Chapter 20

IRIS POV:

I kept my expression even. “The Calloway.”

“The Calloways? I believe I've heard that name.” She tilted her head. “Wait.” Her eyes widened slightly. “Were you not the one who was supposed to mate the Alpha heir? The ceremony that…” She stopped herself, reading my face. “Sorry. That was rude.”

“It's fine,” I said quietly.

She pressed her lips together. “I'm sorry. Just curious, what actually happened?”

I looked at her. There was nothing unkind in her face.

“It's just my decision,” I said.

She nodded and went back to her screen. But I felt the shift in the air around me. A few glances that lingered a second too long before looking away.

They knew who I was.

Or rather, they knew who I had almost been.

The woman who was supposed to walk out of that ceremony as the Luna of the Dark Moon Pack. The Alpha heir's mate. The girl who had run instead.

I straightened in my chair and kept my eyes on my screen.

I had nothing to be ashamed of.

I kept telling myself that.

Just before the end of the day, Vera appeared at my desk with a slim folder.

“A new client request came through an hour ago,” she said, setting it down in front of me. “Specifically asked for a new assistant. Someone with no existing relationship with our current client base.” She was already turning away. “High-profile. Handle it carefully.”

“Yes,” I said.

I reached for the folder and opened it.

And everything in me went completely still.

The name sat at the top of the intake form in clean black print.

Nicholas Crest. Alpha Heir. Dark Moon Pack.

My heart skipped a beat.

What was I seeing? What the hell was happening?

I read the name again.

Then I closed the folder.

My hands were flat on the desk on either side of it.

I could hear everything around me with strange clarity. The click of keyboards. Someone laughing quietly near the water cooler. The soft chime of an incoming call on the phone two desks away. All of it carrying on like nothing had just shifted under my feet.

Nicholas knew I was here. He had to. This was a city full of pack assistants and private firms, and he had walked past all of them and landed on this exact office, this exact desk, requested someone with no existing ties to his contacts, which left only me. New. Unassigned. Desperate in ways he had personally engineered.

I thought about my mother at the kitchen table this morning.

I thought about the lawyer's bill sitting on the counter at home that I hadn't opened yet because I already knew what was inside it.

I thought about my father in that grey room telling me not to worry.

Nicholas had thought about all of those things too. That was the point.

Pemi was looking at me from across the desk. She had seen my face change. Her eyes dropped to the folder, then came back up to mine.

She said nothing.

She didn't need to.

I sat back in my chair slowly and stared at the closed folder on my desk.

He knew exactly where I was. He knew exactly what he was doing. And he knew that I was the last person in this building who could afford to turn away a high-profile client right now.

Nicholas had always been calculated. I just hadn't seen it clearly enough before.

I am seeing it now.

I opened the folder again.

His appointment was scheduled for tomorrow morning.

Eleven o'clock.