Chapter 5

Rita whispered into my ear and sounded happy and reliant on me. She sounded like she truly loved me. When I heard her call me "Hubby," I laughed sarcastically to myself.

Even Rita had forgotten that this was the first time she called me "Hubby" since Hudson joined the company. Our so‑called marriage had died a long time ago.

That was when Rita's phone suddenly rang. An anxious look flashed in her eye when she saw the name on her phone screen. She was about to say something when I gave her an understanding smile and spoke before she could. "Is there an emergency at the office? You should go. Work comes first."

Rita was taken aback, and she nodded with relief. She kissed me softly on the cheek. "I promise to make it up to you when the project goes live tomorrow."

She left in a hurry.

Rita had kissed me many times, and this time, I found it particularly disgusting. As a CEO, she should have known very well that the project was riddled with problems, and it could never go live successfully. She still chose to lie to me and even made me the scapegoat by signing over the company's shares to me.

After Rita left, I planned to contact my lawyers. Before I could, I saw an image Hudson sent to me. It was a photo of a hotel room card. I knew it was his way of showing off and laughing at my stupidity.

Hudson had never been this obvious before, no matter how haughty he was. He was being blatant now because he found out that I had signed the equity transfer agreement. He believed victory was his, as the company and Rita had chosen to abandon me.

They overlooked one thing.

Rita had been too much in a hurry to go on her date with Hudson, or she felt overconfident about me giving in to her request. She never thought about checking the agreement twice.

She had no idea that I did not sign my name on the agreement.

The next day, the project went live as planned. Just like in my past life, the project hit a high note with high volumes of downloads and top‑ups. Everyone believed the company was sure to make a profit.

Even our marketing director, who had always been cautious with our projects, texted me excitedly about how the company would be rich and what a pity it was that I was not around as the person who made all of this possible.

All I did was smile and say nothing, because I knew this was only a surface victory.

Not long after, the system started to malfunction with bugs. Numerous users, especially corporate clients who had major amounts of classified data kept in our system, started getting their information stolen, causing huge economic losses in the billions.

The company went into panic mode as the technical department went into a frenzy trying to solve the problem. The public relations department tried putting out fires everywhere, and our customer support phone lines could not stop ringing.

As for me, I sat calmly in a café and watched the people in the streets without feeling much about the situation.

That was when Rita called me. "Casey, you need to come back to the office right now. Something serious has happened. The project is facing problems that only you can solve."

Rita sounded anxious, and there was a tinge of fear and panic.

I told her I would return soon and hung up with a cold smirk on my face.

Rita had put up a fine performance, and she forgot one thing.

If she was really in the office, why were there no background noises on her end of the call when the project had gone haywire? I took my time returning to the office, and it looked exactly as I expected.