Kiss prize

Chapter 3 

POV: Odette

The morning light filtering through my thin curtains felt like a deliberate act of physical violence.

I groaned, rolling over on my lumpy mattress and pulling the blanket over my head. My skull pounded like a jackhammer, and my mouth tasted like cheap champagne and terrible life choices.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I prayed for unconsciousness, but the memories of last night refused to stay buried. They crashed into my brain in a chaotic wave. The luxury draft party. The couch in the VIP suite. The devastating realization that the man I had starved and bled for over the last five years was naked with Clara Valmont.

Then came the flashing cameras. Beckett’s cruel, mocking laughter as he called me a fat, poor maid. Clara’s diamond-draped smirk as she dared me to kiss the next man to walk through the doors.

And then…the kiss.

My fingers instinctively rose to trace my lower lip. The ghost of his mouth was still there. It hadn't been sweet, and it certainly hadn't been gentle. It was a fiery, dominant claim from a billionaire Alpha who could crush me with a single phone call. I had kissed the most terrifying man in New York City.

My cheap cell phone suddenly vibrated against the wooden nightstand, the buzzing sound drilling right into my aching temples.

I reached out blindly, grabbing the device. I had forty-seven missed calls. Almost all of them were from my best friend, Maya. Before I could even unlock the screen, the phone buzzed again with her incoming call.

I hit the answer and brought the speaker to my ear. "Maya, please. My head's splitting open."

"Odette Sinclair, I do not care about your head right now!" Maya shrieked. "You are completely, absolutely insane! You're a legend! Have you looked at the internet this morning?"

"No," I mumbled, sitting up slowly and rubbing my temples. "I'm assuming it's bad."

"Bad? Try apocalyptic!" She laughed breathlessly. "You broke the internet, Od. #TheBallroomKiss is the number one trending topic in the entire country! There are thousands of comments. The paparazzi have completely lost their minds. Beckett looked like an absolute fool, and Clara looked like she was going to stab on that floor. You won!"

I pulled the phone away from my ear, switched it to speaker, and opened my internet browser. My stomach instantly dropped into my feet.

Maya wasn't exaggerating. Right on the front page of every major gossip site and sports blog was a high-definition photo of me. There I was, a curvy, supposed nobody in a fifteen-dollar dress, gripping the collars of Nikolai Valmont’s custom-tailored suit, our lips locked in a fierce, breathless kiss. You could clearly see the shock on the faces of the wealthy elite in the background.

I felt physically sick.

"I didn't win, Maya," I whispered, the crushing weight of reality finally settling over me.

"What are you talking about? You destroyed them!"

"Maya, look at who I kissed!" I argued, my voice rising in panic. "I publicly humiliated Clara Valmont. And I kissed HER father! The man who owns the team Beckett just signed with. The man who destroys rival packs and rival companies before breakfast! I made a scene that probably embarrassed him in front of his entire board of directors."

"He didn't push you away, though," Maya pointed out, her tone dropping its hype. "In the video, his hand is on your waist."

"It doesn't matter," I threw my legs over the edge of the bed, staring at the peeling floor. "I have no money, no job and I just made an enemy out of the most powerful billionaire in the state. I'm probably going to have to lock my door and never leave this apartment again."

Thud. Thud. Thud.

A heavy, demanding knock suddenly shook my front door and my heart instantly stopped. The phone slipped from my hand, clattering against the nightstand.

It couldn't be, right?

"Odette? Odette, what was that?" Maya asked through the speaker.

I didn't answer her. I stood up, my legs suddenly feeling heavy, and pulled my worn-out cotton robe tightly over my pajamas. I crept through my cramped living room, dodging the piles of laundry and unpaid bills, and pressed my eye to the small peephole.

My blood turned cold.

Standing in my narrow, dimly lit hallway were five massive men in black suits. They wore dark sunglasses and earpieces, and looked like professional hitmen. But they weren't the ones making my chest tight.

Standing right in the center of them was Nikolai.

He was dressed in a black button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose the thick muscles of his forearms. He looked dangerous, furious even.

My hands shook violently as I unlatched the deadbolt and slowly pulled the door open.

"Mr. Valmont, how're you doing?" I greeted sheepishly, the air entirely vanishing from my lungs.

He ignored me and without waiting for an invitation, stepped forward, his towering six-foot-five frame forcing me to step backward. He walked right into my apartment, bringing the heavy, suffocating scent of dark pine with him.

His massive body instantly dwarfed my tiny living room. His icy gray eyes swept over the peeling paint on the walls, the scuffed countertops, and my terrified face.

"You made a promise," Nikolai said straightforwardly and panic instantly seized my throat. 

I backed away, my bare feet sliding against the flooring. He was definitely here to make me pay for the stunt I pulled.

How did he even locate me? And so quickly?

"I...I was desperate," I stammered, crossing my arms over my chest to hide my trembling. "I was just trying to prove a point to Beckett. I didn't mean to embarrass your family. I swear I...."

"A Valmont never leaves a debt unpaid," he interrupted smoothly.

He took a slow step toward me and I took another step back, but my shoulders hit the cold wall of my living room. I was trapped.

Nikolai closed the remaining distance between us and placed a large hand flat against the wall right beside my head, caging me in. The heat radiating off his muscular body was overwhelming and I had to tilt my head back just to look him in the eye.

"You kissed me in front of the world," he continued. "You humiliated my daughter, caused a media circus and then had the guts to look me in the eye and offer me anything."

My heart hammered violently against my ribs. I closed my eyes, bracing myself. I assumed he was going to demand millions of dollars in damages that I didn't have or  tell me his lawyers were going to bury me, or worse, that his men were going to drag me to a basement for making Clara cry.

Instead, he leaned down. His face was so close to mine that I could feel the warmth of his breath over the shell of my ear. The intense power rolling off him made my dormant wolf whimper in pure submission.

"Pack your things," he issued a chilling command against my skin. "You're coming with me."

My eyes snapped open. "What?"

He pulled back, his icy eyes completely unreadable. "You have five minutes. Do not make me tell my men to pack for you."

I stared at him, paralyzed by a mixture of shock and terror but I didn't argue. When a man who owns the city tells you to move, you move.

I ran into my bedroom and grabbed a faded canvas duffel bag. I blindly threw in my clothes, a pair of shoes, and my toothbrush. Because I had walked away from my family five years ago, I had almost nothing to my name. My entire life fit into one pathetic bag.

Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a luxurious black Maybach, watching my ugly apartment building disappear through the tinted windows.

The convoy of black SUVs moved seamlessly through the city traffic. The ride was suffocatingly silent. Nikolai sat across from me, his long legs stretched out, his attention entirely focused on his tablet. He didn't speak or even look at me. It was like I was just a piece of property he was relocating.

As we left the city behind, the scenery shifted to dense, towering woods. We turned onto a private, heavily guarded road, and the scale of the Valmont pack territory finally came into view.

The car slowed as we approached a set of towering, iron gates adorned with the Valmont family crest. The massive iron doors swung open silently to let the convoy through.

I looked out the back window as the car rolled up the long, winding driveway toward the dark, sprawling stone mansion ahead. Behind us, the iron gates swung shut with a loud, echoing clang.

Well, there goes my former life as I know it.