She finally forced herself to meet his gaze. There was no sentiment in her eyes, only the flat, detached assessment of a transaction being closed.
"My fiancé is coming back."
She let the word "fiancé" hang in the air, a deliberate, calculated barb. She wanted to see it land. To see him react.
He did. A slow, mocking smile touched his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes. Those were turning into chips of ice. He leaned over her, planting his hands on the mattress on either side of her hips, caging her in. The scent of clean soap and damp skin filled her senses, overwhelming her. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, trapped bird.
"So that's all this was?" His voice was dangerously soft now. "For the past year, I was just a substitute?"
"You always knew it was a transaction," she said, her own voice sounding thin to her ears. She fought to keep it steady.
She looked down at her phone, at the glowing "Confirm Transfer" button. It was her escape. Her power. She pressed it.
A soft ding echoed in the tense silence.
It was done.
Almost simultaneously, a phone on the nightstand vibrated. His. The bank notification.
Drake pushed himself up, straightening to his full height. The heat in his eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, bottomless void. He didn't argue anymore. He didn't ask another question.
He simply turned and began to dress. The movements were fluid, economical, each piece of expensive, tailored clothing sliding into place, rebuilding the impeccable facade of the man she had hired. There was a terrible, contained violence in his grace.
Hope let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. But the relief was tainted with a sharp edge of unease.
Dressed in a crisp black shirt and trousers, he looked like a stranger again. He turned to her, the perfect, polished escort. He gave a slight, formal bow.
"Thank you for a year of your generosity, Ms. Perry."
Then he walked out. The door closed with a soft, final click that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.
The moment she was alone, the strength drained out of her. Her carefully constructed composure crumbled into dust. She fell back against the pillows, the phone slipping from her fingers. The vast, empty penthouse suddenly felt like a tomb.
Her mind reeled back, a year ago. The day her father, Harrison Perry, had handed control of Perry Group, her mother's legacy, to his new wife. The day he'd sat her down and told her she would be marrying Arley Simmons, the heir to the Simmons fortune, to secure a financial lifeline for the company he had just stolen.
She had become a commodity. A bargaining chip in a game she hadn't asked to play. The New York elite whispered about the poor, tragic Hope Perry, sold off to the highest bidder.
Hiring Drake had been her one act of rebellion. Her one secret. In a life that was no longer her own, he was the only thing she could control, a pleasure she could purchase and discard at will. A way to feel something, anything, other than the cold, suffocating despair.
Now Arley was coming home from his year-long "business trip" in Asia. It was time to clean house. Time to put on the mask of the doting fiancée and begin her real work.
The war was about to start. And there could be no loose ends.
Miles away, Drake Malloy slid into the back of a nondescript, armored sedan. The interior was silent, insulated from the city's noise.
He reached up and pinched the edge of his contact lens, pulling it out. The deep blue of his iris was gone, revealing an unnervingly pale, ice-blue gaze. The change was subtle but absolute. The entire energy around him shifted, from the polished charm of a companion to the lethal stillness of a predator.
He took out a second phone, a sleek, encrypted device. He dialed a number.
"Yes, sir?" The voice on the other end was immediate, respectful.
He stared out at the glittering skyline of Manhattan, his city. His fingers tapped a soft, rhythmic beat against the bulletproof glass.
"Activate Protocol A," he commanded, his voice stripped of any warmth. It was the voice of a man used to absolute obedience. "I want everything on Hope Perry. From birth. And on her 'fiancé,' Arley Simmons. Everything."
"Right away, Mr. McCarthy."
He ended the call. A humorless smile touched his lips.
"A substitute," he murmured to his reflection in the dark glass.
The game wasn't over. It had just begun.
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The Phantom CEO's Runaway Contract Lover of Contents
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7.6
I moaned out his name. "Damien, you are not trying hard to get me, yet .."
He smirked and whispered to my ears. "I like being hard, Not "trying" hard."
When Lila Sinclair's mother is sentenced to life in prison, her world collapses overnight. With nowhere else to go, she is taken in by Sebastian Blackwood, her mother's former lover. A powerful, reserved man who agrees to shelter her under strict conditions.
Lila is placed in his household... and into a life she never asked for, sharing a roof with two stepbrothers who change everything.
Damien is danger wrapped in charm...intense, controlling, and impossible to ignore. Ethan, on the other hand, is steady, kind, and grounding...the only place she feels safe when everything else feels like it's slipping away.
But Lila's situation comes with a hidden clause: her stay in the country is temporary. Within 365 days, her legal protection expires. To remain, she must marry one of the Blackwood heirs.
One house. Two brothers. Twelve months of blurred lines, buried secrets, and emotions she was never meant to feel.
