ELARA’S POV

The Ashford estate wasn’t a house. It was a monument to architectural intimidation. All black iron gates and grey stone and ivy that looked like it had been trained to grow in threatening angles. The car swept through the entrance like a shark entering a lagoon—silent, sleek, and absolutely certain of its right to be there.

I pressed my palms against my thighs. My nice blouse suddenly felt like it was made of burlap.

The Beta driver hadn’t spoken a single word since I’d gotten in. Not one. Stone-faced didn’t even cover it—the man’s expression could have been carved from a mountain and given up halfway through. I’d tried asking where we were going. I’d tried asking how long the drive would be. I’d tried asking if he’d seen the weather forecast.

Nothing. Just silence and the occasional flicker of his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“You’re really committed to the whole strong-and-silent thing, huh?” I muttered as the car pulled up to what

I assumed was the main building. “Respect. Not many people can pull off ‘henchman chic’ without seeming like they’re trying too hard.”

His jaw tightened. That was it. That was the whole response.

Fine.

The car stopped. The door opened—not by the driver, but by someone else, some uniformed attendant who materialized out of the grey morning like a helpful ghost. I stepped out onto gravel that probably cost more than my entire sublet, and tilted my head back to take in the building.

It was a study in controlled aggression. Every line of the architecture suggested power that didn’t need to announce itself. The kind of place where deals were made that ruined families and reshaped territories. The kind of place where men like my father dreamed of setting foot and men like Kaelen Ashford owned without thinking about it.

“Miss Vance?” The attendant’s voice was polished to a gleam. “If you’ll follow me.”

I followed. What else was I going to do? Run? The gates had already closed behind us. I’d watched them swing shut in the rear window, slow and final, like the closing credits of my old life.

The interior was worse. Not worse as in ugly—worse as in beautiful in a way that reminded you constantly of your own insignificance. Marble floors that reflected the chandeliers like dark water. Art on the walls that probably had their own Wikipedia pages. A staircase that swept upward in a curve so elegant it felt like a personal insult.

The attendant led me down a corridor, past doors that stayed firmly closed, and stopped in front of one that was open.

“Alpha Kaelen is expecting you.”

I stepped inside.

The office was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the estate grounds—green lawns, grey sky, a fountain that looked like it had been stolen from a Renaissance palace. Bookshelves lined the walls, stuffed with leather-bound volumes that smelled of old paper and older money. And at the center of it all, behind a desk the size of a small car, sat Kaelen Ashford.

He was looking at a document. Not reading it—looking at it, the way a cat looks at a mouse it hasn’t decided to kill yet. The same dark curls. The same jaw. The same silver eyes that lifted to meet mine with the lazy precision of a predator who’d been waiting.

“You’re on time.” His voice was neutral. “I’m surprised.”

“I’m surprised I came at all.” I walked toward the desk, because standing in the doorway felt like retreat.

“Your driver’s conversational skills could use some work.”

“He’s not paid to converse.”

“Clearly.”

I stopped in front of the desk. There was a chair—leather, probably more comfortable than my entire bed— but I didn’t sit. Sitting felt like surrender. Standing felt like a challenge. And right now, I needed every scrap of defiance I could scrape together.

Kaelen set the document down. Leaned back in his chair. The movement was slow, deliberate, and somehow managed to make me feel like I’d already lost whatever game we were playing.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“Terrifying.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “About the slap.”

Of course he had. Of fucking course.

“You seem like the type who holds grudges,” I said. “Let me guess—you’ve had a voodoo doll made in my likeness. Very mature. Very emotionally healthy.”

“I don’t need voodoo.” He lifted a hand and touched his cheek—the same cheek, the one that had connected with my palm approximately fifteen hours ago. “I have the original memory. It’s quite vivid.”

“Is this the part where you demand an apology?”

“This is the part where I demand compensation.”

I blinked. “Compensation.”

“Spiritual compensation.” He said it with a straight face. Completely straight. As if he hadn’t just invented a legal category that didn’t exist. “You assaulted me. In my own private room. In front of my staff, my security, and—eventually—a very confused server who will probably need therapy for the next decade.”

“The server was fine.”

“The server was not fine. The server dropped my wine list.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “You’re actually serious.”

“I’m always serious.”

“You’re sitting in a chair that probably cost more than my graduate degree, in an office that’s bigger than my apartment, and you’re telling me you need spiritual compensation for a slap?”

Kaelen tilted his head. The silver eyes glittered. “You’re avoiding the core issue.”

“The core issue being that I hit you.”

“The core issue being that you hit the wrong person.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, fingers steepled. “You admitted as much. You were aiming for someone else. A sixty-three-year-old fossil, I believe you called him. And yet I—a man who is neither sixty-three nor a fossil—bore the consequences of your poor aim.”

“That’s—that’s not—you were standing in the wrong room!”

“I was standing in my room. The room I reserved. The room I arrived at first.”

“You were facing the window! Your back was to the door! What was I supposed to think?”

“You were supposed to confirm your target before committing assault.” His voice was dry. So dry. “Basic tactical procedure.”

