BILLIE’S POV

Evan looked at me and smiled slightly. I met his eyes without flinching. I was determined to stay perfectly composed in front of him.

“Thank you, Ms. Jones,” he said smoothly. “It’s a pleasure to be here.”

The board members rose one by one to greet him with the respect men like Evan Collins naturally commanded. Hands were shaken, names exchanged, and polite introductions filled the room.

I stayed seated long enough to steady myself, then stood and gathered the documents in front of me. Business. That was all this was.

Ethan stepped forward with an easy smile. “Mr. Collins, welcome to Winston Watch Company. I’m Ethan Winston, the CEO of this company.”

Evan accepted his handshake. “I know who you are, Mr. Winston. You’ve built something impressive here.”

Ethan let out a short laugh. “That means a lot coming from you.”

“I don't flatter people,” Evan replied, holding his gaze. “It’s simply the truth.”

I watched them carefully. Evan had always known how to make people feel important without giving away too much of himself. It was part of what made him dangerous. He could walk into any room, say very little, and still make it feel as though the conversation belonged to him.

“Please, have a seat,” Ethan said, gesturing toward the chair across from mine.

Of course that was where Evan chose to sit.

I lowered myself back into my chair and arranged my notes in front of me, though I no longer needed them. I had memorized every number, projection, and discussion point before leaving home this morning. What I had not prepared for was Evan Collins showing up in person.

As I stared down at the folders, a sudden, suffocating weight pressed down on my chest. For six long years, I really believed I was healed. I built a new life after he left, convincing myself that the old memories and the tears I used to cry in my quiet apartment belonged to a girl who no longer existed.

But seeing him sitting directly across from me ruined that belief in one second.

The walls I spent years building around my heart completely fell apart. Looking at his sharp jaw and familiar dark eyes dragged the old pain right back to the surface. It was not a dull ache. It was the exact, blinding pain of the night he threw me away, making it feel like no time had passed at all.

The strange feeling of our broken bond burned in my veins again, reminding me exactly how it felt to be treated like I wasn't good enough just because I was human. The rejection felt bitter in my throat. I wanted to hate him, but the deep wound in my chest proved he could still hurt me. I was trapped with the man who broke my heart, and my body felt like he was cutting me all over again.

I tightened my jaw and pressed my fingers flat against the cool wood table. I would not let myself shake. I was a professional, and I would do my job perfectly, even if I was breaking down inside.

Ethan cleared his throat. “Thank you, everyone, for making time on short notice. As you all know, Collins Group has expressed serious interest in investing in Winston Watch Company. This meeting is to discuss the proposal, our expansion plans, and how both parties may move forward if the terms are agreeable.”

A few board members nodded. One opened a folder while another reached for a pen.

Across from me, Evan sat with one hand resting on the arm of his chair, his posture relaxed, his expression unreadable.

Only I knew how dangerous he could be when he looked this calm. The tailored lines of his charcoal suit could not hide the predatory breadth of his shoulders. His scent, cedarwood, rain, and that faint, terrifying trace of pure Alpha authority, drifted across the table, wrapping around me like a ghost.

Concentrate, I ordered myself. You are the head designer. You belong in this room. He is just a client.

Ethan glanced at me. “I’d like Ms. Jones to begin with the design division overview and the international rollout strategy. She’s the head designer behind our upcoming collection and one of the reasons Winston is where it is today.”

Several heads turned toward me, and I gave a composed nod. “Thank you, Mr. Winston.”

I stood and moved toward the screen, remote in hand. The first slide of Winston’s newest collection appeared behind me, sleek and polished. Numbers and strategy were easier to face than memory.

“As Winston Watch Company prepares for international expansion, our priority remains the same,” I began. “We are not interested in sacrificing quality for visibility. The market we are targeting values heritage, exclusivity, and design integrity. That is where Winston has the strongest advantage.”

The room settled quickly.

I moved through the slides with measured confidence, discussing projected markets, campaign timelines, supply chain capacity, and the design philosophy behind the new collection. I explained the materials we had sourced, the production timeline, and the pricing structure for the first European launch.

But as I transitioned to the slide detailing our luxury materials, Evan shifted his weight. His dark eyes locked onto me, tracking the movement of my lips, the posture of my shoulders, and the way I held the presentation remote.

A sudden wave of intense heat flared across my skin. It was an old instinct, a residual echo of a mate bond that should not exist anymore.

