The Phantom CEO's Runaway Contract Lover
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.
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Chapter 9
A few days later, the fragile truce in the apartment was shattered. Arley, frantic as he prepared for his meeting at the McCarthy tower, knocked Hope's jewelry box off a console table in the foyer.
Its contents scattered across the marble floor. A single, heavy platinum cufflink with a unique, unfamiliar crest rolled to a stop by his shoe.
It wasn't his.
The "lover" Hope had taunted him with. The rage came roaring back.
He stormed into her study and slapped the cufflink down on her desk.
"Whose is this?" he demanded.
Hope froze. Her heart gave a sickening lurch; she had forgotten all about it, a foolish, dangerous oversight in her scorched-earth campaign to erase him. It was Drake's. He'd left it here once. She couldn't tell Arley it belonged to a high-class escort. So she played the hand he'd dealt her.
She calmly picked up the cufflink and closed her hand around it. "That's none of your business."
Her calmness was gasoline on his fire. "None of my business? You are my fiancée! You bring another man's things into our home?"
He raised a hand, then remembered the knee, the prenup, the non-existent recording. He dropped it, shaking with impotent fury.
Hope saw his fear and knew she had him.
"Are you sure you want to make a scene about this, Arley?" she asked softly.
"Damn right I do!"
"Okay," she said with a shrug. "Let's. Take this cufflink to your father. Tell everyone your fiancée has a lover. The press will have a field day."
She took a step closer, her voice dropping. "And they won't just write about me. They'll dig. They'll find out who this mystery man is. And in the process, they'll find everything there is to know about you and Kenia Spencer."
Arley went pale.
"Imagine the headlines, Arley. The mistress, exposed. Her name, her family, her reputation, dragged through the mud for the entire world to see." She leaned in, her voice a whisper. "Are you willing to sacrifice Kenia on the altar of your own wounded pride?"
She had found his one true weakness. It wasn't his company, or his father, or his own reputation. It was Kenia.
He looked at her, his eyes filled with a new kind of fear. A fear of her. He was defeated.
"You're a bitch," he spat, before turning and leaving the room.
Hope let out a shaky breath. She had won. But as she looked at the cufflink in her palm, a strange annoyance pricked at her. A loose end she had failed to tie up.
She had no way of knowing that the crest engraved on it was the private emblem of the McCarthy family's inner circle.
And that Arley Simmons was, at that very moment, on his way to meet its owner.
In a minimalist, brutally modern conference room on the 100th floor of the McCarthy Tower, Algernon waited. He adjusted the cuffs of his plain, unadorned shirt, having deliberately left any identifying jewelry or accessories in his private safe. He had instructed his assistant to set the meeting with one small change.
He would not be introduced as Algernon McCarthy.
He would be introduced as the Director of Project Acquisitions. A man named Mr. Alistair.
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7.6
The heavy prison gates clanged shut, ending three years. I scanned the empty lot for Julian, my fiancé. Deserted.
Biting December wind my only welcome. Calls to Julian, father, mother: unanswered/disconnected.
Shivering, Julian's tracker showed an unfamiliar Long Island estate. A freezing cab left me penniless; I walked through the blizzard. Through a mansion window, I saw Julian, my stepsister Clara, a small boy—a perfect family. Julian, who hated children, doted on him, and Clara wore *my* engagement ring.
I overheard Julian's call: he, my father, conspired to frame me for Clara’s medical error, saving their company and future. My family hadn't just abandoned me; they plotted my destruction.
A delayed text from Julian popped up, lying about a "cross-border meeting," promising to pick me up tomorrow. Despair vanished, replaced by a cold, terrifying smile. Typing "Understood," I turned from their stolen life, walking into the blizzard, fueled by burning rage.
9.6
Minutes before announcing her grand engagement, Darla caught her fiancé sleeping with her stepsister.
She publicly exposed them and canceled the wedding on the spot.
Furious, her adoptive mother demanded Darla marry a fifty-five-year-old predator to save their broken business deal.
"If you don't do exactly what I say, I'll let your father rot in prison for the rest of his life."
Desperate to escape her family's control, Darla grabbed a massive, intimidating hotel security guard she bumped into in the hallway.
She shoved all the cash in her purse at him—eight hundred dollars—and begged him to fake-marry her.
They signed the papers at City Hall that same day.
But the nightmare didn't end.
That evening, Darla received a cold phone call from the state penitentiary.
Her father had been found dead in his cell, and her company, owned by her ex-fiancé's family, fired her immediately.
They had taken everything from her, leaving her completely broken and sobbing on the floor of her tiny apartment.
She thought she had nothing left but a broke, fake husband to keep her company.
She had no idea that the "poor security guard" holding her in his arms was actually Anson Prince, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And he was already making the calls to tear her abusers' empires to the ground.
8.9
At my million-dollar wedding to the Hoffman heir, the priest was interrupted by a ringing phone.
My groom, Elijah, didn't silence it. He answered it right at the altar, yanked his arm from my grasp, and walked out because his "true love" Jalyn needed him.
I was left standing alone in front of three hundred elite guests, blinded by mocking camera flashes. My own mother rolled her eyes in disgust, later threatening to freeze my trust fund and sell me to a notorious playboy to recoup her losses. Elijah even had the nerve to call me, demanding I take the blame for the canceled wedding to save his PR, while live news feeds showed him cradling a fragile Jalyn in the hospital.
