Thorne's POV

"I — I don't understand," she said, her voice breaking. "How could you be so evil?"

Tears slipped from her eyes. As she stared back at me, I could see the anger and hatred written clearly across her face.

She hated me.

The thought hit me hard in the chest. It hurt more than I expected. But deep down, it also stirred something dark inside me, something hungry and possessive that wanted her to feel every single emotion she was feeling right now, as long as those emotions were directed at me.

Hate me, love me, fear me, want me — I didn't care which. I just needed her to feel something for me so intensely that she could never walk away from it.

My wolf growled low in my chest, agreeing.

I stared at her for a long moment, watching her tears fall as the elevator doors closed in. Then I made a decision I knew would change everything.

"I have another proposition for you," I said, stopping the elevator from closing.

"And what could that possibly be? Another chance for you to humiliate me?"

"Resume tomorrow at nine," I said, keeping my voice flat and steady even though my heart was hammering against my ribs. "And don't be late this time."

---

The rest of that day was completely useless.

I sat through two meetings and didn't hear a single word anyone said. I stared at reports on my screen without reading them. I signed three documents that my assistant put in front of me, and I honestly couldn't tell you what any of them were about.

All I could think about was her.

Skye.

My former best friend's little sister. The girl I had watched grow up from a distance. The woman whose scent had been burned into my memory for over a decade.

My mate.

My fated mate.

The universe had a sick sense of humor, pairing me with the one woman on earth I was never supposed to touch.

I discovered the truth when she was thirteen. I had gone over to Ethan's house for dinner like I did every week, and the moment I walked through the front door, something shifted inside me so violently that I had to grab the doorframe to keep from falling. Her scent hit me like a freight train, sweet and warm and completely overwhelming, and my wolf surged to the surface so fast that my eyes flickered gold for a split second before I forced him back down.

She had been sitting on the kitchen counter, eating cereal and swinging her legs, completely unaware that my entire world had just rearranged itself around her.

Thirteen. She was thirteen years old, and the mate bond had just snapped into place like a chain locking around my throat.

I wanted to throw up.

Not because of her. Never because of her. But because the bond didn't understand age, didn't understand morality, didn't understand that what it was demanding of me was something I could never act on. My wolf didn't care that she was a child. He only knew that she was ours, and he wanted her claimed, marked, and bound to us in every way that mattered.

And I hated him for it. I hated myself for it.

Every visit after that became torture. Her scent clung to the furniture, the hallways, the air itself. My wolf clawed at the inside of my skull every time I was near her, demanding that I claim her, mark her, make her mine. And every time, I shoved him down so hard that my hands shook and my teeth ached from clenching my jaw.

I couldn't touch her. She was a child. She was my best friend's sister. She was off-limits in every possible way that a person could be off-limits.

But the bond didn't care about any of that.

Then came the night I lost control.

Ethan had invited me over to watch a game. It was late, past midnight, and he had fallen asleep on the couch. I should have left. Every rational part of my brain screamed at me to walk out the front door and drive home.

Instead, I went upstairs.

To her room.

And that night destroyed everything I had with Ethan.

The guilt stayed with me. It lived inside my chest like a second heartbeat, constant and heavy and impossible to ignore. For ten years, I carried it. For ten years, I hated myself for what I had done, for what I had almost done, for what my wolf still wanted me to do every single day.

But the obsession never died.

I watched her from a distance as she grew up. I kept track of her through people I trusted, learning about her life in small, careful pieces. I knew when she graduated high school. I knew when she chose management science over medicine, and I knew her brother gave her hell for it. I knew when she started college, when she made the dean's list, when she became one of the top students in her graduating class.

I watched her turn from a girl into a woman, and with every passing year, the pull grew stronger, the hunger grew deeper, and the voice of my wolf grew louder.

*Mine. She is mine. She has always been mine.*

So on her graduation day, I made my move.

I sent a representative to her convocation with an offer she couldn't refuse. Ten thousand dollars a month for a fresh graduate with no experience. It was absurd, and I knew it. But I also knew she needed to prove her brother wrong, and I used that need like a key to a lock.

I fired my existing secretary to make space for her. I arranged everything down to the smallest detail. Every single step was calculated to bring her into my building, onto my floor, and into my life.

And then I ruined it.

I ruined it by firing her on her first day because my wolf couldn't handle the rage of watching her walk in late, looking flustered and beautiful, while every unmated man in that boardroom stared at her legs. The jealousy was so blinding, so immediate, so completely irrational that I snapped before I could stop myself. I humiliated her in front of the entire floor, dragged her into my elevator, and then did the one thing I had spent ten years swearing I would never do.

I touched her.