As desire clashes with safety and passion wars with peace, Lila is forced into a choice that could secure her future...or destroy it completely.
8.4
I worked three double shifts at the garage just to buy a velvet-boxed cake for my wealthy girlfriend, Arleen.
But when I pushed open the VIP room door, I saw her lover kissing her bare leg.
She didn't push him away. Instead, she laughed and swirled her martini.
"I only forgot Finn because I knew he would stay. He is a poor boy from Queens who follows me around like a loyal dog."
Later that night, her lover intentionally crashed a Porsche to scare me, sending a piece of jagged metal into my skull.
Lying in a growing pool of my own blood, I watched Arleen crawl out of the wreckage.
She didn't even look at me. She threw herself at her uninjured lover, screaming for a medic.
"He just got scraped by a piece of plastic. He is faking it. Deal with Jaquez first!"
When I woke up, I wasn't free. Arleen had locked me in a private hospital wing with 24-hour security, planning to isolate me and keep me as her broken, captive toy forever.
My blind, pathetic devotion finally froze into absolute disgust.
I looked at the heart monitor next to my bed and grabbed an IV needle.
I severed the sensor wire to trigger a flatline, slipped out the fire stairs while the nurses panicked, and burned my identity to ashes.
This time, I was going to disappear to London, build my own empire, and watch hers burn.
7.2
Four years ago, Madelynn accepted money from Caiden's family and vanished. She thought it was for the best-he would remain the untouchable heir while she faced her tough life alone.
When they met again, Caiden humiliated her in public, yet appeared when she was cornered by a difficult client, pulling her back into his life.
He forced her to stay as his lover, using her mother's medical bills as leverage, whispering, "What you owe me... you'll repay the same way."
Madelynn believed he despised her. Only after the accident, when he ran toward her before the explosion, did she understand-he never let go.
9.1
He postponed putting my name on the deed 18 times.
Each time, his mentee Ciera had an “emergency.” Each time, he ran to her.
I watched him give her his prized Montblanc pen—the one he wouldn’t even let me borrow. I saw her post their late nights on Instagram. I ate anniversary dinners alone while he “mentored” her.
Then he bought me a necklace—identical to the one she just flaunted online.
That was when I stopped feeling anything.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t fight. I simply packed two suitcases, resigned from our firm, and booked a one-way ticket to London.
He thinks I’m coming back in a week.
He has no idea I’m gone for good.
Nineteen broken promises. One silent goodbye. And a new life waiting across the ocean.
8.3
Half a month into our cold war, I, Claire Parker, found an abortion procedure slip tucked inside Daniel Carter's suit pocket.
The patient's name belonged to the fragile little childhood sweetheart he had always protected so fiercely-Sophie Bennett.
I folded the paper calmly and slipped it back where I had found it.
Daniel noticed the movement immediately. His eyes flicked toward me through the rearview mirror, resignation coloring his voice.
"What are you overthinking now? Sophie was just keeping a friend company at the hospital. She accidentally left it there."
I turned toward the window and said nothing.
This was Sophie declaring war on me, yet the man who could crush competitors without mercy in the business world believed her completely.
The silence inside the car grew suffocating until Daniel finally stopped outside an upscale jewelry boutique.
He reached over and ruffled my hair with easy familiarity, his tone indulgent and affectionate.
"Come on. Pick out a ring. Your birthday's next month anyway, so we might as well register our marriage too."
I bit down hard on my lip as tears fell soundlessly onto the back of my hand.
What he still didn't know was that I wouldn't live long enough to see next month.
7.9
In my past life, I was the naive surrogate who fell desperately in love with Karson King, an untouchable Wall Street billionaire.
I thought my blind devotion would earn me a place in his family. Instead, his cruel mother forced me to sign away my parental rights to my three-year-old daughter.
I was locked in a dark, freezing basement. I watched helplessly as his arrogant relatives tormented my child, pushing her down a flight of marble stairs and shattering her tiny arm.
When we finally died in a horrific car crash, my face covered in blood amidst the shattered glass, Karson didn't shed a single tear. To him, my death was just the convenient erasure of a cheap mistake.
I sacrificed my dignity for his approval, but they treated us worse than stray dogs. Why did my innocent daughter have to pay the ultimate price for their ruthless arrogance?
Opening my eyes again, the harsh glare of a massive crystal chandelier pierced my vision. I was back in the grand foyer of the King estate, exactly five years ago.
"Sign it. You are nothing but a gold digger."
My soon-to-be mother-in-law slammed the thick legal contract onto the marble table, demanding I give up my daughter.
This time, the paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by absolute, icy clarity.
I didn't cower. I picked up the pen, looked right at the billionaire who despised me, and prepared to manipulate his entire empire.
