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.

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.

The family meeting was in Sterling's study. He threw a stack of printouts onto his desk. Gossip columns. Financial news sites.

Simmons Heir and Fiancée on the Rocks?

Tension at Hamptons Gala Raises Questions.

"At the exact moment we need to project stability to McCarthy, this is what you give me?" Sterling's voice was a low growl.

Arley's mother, Meredith, a woman with perfectly coiffed hair and eyes like a hawk, spoke up. "The board needs to see a united front, Arley. Especially with Portia making her own play for this deal. There can be no scandals."

Her sharp gaze landed on Hope.

"Which is why your father and I have decided. Hope, you'll be moving in with Arley. Today."

"No," they both said in unison.

"This is not a discussion," Sterling said flatly. "It's a directive. You will move into the Park Avenue penthouse. You will be seen by the press. You will act like a couple in love."

Meredith added the final, chilling instruction. "And Arley, it's time you and Hope started working on the next generation. A pregnancy would silence all rumors and solidify your position."

Hope felt sick. They wanted to use a child as a press release.

Arley, for all his dislike of her, hesitated. An heir. The ultimate trump card against Portia. He looked at Hope, his eyes filled with cold calculation.

She knew she couldn't refuse. They would just apply pressure through her father, and she'd be forced into it anyway. Better to gain some ground.

"Fine," she said, her voice clear and steady. "But I have a condition."

She looked directly at Sterling. "I want a position at Simmons Group. In the marketing department. I want a front-row seat to watch Arley win this McCarthy deal."

She needed to be inside the fortress to find its weaknesses.

Sterling and Meredith exchanged a look. It was a small price to pay to keep her under their thumb. They agreed.

The deal was struck. She was being moved into a gilded cage.

That afternoon, the movers were at her apartment. She directed them with a numb detachment. When they got to her bedroom, she looked at the large king-sized bed, the stage for her year-long act of rebellion with Drake. A wave of irritation washed over her.

"This bed," she told the foreman. "Throw it out."

In his office, Algernon's assistant delivered the daily report on Hope.

"Ms. Perry moved into Arley Simmons's Park Avenue penthouse this afternoon, sir. It appears to be at the family's request."

Algernon's hand, signing a document, stopped mid-stroke.

"Living together?" The question was quiet, but laced with ice.

"Yes, sir. And our source inside the Simmons household reports that Meredith Simmons is pressuring them to produce an heir as soon as possible."

Crack.

The expensive fountain pen in Algernon's hand snapped in two, splattering black ink across the document.

A savage, primal jealousy ripped through him. His. She was his. The thought of her living with another man, of them wanting her to bear another man's child... it was unacceptable.

He stood and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down on the city. His city. His kingdom.

And his queen was in another man's castle.

He would not allow it.