Lahat ng Kabanata ng Burning Desires (An Open Marriage With The Billionaire): Kabanata 111 - Kabanata 120

SOPHIA LANCASTERI walked into the massive penthouse and locked the front door behind me. I walked straight to the glass bar cart in the corner of the living room. I picked up a crystal glass. I grabbed a bottle of Daniel's favorite, most expensive scotch. I poured a generous amount of the liquid into the glass.Just as I set the bottle down, I heard the soft ding of the elevator in the hallway. The front door clicked and swung open.Daniel walked in. He dropped his briefcase on the floor, he looked terrible. His dark hair was messy. His tie was pulled loose around his neck. He had dark circles under his eyes from the long flight from London. But even though he looked completely exhausted, he still carried that same arrogant, proud look on his face.He looked up and saw me standing by the bar cart with his drink. A huge, relieved smile spread across his tired face."There she is," Daniel said. His voice was thick and rough.He walked across the living room and stopped right in front o

SOPHIA LANCASTERI stepped out of the elevator and walked down the quiet, softly lit hallway of Julian Thorne’s penthouse. I walked toward the doors at the end of the hall. They were partially open, revealing the warm, flickering orange light of a fire.I pushed the door open and stepped into Julian’s library. Julian was sitting in a deep leather armchair near the fire. He was wearing a simple, dark tailored shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, completely relaxed. He was holding a thick book in one hand and a glass of dark red wine in the other.He heard my footsteps and slowly lowered his book.A soft, warm smile touched his lips. He did not say a word at first. He just looked at me, his dark eyes taking in my presence with a quiet, steady appreciation. He set his book down on the small table next to him and stood up."Sophia," Julian said. His voice was smooth, calm, and perfectly measured. "You look beautiful tonight. Please, come sit."He gestured to the empty leather

DANIEL HAWTHORNEI stared at the bright screen of my phone. My hand was shaking violently.The crystal glass of scotch I poured at six in the morning was sitting untouched on my desk. The penthouse was completely quiet, but the inside of my head was screaming.I read the email again. I read it three times, hoping the words would somehow change. But they did not change. The cold, hard text stared right back at me, mocking my entire existence.Mr. Hawthorne, the Titan Servers acquisition has failed. An anonymous LLC stepped in at 3:00 AM Eastern Time. They bypassed the standard bidding process and offered a massive, all-cash buyout directly to the Titan owners. The deal is closed. The servers are gone. We are waiting for your next orders.I threw my phone across the room. It smashed against the stone wall and dropped to the floor with a loud crack."Damn it!" I roared into the empty study.I grabbed the edge of my desk and breathed heavily. My chest felt incredibly tight. The air in the

SOPHIA LANCASTERI sat at my desk and stared at the blank screen of my computer. It was Wednesday morning. The Lancaster Innovations building was buzzing with the usual noise, but inside my CTO office, it was completely quiet.I took a slow sip of my coffee. I was waiting. Sometime during the night, Richard Sterling’s private IT investigators started sweeping the company servers. Daniel ordered the witch hunt, but I was the one who provided the witch.It was incredibly easy to do. As the Chief Technology Officer, I had absolute access to every digital footprint in the building. Late last night, while Ethan was cooking me dinner and completely distracting my heart, my pre-programmed codes were doing my dirty work. I created a fake, highly encrypted digital trail. I planted fake emails and masked the routing numbers to make it look like they came directly from the IP address of Marcus Vance.Marcus was Daniel’s Vice President of Finance. He was also Daniel’s most loyal, dedicated ally.

SOPHIA LANCASTERThe air inside the server control room was cold. It was exactly eight-fifty on Friday morning. In ten minutes, the stock market would officially open. In ten minutes, Daniel was going to launch the new AI software to the entire world.The control room was massive. It was located on the highest secure floor of the Lancaster Innovations building. The entire front wall was covered in huge, glowing digital screens. The screen on the left showed the global server stability. The screen on the right was locked onto our live company stock price.There were about twenty engineers and executives in the room. Everyone was completely silent. The nervous energy was so thick I could hardly breathe. I stood near the back of the room, holding a hot cup of coffee I had not taken a single sip of. I was running on zero sleep. Every time I closed my eyes last night, all I could hear was the sharp click of that leather shoe on the floor. Someone had stood in the dark corridor of the hotel