The CEO's Accidental Wife

With John Carter sitting on the bus, the rest of the team kept quiet.

Hannah's phone ringing was painfully loud in the silence.

When she helped him back to his room last night, her phone had been in her pants pocket. It must have dropped out when her clothes came off. In the aftermath of their passion, she had completely forgotten about it.

Once the initial panic wore off, reason returned. John hadn't taken the bus by chance today. He was waiting for his target to walk straight into the trap. Maybe he knew she was the woman from last night, maybe he didn't, but the moment the ringtone blasted through the bus, combined with Tina's loud commentary, there was no doubt left. He knew.

She had practically turned herself in.

Tina stared at her with wide, confused eyes, gesturing frantically toward the front. What is going on?

"Stop calling," Hannah whispered, pressing down on Tina's hand. She couldn't handle any more embarrassment, let alone figure out how to explain this.

"Seriously, what is going on? Why does Mr. Carter have your phone?" Tina asked in a low, gossipy hush.

"I..."

Before Hannah could come up with a lie, John turned around in his seat, scaring her half to death.

"Is this your number?" John asked, lifting her phone toward Tina. The screen displayed her nickname for Tina: Crazy Tina.

Tina immediately nodded like an eager puppy. "Yes, Mr. Carter! Hannah lost her phone, so I was calling it to help her find it."

Tina even dropped her name. There was no way Hannah could vanish into thin air now.

"Your phone?" John's gaze shifted directly to Hannah. "You were carrying luggage earlier. You must have dropped it on the seat up front."

His tone was completely calm, but his deep eyes held a clear, hidden message. His stare carried that familiar, bottomless intensity unique to him, one she could never quite read.

"Oh! Yes, I was so careless. Thank you, Mr. Carter."

Despite her racing heart, Hannah bowed her head repeatedly in gratitude. She reached out with both hands to take the phone, playing along with his act.

Having smoothly defused the awkward scene, John turned back around.

Hannah stared at her screen, pretending to scroll, but she didn't process a single word. The way John had handed the phone back was his subtle way of warning her. His tone made one thing crystal clear: Last night ends here.

She was an adult. She could handle it. She had planned on treating that night as nothing more than a passing dream anyway.

Still, having her name officially noted on his radar left her uneasy. Was it a good thing or a bad thing?

She tried to reassure herself. A CEO managing a massive conglomerate was far too busy to waste time thinking about a temporary mistake.

Two weeks passed without a single glimpse of John. When company-wide meetings occurred, they were strictly for high-level executives, while she remained a mere intern waiting to hear if her contract would be renewed.

Aside from worrying about her job at Carter International, thoughts of John occasionally drifted into her mind.

Specifically, she kept remembering the quiet heat of that night. After all, it had been her very first time.

Then, her desk phone rang.

"Hannah Baker?" the voice asked.

Her heart skipped a beat, her mind going completely blank. Why did the voice sound so familiar?

Ever since that night, his deep, magnetic voice telling her to turn off the lights had been playing on repeat in her head. She knew that voice instantly.

"Yes?"

"Come to my office."

"What?"

"Come to my office," he repeated clearly.

"Oh. Right away."

Her heart hammered against her ribs. It couldn't be about work. The gap between their positions was huge, and he would never contact an intern directly for company business.

Was it about the retreat? Was he going to fire her to keep what happened from spreading?

When she knocked and stepped into his office, John wasn't indifferent like he had been on the bus. He was scanning her from head to toe.

His intense stare threw her into total disarray. Yet, looking into those dark, unreadable eyes, a foolish part of her couldn't stop staring back.

She looked at him with an undeniable trace of longing.

John seemed slightly thrown off by her gaze. "Is there something on my face?" he asked.

Hannah snapped back to reality. "Huh?"

John didn't bother following up. Instead, he looked straight at her and asked, "How about marrying me?"

Hannah's brows knitted in confusion. "Huh?"

His question was a million miles away from anything she had imagined.