My mind screamed at me that he could smell my fear, that he could hear the frantic rhythm of my human pulse. A terrifying urge spiked within me to drop my gaze, to submit to his overwhelming presence just to make the suffocating pressure stop. My throat went entirely dry.

For a fraction of a second, the next word in my sentence vanished from my mind.

The silence stretched for a terrifying beat. To the human board members, it likely looked like a dramatic pause for emphasis. To Evan, I knew it was a visible tremor in my armor.

I forced my chin up, meeting his lethal gaze directly. I swallowed the lump of panic in my throat and let the cold, hard logic of my work anchor me. I am wolfless, I reminded myself bitterly. I am nothing to his kingdom. But in this boardroom, these designs are mine.

"We have secured exclusive contracts with regional suppliers," I continued, my voice steady, smooth, and entirely devoid of the war raging in my chest. "Ensuring that our production scaling remains flawless."

Questions came as soon as I finished the first half of the presentation.

One of Evan’s associates, a silver-haired man seated to his right, adjusted his glasses. “Ms. Jones, if Winston enters the European market within the first quarter, how confident are you that production can keep pace with demand without delays?”

“Very confident,” I replied. “We’ve already prepared a phased release strategy to avoid oversaturation. The first launch will be limited, which supports exclusivity and production control. If demand exceeds projections, we have the flexibility to expand manufacturing in stages without compromising quality.”

The man nodded, and another question followed about the advertising budget. Then one about vendor agreements. Then profit margins in the first year of expansion.

I answered each one carefully, keeping my tone professional and precise. The more the discussion progressed, the more the room shifted in our favor.

By the time the questions slowed, even the more skeptical board members looked reassured.

Ethan leaned back in his seat, pride clear in his expression. “As you can see, Winston is prepared.”

“It certainly appears that way,” one of the investors said.

I returned to my seat and folded my hands over the folder in front of me.

Then Ethan turned to him. “Mr. Collins, I’m sure you’ve reviewed the documents already, but I’d still like to hear it from you directly. What exactly made Winston Watch Company worth a fifty-billion-dollar investment?”

EVAN’S POINT OF VIEW

Mr. Winston's question hung in the air of the conference room. It sounded simple enough, but it struck hard, shattering my carefully built composure. Around the table, everyone waited for a corporate answer, something clean, calculated, and safe. The kind of answer a man in my position was expected to give.

But I no longer heard them.

Time slowed, and the walls of the boardroom faded away.

My mind pulled me back six years into the past. Back to the night I ruined my own life with my own hands. Back to the night I rejected my mate.

I was twenty-six when Alpha King Hillarius began dying.

The entire pack knew it long before anyone dared say the words aloud. A king does not weaken quietly. His pain rippled through the territory, settling into the stone walls of the pack house, into the heavy silence of the warriors, and into the lowered voices of the elders. They knew what was coming, but none dared speak it.

I felt it too, even though his blood did not run in my veins. I felt it the way a man feels a shift in the weather deep in his bones.

Alpha King Hillarius was not my biological father, but he was the only true father I had left.

My real father died when I was young, cut down in a brutal border war before I was old enough to truly understand loss.

My mother followed him minutes later, taken by a mix of grief and illness. I should have been sent away after that. I should have become a burden to distant relatives, or just another orphan raised among servants and pity, fed on leftovers and reminded daily that I belonged to no one.

Instead, Alpha King Hillarius walked into the room where I sat alone. He picked me up off the floor where I had spent two days refusing to eat, and he carried me into the royal pack house himself. I still remember the scent of cedar and smoke on his heavy coat.

He didn't offer any empty, comforting words. He just said, "You'll eat dinner with my sons tonight." It was a directive. There was never a question of leaving me behind.

From that moment, everything changed.

He gave me his name to carry, and I lived under his protection as if I were his own bloodline. He trained me himself, shaping me into a warrior who could survive a world that had already stripped everything away from me once. Above all, he trusted me like a son.

He raised me beside his council. He taught me how to lead, how to command, and how to carry the weight of a kingdom on my shoulders without letting it break me. Every title I held, every ounce of power I carried, existed because Alpha King Hillarius had looked at a fatherless boy and decided he was worth saving. I owed him everything.

And when a dying man asks for one final thing, loyalty stops feeling noble. It starts feeling like a chain.

I remember that night with absolute clarity. I will remember it until the day I die.