“I’m not a tactician, I’m a graduate student!”

“Clearly.”

I wanted to throw something at him. The paperweight on his desk looked heavy enough to do damage. But the paperweight also looked like it cost more than my graduate degree, and I was already in enough debt.

“Fine,” I said. “Fine. You want spiritual compensation? What does that even mean? An apology written in calligraphy? A fruit basket? Should I send you a gift card for a spa day?”

“I want you to work for me.”

The sentence landed like a brick through a window. For a solid three seconds, my brain simply refused to process it.

“Work for you,” I repeated.

“My personal assistant quit last month. She cited ‘irreconcilable differences with the working environment.’”

He made air quotes with his fingers, and the gesture was so unexpectedly human that I almost laughed. “I believe the phrase she used was ‘soul-crushing proximity to a man who doesn’t understand the concept of office hours.’”

“Shocking.”

“I’m also in need of a fiancée.”

The word hung in the air like a smoke bomb. Fiancée. Fiancée. I stared at him, waiting for the punchline, but his expression remained perfectly, terrifyingly serious.

“You’ve lost your mind,” I said.

“I’ve lost my patience. There’s a difference.” He stood up, and suddenly the desk wasn’t a barrier anymore—it was just furniture, and he was walking around it, and I was remembering exactly how tall he was. “My family has been pressuring me to take a bondmate for the past three years. Pack elders. Business allies. My mother, who has developed a habit of sending me portraits of eligible females with little notes attached. ‘She has excellent breeding hips.’ ‘Her father owns copper mines.’ ‘This one smiled at you at the Equinox Gala, do you remember?’”

He stopped a few feet away. Close enough that I could smell him—not the fir, not yet, but something clean and sharp, like expensive soap and cold air.

“I don’t want a bondmate,” he said. “I don’t want a political alliance. What I want is a year of silence. One year where no one sends me portraits or asks me about my intentions or tries to arrange ‘accidental’ meetings with eligible heirs.”

“And you think I’m the solution.”

“I think you’re available.” His gaze flicked down my body, then back up. Not lecherous. Appraising. “You’re also the woman who slapped me across the face in front of witnesses. Word travels. By now, half the pack knows that Kaelen Ashford was assaulted by an unknown female in a consignment dress. If I announce that the unknown female is my fiancée, the narrative changes. I’m no longer a man who was humiliated. I’m a man who was surprised by his intended in a moment of passion.”

“Passion,” I said flatly.

“A lovers’ quarrel. Very romantic. Very dramatic. The gossip circles will eat it up.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Is it?” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded document. “Read this.”

I took it. Unfolded it. The header read: DEBT RESTITUTION AND TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT

CONTRACT.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Language.”

“I’ll language you in a minute—what is this?”

“It’s a contract.” He said it slowly, like he was explaining something to a particularly stubborn child. “You work for me as my personal assistant. You also agree to act as my nominal fiancée for a period of twelve months. In exchange, I forgive your family’s debt entirely. Full cancellation. No repayment. Your father walks away clean.”

My hands were shaking. The paper trembled between my fingers.

“You’re serious.”

“I’m always serious.”

“You want me to be your fake fiancée. For a year.”

“And personal assistant. I wasn’t joking about the previous one quitting. She left a very passive-aggressive note about my filing system.”

I stared at him. At the contract. At the silver eyes that were watching me with an expression I couldn’t read— amusement, maybe, or something sharper, something that made my stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

“This is insane,” I whispered.

“This is practical.” He stepped closer. The fir scent bloomed—just a hint, just the barest edge of winter—and my knees remembered exactly what they’d done the night before. “You need money. I need a shield. You need protection from your father’s poor decisions. I need my family to stop sending me portraits of eligible females with notes about their breeding hips.”

“You keep mentioning the breeding hips.”

“Because it’s horrifying.”

A laugh bubbled up in my throat. I choked it down. “And if I say no?”

“Then you leave. The debt remains. Your father’s contract—which I now own—remains in my possession. I’m not a monster, Elara. I’m not going to force you into anything.” His voice dropped, softer, and the sound of my name in his mouth did something unfair to my pulse. “But I think we both know you don’t have many options.”

Silence.

The paper crinkled in my grip. Outside the window, the fountain kept fountaining, oblivious to the fact that my entire life had just been presented as a twelve-month contract with a man who smelled like winter forests and had the emotional range of a glacier.

“One year,” I said.

“One year.”

“Personal assistant and nominal fiancée. No—no sex. No touching. No—”

“I’m not asking you to warm my bed.” His eyes flashed. “I’m asking you to attend dinner parties and file my correspondence. The contract specifies boundaries. Read it thoroughly before you sign.”

I looked down at the document. The words blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again.

“Why me?” The question came out smaller than I wanted. “You could hire anyone. You could find some socialite who’d kill for this position. Why the woman who slapped you?”

Kaelen was quiet for a moment. Then he reached out and took the contract from my hands, his fingers brushing mine for the briefest second—a spark, a jolt, a whisper of fir and honey.

“Because you’re the only person who’s ever hit me and meant it,” he said. “And I find that oddly refreshing.”