As dawn bathed Genoa City in soft gold, Phyllis Summers returned from Washington D.C. not as a victor, but as a woman with unfinished business. Rejected by Aristotle Dumas’s office and denied an invitation to the most elite gala in France, Phyllis was determined not to accept the snub lying down. With Amanda Sinclair’s network exhausted and diplomacy having failed, she turned to her true power: ambition sharpened by vengeance.
By the time Nick Newman arrived at Society for lunch on June 3rd, still reeling from the attack on his father, Phyllis had already plotted her next move. Slipping into the booth across from him with the grace of a practiced seductress, she offered him both comfort and companionship. But underneath the surface of her concerned expression was a carefully constructed trap. With honeyed words and suggestive charm, she maneuvered herself into the Paris guest list through Nick’s good graces.
Though he protested, claiming he had no plus-one and that Dumas was strict with security, Phyllis didn’t blink. She had no intention of waiting for permission. As Nick departed, she began activating her network. Amanda’s contacts, a borrowed staff badge, and a reservation at a boutique hotel overlooking Dumas’s villa. Piece by piece, Phyllis reconstructed her infiltration plan, transforming herself from pariah to phantom.
On the evening of June 13th, dressed in a silk blouse and slacks, ID clipped, Phyllis moved like a ghost through staff corridors of the French estate. Inside, dignitaries and moguls raised crystal flutes beneath floating lanterns while Aristotle Dumas, regal in white, toasted global unity. Unbeknownst to him, a woman he had rebuffed now circled his perimeter.
Phyllis found her opening. Slipping through a vine-covered arch, she entered the courtyard with poise and calculation. Her eyes locked briefly with Nick’s across the crowd—surprise etched in his features, determination in hers. She advanced, delivered a velvet compliment to Dumas about his Venetian glass displays, and, just like that, was inside his circle.
But Phyllis didn’t come for champagne.
Minutes later, under the guise of seeking the ladies’ room, she accessed the estate’s restricted archives. There, she unearthed “Operation Orpheus,” a dossier laced with secrets capable of toppling alliances from Genoa City to Brussels. She pocketed it, and under moonlight and jasmine petals, returned to Nick’s side, slipping the folder into his hand with a whispered, “Read this.”
Phyllis Summers had rewritten her own story—from dismissed suitor to the architect of disruption. As Dumas raised his final toast, unaware of the storm she’d loosed beneath his roof, Phyllis stood alone on the terrace, triumphant.
