Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
I should have felt relieved. Excited. This was what I’d been working toward since the beginning.
Instead, I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting for him to push me off.
“With one condition,” he added, confirming my worst fears.
Of course there was a condition. There was always a condition with Nicolo.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice turning raspy and strained.
“You need to get married.”
For a moment I thought I’d misheard him. The words made no sense, like he’d suddenly started speaking in tongues.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The Blood Oval has concerns about an unmated human having access to shifter genetic data and mate-matching protocols. They feel it represents a potential security risk.”
“That’s—that’s ridiculous. The data is all anonymized.”
“And yet your system produced a 98.7% compatibility match between a human and an alpha. That has their attention.”
“So I need to get married to...what? Prove I’m not a security risk?”
“To demonstrate stability and commitment to the supernatural community.” His voice was so clinical, so detached, it made my heart fracture into jagged little pieces. “With your marriage to a shifter, you’d be considered part of the community rather than an outside influence.”
I stared at him, unable to process what I was hearing. “And this is coming from the Blood Oval? Not from you?”
Something flashed in his eyes, too quick to identify. “It’s a condition of your continued operation. Take it or leave it.”
“And if I leave it?”
“The agency will be placed under Black Tiger supervision. You’ll retain ownership but lose operational control.”
I laughed, the sound hollow and slightly hysterical. “You...are you seriously asking me to get married to keep my business?”
The tension between us was thick enough to cut with a knife, charged with all the things we weren’t saying. All the things we apparently were never going to say.
“Do you have someone in mind?” His voice was oddly flat. “For this marriage.”
For one wild, insane moment, I thought he was offering himself. That this whole bizarre conversation was his roundabout way of proposing.
But the hardness in his eyes—
God, it was so, so hard.
“No,” I said, my voice small. “I don’t.”
“If that’s the case, I’ll give you two weeks to make a decision.”
Two weeks?
“Is that all?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice even.
“For now.”
The moment he was gone, I collapsed into the nearest chair...
And then I just cried.
I cried for the girl who’d spent seven years in love with someone who would never love her back. I cried for the woman who’d been stupid enough to think that a compatibility score meant something more than science. I cried for the business owner who was going to have to choose between her dreams and her heart.
But mostly, I cried because Nicolo Celestini had just made it crystal clear that I meant absolutely nothing to him beyond a problem to be solved and a responsibility to be managed.
And there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.
NICOLO SAT IN HIS OFFICE, staring at the stack of papers scattered across his desk and wondering how everything had gone so wrong.
Compatibility profiles. Dozens of them. All marked with Maryah’s agency letterhead and addressed to “Mr. Block of Ice.”
He’d been receiving them for a week, ever since the night of the ball. At first, he’d assumed they were some kind of filing error. But they kept coming, day after day, each one a fresh reminder that Maryah was actively trying to find him a mate.
Her subtle way of telling him that whatever had happened between them at the ball was strictly business. Professional obligation, not personal desire.
Her way of saying she wasn’t interested in anything more.
The profiles were diverse, carefully selected. All of them sophisticated, powerful, exactly the kind of matches that would make sense for the Celestini heir.
All of them representing everything Maryah apparently thought he should want instead of her.
He’d spent seven days convincing himself that this was for the best. That Maryah deserved someone who could give her a normal life, not an alpha who’d spent years hiding his feelings behind authority and control.
Seven days telling himself that if she wanted to find him someone else, he should let her.
But seeing her today, watching her face when he’d delivered his ultimatum about marriage, had been harder than he’d expected. She’d hidden her reaction well, but he’d caught the flash of pain in her eyes before she’d locked it down.
Still, it was done. Clean break. No more confusion or mixed signals or pretending that a 98.7% compatibility score meant they belonged together.
His phone rang, interrupting his brooding.
“Mr. Celestini? This is Ada, from Maryah’s office.”
“What can I do for you, Ada?”
“I think I made a terrible mistake.” Her voice was shaking. “The compatibility profiles I’ve been sending you—Maryah asked me to send them to Mr. Block of Ice, and I thought she meant you because you’re kind of intimidating and cold sometimes, but she actually meant Prince Alexei, didn’t she?”