And it was worse than I ever could have imagined. Not because it was wrong, but because it was perfect. Because the moment my fingers slid inside her and her walls clenched around me, hot and tight and impossibly wet, my wolf nearly shattered the cage I had spent a decade building for him. Because the sounds she made — those broken, desperate, shameless little moans — were the most beautiful thing I had ever heard in my life. Because she tasted exactly the way she smelled, sweet and warm and mine, and the moment her flavor hit my tongue I knew with absolute certainty that I would burn the entire world to the ground before I let another man taste her.

And then I sent her away.

I looked into those gorgeous tear-filled eyes and told her she gave it away for free, and I watched her walk out of my elevator looking like I had reached inside her chest and crushed something that could never be put back together.

I did that.

I did that because if I hadn't, I would have dropped to my knees in that elevator, buried my face between her thighs, and made her come so hard on my tongue that she would have screamed my name loud enough for the entire building to hear. And then I would have marked her. Right there. Right then. My teeth in her neck, my bond in her blood, my claim on her soul, permanent and irreversible and completely without her consent.

So I chose cruelty instead.

Because cruelty I could take back. But a mating mark was forever.

"Fuck," I muttered, shoving off the bed.

It was past midnight, and I was lying in the dark with my cock so hard it ached against my stomach. The memory of what I had done in that elevator played on repeat behind my eyelids, every detail sharp and vivid and maddening.

The heat of her. The impossible tightness of her walls gripping my fingers. The way she moaned, soft and desperate and ashamed, like she couldn't believe her own body was betraying her. The wetness that coated my hand, so warm and slick that my wolf had nearly broken free right there in that elevator.

I could still taste her on my fingers.

I groaned and rolled out of bed, stalking to the bathroom with heavy steps. My reflection stared back at me from the mirror, jaw clenched, eyes dark, chest heaving with the kind of need that no amount of cold showers or self-control could fix.

My hand wrapped around my cock, already slick at the tip, and I stroked once, slow and firm, squeezing at the base the way I imagined her hand would feel. Small and warm and trembling, the way her hands trembled when she unbuttoned her blouse for me.

She was so beautiful it made my chest ache.

I remembered the way she looked pinned against that elevator wall, her wrists locked above her head, her back arched, her breasts pushing against the thin lace of her bra before I shoved it up and took her nipple into my mouth. I remembered the sounds she made, those broken little whimpers that went straight to my cock every single time. I remembered how she clenched around my fingers when I found that spot inside her, like her body was trying to keep me there forever.

My strokes grew faster. Rougher. I braced one hand against the bathroom counter and let my head drop forward, my breathing turning ragged as the pressure built at the base of my spine.

I imagined bending her over my desk. I imagined pushing into her slowly, feeling her stretch around me, inch by inch, watching her back arch and her fingers claw at the wood as she took every last inch of me. I imagined the sound she would make when I bottomed out — that sharp, breathless gasp that would tell me I was the first man to ever be that deep inside her.

Because I would be the first.

And the last.

And the only.

"Fuck," I groaned through clenched teeth as my release tore through me. My body jerked hard, and thick ropes of cum spilled over my fist and onto the counter, the pleasure hitting in violent waves that made my thighs shake and my vision blur. I rode it out with my eyes squeezed shut and her name on my lips, pumping every last drop out of myself until my arm gave out and I slumped forward against the counter, panting.

But even after everything, the hunger was still there. Quieter, maybe. Duller. But not gone.

Never gone.

It would never be enough without her.

So I did the one thing I never thought I would ever do.

I picked up my phone, scrolled past every rational thought telling me not to, and called my lawyer.

Skye's POV

At exactly 9 a.m, I stood outside his office door, frozen there for a full three minutes before I could finally make myself knock.

I lifted my hand, hesitated for just a second, then knocked twice before I could change my mind.

“Come in.”

I turned the handle and stepped inside, and the first thing that hit me was how massive his office was. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. A dark mahogany desk that probably cost more than my mother's entire house. Bookshelves lined with leather-bound volumes that looked like they had never been touched. Everything was clean, expensive, and cold, just like the man sitting behind the desk.

Thorne didn't look up when I walked in. He was reading something on his laptop, one hand resting on the desk, the other holding a silver pen that he tapped slowly against the surface. He wore a black suit today, no tie, the top two buttons of his shirt undone just enough to show the edge of his collarbone. His jaw was freshly shaved, his dark hair pushed back, and he looked like he had slept perfectly well, which made me hate him even more because I hadn't slept at all.

I stood in front of his desk and waited. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen.

He still didn't look up.

"Good morning," I finally said, because the silence was starting to suffocate me.

"Sit down," he said without glancing at me.

I sat in the leather chair across from him and folded my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it from where he sat.

He clicked something on his laptop, then finally closed it. When he looked up at me, his expression was completely blank. No warmth. No trace of the man who had groaned against my neck yesterday and called me sweet.

He reached into the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a thin stack of papers held together with a black clip, and slid them across the desk toward me.

"Sign this."

I blinked. "What?"

"Sign it," he repeated, like I was wasting his time.