I had spent two years bending over backward to be his perfect bride, only to be discarded like trash. What made it sicker was finding out that Jalyn's sudden "medical emergency" was actually a ruptured cyst caused by having vigorous sex with Elijah right before he walked down the aisle.
I refused to let them destroy me.
Kicking off my six-inch heels, I stepped down from the altar and walked straight to the back row where Cristian Lowe sat. He was the ruthless iceberg of Wall Street and Elijah's most terrifying rival.
I looked up at his sharp jawline and asked the craziest question of my life.
"Will you marry me?"
He stood up, his dark eyes locking onto mine.
"As you wish."
8.7
"You're leaving," Lorenzo said softly.
Ivy straightened her spine and raised her chin. "I am. I'm getting out of this place even if it means climbing over the front gates. I can't stay here anymore. I'm leaving!"
"You can't," Lorenzo said flatly. "Not now."
"Watch me," Ivy hissed, brushing past him.
Lorenzo stepped in her way and grabbed her by the arms-not roughly, but firmly.
"I mean it, Ivy. You can't leave," he said tightly.
She struggled against his grip, her bag falling to the floor with a thud.
"Let me go, Lorenzo! I don't belong here. This place is insane. Your family is insane!"
"You belong to me," he said sharply, eyes burning into hers. "And it's my job to protect what's mine."
"I don't want to be yours," Ivy cried. "I want to be free! I want to live!"
Something shifted in Lorenzo's face. He looked at her then, not as an obligation, not as a pawn, but as a person. A frightened, strong, beautiful woman who had been caught in a storm she never asked for. And something in him cracked.
Lorenzo reached down and cupped her face with both hands. Ivy flinched at first but didn't pull away. His thumbs wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks.
"I never wanted to hurt you," he said quietly.
Her lower lip trembled. "Then let me go..."
"I can't," he whispered.
And then, without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her.
***************
Ivy Wesley believed that marrying a wealthy stranger would be her golden escape from a life of struggle. Lorenzo Martinelli was supposed to be her way out: her fresh start, her answer to every prayer whispered in the dark.
But the moment the mansion doors shut behind her, Ivy understood the truth. She hadn't stepped into a fairy tale. She had walked straight into the lion's den.
The whispers about the Martinelli family's ties to the Mafia aren't just rumors; they're real, and now Ivy is bound to them by a ring on her finger and secrets she can never unlearn. There is no undoing this choice. No clean exit. Not after what she's seen. Not after what she knows.
Surrounded by dangerous alliances, ruthless power plays, and truths sharp enough to draw blood, Ivy finds herself caught in a world where trust is a luxury and loyalty can be lethal. Yet in the middle of the chaos, something even more unexpected takes root: a love she never planned for, never prepared for, and may not survive.
Now Ivy faces an impossible choice: run while she still can, or stand her ground beside the man who could destroy her as easily as he protects her. In a world where betrayal lurks behind every polished smile and devotion can cost a life, can their love endure... or will it be the very thing that brings everything crashing down?
9.3
To escape my abusive adoptive mother selling me to a loan shark for $50,000, I rushed to City Hall to marry a blind date.
In a blind panic, I grabbed the wrong man.
He was Julian Cardenas IV, a billionaire CEO who desperately needed a fake wife to dodge a corporate arranged marriage. We signed the papers on the spot.
He became my legal shield. He moved me into his pristine penthouse and secretly protected me from my family's violent threats. When I broke down crying in the freezing cold, he quietly left me hot cocoa. For the first time in my life, I felt safe.
But then, Julian overheard me complaining to my sister about my constantly breaking-down car, groaning that I had to "get rid of this baby four times."
He thought I meant abortions.
The man who was slowly melting my frozen heart instantly turned to ice. He threw away the dinner he had specially bought for me, his eyes filled with absolute disgust and blinding rage.
I was left entirely confused and terrified. Why did my savior suddenly look at me like I was the most repulsive thing in the world? What had I done to deserve this sudden cruelty?
I thought this fake marriage was my ticket out of hell. I didn't realize I had just locked myself in a cage with a furious, ruthless CEO who now wanted to destroy me.
9.2
Arla was supposed to marry Clinton Freeman, the perfect fiancé who had promised to love her and protect her five-year-old son.
But instead, the cold steel of a dagger pierced her chest.
As she collapsed onto the freezing basement floor, she watched her adoptive sister Blair laugh.
"Look at her," Blair sneered, kicking her son's small, blue, lifeless body.
Clinton stood there, calmly wiping the bloody blade on a pristine handkerchief.
In her dying moments, the horrifying truth became clear. Her fiancé and her adoptive family had been plotting all along to steal her massive trust fund.
To break her, they had secretly tortured her child. Clinton had watched Blair pierce the little boy's arms with sewing needles, rewarding him with candy to keep him silent.
Arla's lungs burned with the taste of copper and ash.
She couldn't understand why the family she trusted could be so monstrous, or why they had to brutally murder an innocent child just for money.
The darkness swallowed her whole, drowning her in suffocating hatred and absolute despair.
Then, she gasped for air.
The concrete floor was gone, replaced by the silk sheets of a hotel penthouse suite.
Arla had been reborn to the exact night six years ago—the very day Blair first dragged her son into the dark attic.
This time, she picked up a solid silver letter opener, ready to burn them all to the ground.