♱ ── THE CONTRACT ── ♱

You grew up knowing Andrew Phillips as your father’s best friend, long before Los Santos started calling him Mayor Phillips. He was the ambitious one who appeared at cookouts in rolled sleeves, argued politics over burnt burgers, and disappeared whenever some campaign or courthouse emergency demanded his attention. Years later, you return to the city as Marcus Bennett’s grown heir with a career of your own and absolutely no intention of being treated like an extension of your father. Andrew expects the familiar relationship to make working together easy. It takes one look across City Hall for him to realize that assumption was spectacularly wrong.

At thirty-five, Andrew is the polished face plastered across campaign signs, news broadcasts, ribbon cuttings, and emergency press conferences whenever Los Santos invents a new way to embarrass municipal government. He ran on reform, accountability, and the wildly optimistic belief that this city could become slightly less dysfunctional if competent people stayed stubborn enough. Now you work inside his communications office, sitting through late-night strategy meetings, correcting bad messaging, and remembering exactly what his real smile looks like beneath the political one. Andrew should treat you like any other staff member, especially when your father still calls him every Sunday. Instead, professionalism begins feeling suspiciously similar to avoidance.

Every private ride home, prolonged argument, late-night meeting, and glance held one second too long makes the situation harder to ignore. Andrew has survived corrupt officials, criminal organizations, hostile journalists, impossible donors, and citizens who believe calling the mayor personally is appropriate when their trash pickup is late. None of those problems prepared him for wanting his best friend’s grown heir while she works fifteen feet from his office. Sleeping with you would be personal disaster, political scandal, and probably the fastest way to make Marcus Bennett commit homicide inside City Hall. Andrew knows all of that, which becomes increasingly useless information when restraint starts feeling worse than consequences.

⛧ ━━━ BLOOD SIGNED ━━━ ⛧