TITLE: THE BILLIONAIRE HEIRESS' SECRET BARGAIN

It was a haze of light and darkness on the journey back to her penthouse. With her body tight and the ghost of Rhett's voice still coiled in her ear, Sloane sat in the deafening silence of the town car. The crown is substantial. The words were a taunt, like a key turning in a lock that she had worked so hard to close for seven years. In addition to seeing right through her, he had dug into her past and extracted its darkest secret.

She gripped her phone tightly, feeling as though it were a live wire. It said nothing. For now, the board was dozing off. The tense moment at the event had not yet been broken down by the press. However, the quiet seemed false, like the eye of a hurricane.

Her personal cell buzzed as soon as the car door in the private garage closed behind her. Not the board. Not in the workplace. Cassidy.

As she strolled toward the elevator, Sloane brought the phone to her ear and swiped to answer. "Cass. It's late.

Switch on the financial news, Sloane. "Now." Sloane's blood ran cold when Cassidy's voice, which had been normally calm and polished, became shrill and urgent.

She made no inquiries. Her heels dug into the soft ivory carpet as she walked across the spacious living room of her condominium, tossing her handbag onto a sofa. The large screen on the wall flickered to life.

A sleek-haired anchor was stating, "...breaking news out of Austin," while a graphic featuring the Kingman Ventures logo was spinning dramatically next to him. " Rhett Kingman's venture fund recently made an unsolicited tender bid for a majority interest in Prescott Global, a shocking move that has rocked the market.

The world swayed. Sloane's throat tightened with each breath. The offer was made just minutes ago in a filing with the SEC and is valued at a substantial premium over today's closing price. According to analysts, it is one of the decade's most aggressive plays and a direct challenge to Sloane Prescott's leadership. On the screen, the numbers flashed. A staggering amount. An open, vicious attempt to seize control. This was not a corporate attack, a feint, or a myth. They were rolling a siege engine to her gates.

The harsh, relentless ring of her telephone reverberated around the quiet condominium. Then her second phone, the board's cell phone. They were awakening. The smell had been picked up by the dogs.

She watched the ticker at the bottom of the screen without moving. Red was the stock symbol for Prescott Global, PGH. In a terrifying, real-time freefall, the figures fell. With each tick of the clock, millions, then hundreds of millions, in market value evaporated into digital dust.

He hadn't waited. He hadn't plotted in secret. After leaving that gala, he had turned to face her and declared war. Then he had fired the initial missile.

With the phone still placed against Sloane's ear, Cassidy's voice sounded tinny. "Sloane? Are you present? There will be a panic on the board. We must."

"I see it," Sloane interrupted, her voice strangely quiet.

The screen's tumbling red numerals were overlaid by her reflection. She witnessed a woman in a silver gown standing by herself in a cage worth millions of dollars, watching the empire she had given up all for start to fall apart.

Then, however, something changed.

A hotter, sharper emotion began to burn away the initial shock, the frigid plunge of terror. An intense, untamed rush. The language she knew was this one. Not ghosts from the past, not whispers in a ballroom. The board was this. The market was this. There was a fight.

Sloane Prescott's lips formed a slow, perilous smile. It was a disagreeable expression. It was exposing one's teeth. It was a pledge.

PGH continued its downward slide on the screen.

But the real fight had only just begun, in her opinion.