I picked up the document carefully, like it might bite me, and started reading the first page. At the top, it said *Personal Assistant Employment Contract* in bold letters, followed by my full name, his full name, and the company's legal information. It looked normal enough. Standard. Professional.

Then I got to the second clause.

My hands started shaking.

By the third clause, my mouth had gone dry. By the fourth, my pulse was racing so fast I felt lightheaded. By the fifth, I stopped reading entirely and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"What is this?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Your employment contract," he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands across his stomach like this was the most boring meeting of his entire day.

"This isn't an employment contract," I said, and my voice cracked on the last word. I held up the papers and shook them slightly, the pages trembling in my grip. "This is insane. You can't be serious."

"I am completely serious."

"Clause three says I agree to be exclusively available to you for a period of six months," I read out loud, my eyes scanning the words again because I needed to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. "Clause four says I will fulfill all duties assigned to me by Mr. Anderson, both professional and personal, at his discretion. Clause five says I cannot engage in romantic or intimate relationships with any other person for the duration of this agreement." I looked up at him. "What does any of this have to do with being your personal assistant?"

He stared at me without blinking. "Everything."

"This isn't a job contract, Thorne. This is a... this is..." I couldn't even finish the sentence because I didn't know what word to use. My brain was short-circuiting, bouncing between shock and anger and something else that I refused to name. "You're asking me to be yours. Exclusively. Intimately. For six months. Under the disguise of a PA position."

"I'm not disguising anything," he said calmly. "The terms are written clearly in front of you."

"Why?" The word burst out of me louder than I intended, and I saw something flicker behind his eyes before it disappeared. "Why are you doing this? Why me? You could have anyone, literally anyone, so why are you sitting there asking me to sign my life over to you for six months?"

He was quiet for a moment. Just one moment. And in that silence, something shifted in his expression, something raw and honest and almost vulnerable that vanished so quickly I wasn't sure I had actually seen it.

Then he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, and looked at me with those ice-blue eyes that had haunted me since I was fourteen years old.

"Because I want you, Skye," he said, and his voice was low and steady but there was something underneath it, something that sounded almost like desperation being held on a very tight leash. "All of you. Every single inch. And I'm willing to pay for the privilege."

My breath caught in my throat. The way he said it, so direct, so unapologetic, like wanting someone was the same as deciding to acquire a company or buy a building, it made my skin prickle with heat and my stomach tighten with something that felt dangerously close to desire.

"Turn to the last page," he said.

I didn't want to. Every instinct told me not to. But my hands moved anyway, flipping to the final page of the contract where the compensation details were outlined in bold print.

Monthly salary: $30,000.

I stared at that number for so long that the digits started to blur.

Thirty thousand dollars. Per month. For six months. That was one hundred and eighty thousand dollars total, more money than I had ever imagined earning in my entire life, let alone in half a year.

But that wasn't what made my chest tighten until I couldn't breathe.

Thirty thousand dollars a month was exactly what my brother earned. Exactly. Down to the last zero. Ethan had worked for over a decade to reach that salary. He had gone through four years of medical school, three years of residency, two years of fellowship, and countless sleepless nights in operating rooms to climb to that number. It had taken him his entire adult life to get there.

And Thorne was offering it to me like it was pocket change.

Something cold settled in my stomach as I realized that this couldn't be a coincidence. Thorne knew. He knew exactly what my brother earned, and he had chosen that number on purpose. Whether it was to prove a point, to taunt Ethan through me, or to dangle the one figure that would hit me hardest emotionally, he had done it deliberately.

Everything this man did was deliberate.

I put the contract down on the desk and pressed my palms flat against my thighs to keep them from trembling.

"I need to think about this," I said.

"Take your time," he said, but the way his eyes stayed locked on mine told me he didn't mean it. He wanted an answer now. He wanted me to pick up that pen and sign my name and hand myself over to him for six months without a fight.

But I couldn't. Not yet. Not without thinking it through.

This was Thorne Damian Anderson. The man my brother had warned me against for ten years. The man whose name was forbidden in my home. The man who had fired me, humiliated me, touched me in ways that still made my body ache when I thought about them.

And now he was sitting across from me, offering me thirty thousand dollars a month to be his. Exclusively. Intimately. Completely.

I stood up, picked up the contract, and held it against my chest.

"I'll give you my answer tomorrow," I said, and I was proud of how steady my voice came out even though my insides were falling apart.

He watched me walk to the door. I could feel his gaze on my back like a physical touch, heavy and warm and impossible to ignore.

"Skye," he said, just as my hand reached the door handle.

I stopped but didn't turn around.

"Don't take too long," he said quietly. "I'm not a patient man."

I opened the door and walked out without looking back, my heart slamming against my ribs and the contract burning like a live wire against my chest.

Thirty thousand dollars a month.

Six months of belonging to Thorne.

And a voice in the back of my head that sounded terrifyingly like my own whispering, *You already know what you're going to say.*