Beneath Her Bastard Boss

Chapter 119

Chapter 119

Nicole had never considered herself a villain.

She wasn’t reckless. She wasn’t stupid. Everything she did, she did with purpose. With strategy. With the long game in mind and right now? The long

game was Luca.

He wasn’t in love with her, fine. He didn’t have to be. Men like Luca De Santis didn’t marry for love, anyway. They married for legacy. For business. For alignment. And Nicole had aligned herself with his world for almost six years. She knew his schedule, his temper, his instincts, his needs and wants. She’d bled for his empire while women floated in and out of his life like moths. He had no staying power, that’s why in the end he would marry, not for love.

But then Luca had bought Cyber10 out of the blue, hunting for some pregnant mistress in the USA. How… pedestrian and common. But from what she could gauge, he hadn’t found her. Nicole was sure that if the woman had been here and couldn’t get money from Luca, she would’ve aborted the baby.

Then there was Sutton. She was beautiful… like enough to stop traffic. Nicole hadn’t wanted her around when Luca turned up. He had an eye for pretty

faces.

Nicole didn’t know why she had almost been impossible to get rid of. After some digging into her background, she had a coding education but no work experience. Whatever. She didn’t belong in a development role and a security tech company. She looked like she belonged on a magazine cover, not

around Luca.

Even pregnant, she had this… presence. That was the problem. Sutton didn’t try. She didn’t flirt. She didn’t even smile that much. But she walked into a

room and men looked up. Even gay, Jake was impressed by her.

And Luca? He was acting differently since arriving at Cyber10. Nicole was worried he did have a thing for Sutton. Nicole had thought about hunting down the model he had knocked up so his focus would move away from Sutton. Because in the end a model would only bore him.

He was careful about his interest. The way he started lingering too long after meetings. The way his eyes followed her, like she was a puzzle he hadn’t

solved yet.

There was just something about Sutton. It wasn’t just her looks.

And Nicole hated her for all of it. Luca should have been hers by now.

she felt it–that quiet, beautiful threat. Sutton didn’t even

dangerous.

didn’t care. Even though she had tried to find

Sutton had to go.

had spent too many years curating this life, this access, this closeness to Luca. No one knew him better. Not really. Not like she did. She kept his world spinning. She knew what

lately.

another employee. She

Or she will be.

started fixing problems, Nicole

It had to stop.

opportunity to hurt Sutton where it would really matter by showing up her

hadn’t even needed to get her hands dirty. The freelancer she found had the skills. She had the plan. All it took was a cloned

the keyboard. Nicole passed him the

loyalty. Just his fingerprints on the crime. If he was caught, she would take care of

corrupt Kingston’s data enough to cause panic, Roman Kingston would question Luca’s leadership. Luca would

It was perfect.

Sutton would be kicked

at the end of the day, Nicole didn’t want a fight, but she played dirty

Nicole wanted Luca.

didn’t want competition.

try to be

she slipped out of

She was just making

She wasn’t going to wait much longer. She had a plan to get him into

she had just done. This man might have agreed to help Nicole, but he was here for his own reasons. Nicole’s quest

She whispered, “Shit.”

“What now?”

get into your systems at the same time… Do you have any cyber enemies I should know about?” She didn’t look up, working on keeping the hacker

line of work, of course, I have‘

to find out who he is first,” she muttered, eyes darting through lines of corrupted metadata. “He’s good… but not good