The king's chambers reeked of crushed herbs, old wood, and bitter medicine, the kind the healers brewed when nothing else worked and they had run out of better lies to offer. The curtains were half-drawn against the moonlight, letting a single strip of silver light fall across the bed.

His breathing was rough and shallow. It was a jarring sound from a man who had once been feared by entire regions, a man whose name alone ended border disputes before they could even begin.

I stood beside his bed in silence, hands clenched behind my back, waiting. I had learned a long time ago that you do not rush a king. Especially a dying one.

His eyes found mine. They were still sharp, completely untouched by the weakness eating through the rest of him. That was the hardest part to witness. His body had betrayed him, but his mind remained ruthless.

"You know what happens when I'm gone," he said.

"Yes, father." The word came naturally. It always had.

"You will take the throne."

It was a command, not a question. I gave a single, firm nod.

He studied me for a long moment, measuring whether I was still the boy he had rescued from the floor, or the Alpha he had spent fifteen years forging into iron.

Then, his voice dropped lower. "There is one thing I need from you before I die."

A knot tightened in my chest. The air in the room shifted, turning heavy and cold right before the storm broke.

"Anything, father," I said.

God help me, I meant it.

His breathing hitched, a wet, rattling sound that made the healer near the door shift uncomfortably. "You will marry Samantha. Alpha Adalus's daughter."

For one suspended second, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I actually leaned closer, as if changing the distance could change his words.

Samantha. Daughter of Alpha Adalus. Born of a powerful, ancient werewolf bloodline. It was a strategic match. A political bond. The exact kind of marriage kings arranged when love was treated as a weakness and heirs were treated as corporate insurance for the throne.

I stared at him. "Why her?"

"Because the throne cannot pass into uncertain blood," he said, each word costing him visible agony. "And because the kingdom needs stability right now. Not scandal."

My jaw tightened.

He knew. He knew about Billie.

He knew I had a human mate. He had known for months. He knew a human woman had quietly become the center of my entire world. He knew I routinely abandoned my pack duties just to see her, slipping out through the east gate like a reckless teenager. He knew that for the first time in my life, I had stopped thinking like a future king and started thinking like a man who wanted something purely for himself.

"She's my mate," I said, my voice dropping into a low warning.

"But she is human!"

"She is wolfless," he corrected, and the word landed colder than ice. It was the term our kind used for those born without the wolf, without the bond, without a true place in our world by blood.

"If you choose her, the entire line changes. The council will resist it. The allied Alphas will question your authority. And the heir after you will carry human blood onto a throne that has been protected by pure wolf blood for generations."

"She is still my mate, father. I don't care that she's wolfless."

"And I am still your king!" His voice cracked through the quiet room like a whip. "I am your father. The one who built you into the man you are today. Do not forget that."

I stood there, speechless. My chest felt split wide open. I had faced enemy Alphas without flinching. I had stood on blood-soaked battlefields and never once doubted my path.

But there, beside his deathbed, in a room that smelled of decay, I broke in silence.

Alpha Hillarius coughed violently, pain racking his frail frame as he gripped the blanket. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a desperate, fragile plea. "This is the last thing I will ever ask of you, Evan."

I couldn't answer. The words trapped themselves in my throat.

His gaze hardened, locking onto mine with the final remnants of his strength. "Marry Samantha. Give the kingdom a purebred heir. Secure the line. Then take the throne with the strength I raised you to carry."

I should have refused.

I should have walked out of that room, turned my back on the throne, and chosen Billie over every title, every duty, and every debt I thought I owed. I should have let the entire kingdom burn to ashes before letting another woman stand where Billie belonged.

But I looked at the man who gave me a home when I had nothing, the man who built me from a broken orphan into an Alpha who commanded armies, and I did the weakest thing I have ever done in my life.

I bowed my head.

"If that is your final wish, I will honor it."

Alpha King Hillarius closed his eyes, his ragged breathing finally easing as relief found him.

In that moment, my fate closed around my throat like a collar I’d fastened myself.

I chose to reject Billie. Even if it meant living the rest of my life in misery for it. I didn't know then that I would eventually uncover a truth that changed everything, a truth that proved I had just made the single biggest mistake of my life. But before I could dwell on it any longer, a sharp, familiar voice cut through the heavy fog of the past, snapping me instantly back to the present.

"Mr. Collins?" Billie asked.

Her eyes were locked on mine across the boardroom table. They were filled with a cold, professional distance that cut deeper than any blade.

"Are you alright?"