LOGIN"Are you absolutely sure she is not in?" Alistair asked, keeping his voice as steady and polite as possible. Alistair glanced past her into the reception area. The studio was busy. He could see employees moving between the floors, clients being ushered toward fitting rooms, racks of fabric being pushed across the open space. Everything looked normal. Everything except the fact that Solana wasn’t there. Or at least, nobody was letting him see her. “Are you sure?” Annabelle nodded quickly. “Yes, sir.” Alistair let out a slow, measured sigh. He could tell Annabel was telling the truth. But then again sensing the truth could be a complicated thing. She could be telling half a truth or the version of the truth she believed. Given the disastrous way they had parted, Solana banning him from the premises was completely understandable. Still, he needed to see her. Just once. He needed to explain. Or maybe he simply needed to stand in front of her long enough to know she was al
Solana had absolutely no memory of the drive.She just blinked, her vision slowly pulling into focus, and realized she was sitting in her parked car directly in front of her apartment building. The engine was already turned off. The interior of the vehicle was completely dark, save for the relentless, blinding glow of her cell phone screen resting in the passenger seat.It was ringing again. Alistair was calling her for the seventh time.She did not reach for it. She simply stared at the flashing name, her chest rising and falling in shallow, erratic gasps.She was completely broken. Everything inside of her was fracturing into jagged, unfixable pieces. The revelation echoed violently in her skull. Her father was Richard Grey. He was a billionaire. He had known she was alive. He had known exactly where she was while she was starving in roach-infested motels, while she was being hunted by debt collectors, and while she was being sold on an auction block.And Alistair had known all
Alistair winced visibly as her words hit him like physical blows. "Do not put it like that,” he rasped. “It was more than that. You are my mate.” “Oh now you know,” she sneered. “I had no idea you were my mate until you bathed and washed the scent suppressor off you,” he desperately explained. “A wolf cannot identify their mate until they smell their true natural scent. I was still processing that shocking info when the PI’s message came in and I saw you were who I was searching for all.” His voice softened. “I realized you were his daughter, and I panicked." "You panicked??" Solana asked, tears of rage finally spilling down her cheeks. "When I panic, I run away. I do not ruin people's lives because I am scared." Alistair winced again, unable to find the words to defend his past actions. "You called me dirty," she snarled, furiously wiping tears rolling down her cheeks. "You called me disgusting." "No, that was not what I meant," Alistair pleaded softly. "I meant the situa
The first thing Solana noticed was that Alistair wouldn’t look at her. And it instantly put her on edge. The man could sit with high-seated politicians and break no sweat. He could sit across a conference room from alphas and billionaires and make them sweat. He had looked at her countless times with that infuriatingly steady gaze of his, as if he could see through every wall she put up. But now he couldn’t even meet her eyes as he stood waiting beside their seat as the host led her to him. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was nervous. Solana almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Alistair Vance nervous? Impossible. They were at one of the private restaurants beneath Alistair’s newly acquired hotel in Los Angeles. He had reserved a secluded corner, away from the other diners, but even that didn’t explain the strange distance between them. “Okay,” she asked without preamble as she stopped a few feet in front of him. “What’s going on?” His e
"Any updates?" Caspian asked as soon as she opened the door for him. "Yeah,” she replied, her eyes locked on her phone’s screen. Her thumb hovering over the lit screen as she debated texting Alistair again. His silence was becoming maddening. The whole situation felt weird. She hated surprises, and she absolutely loathed the feeling of losing control. With a sigh, she locked her screen and followed Caspian into the living room. “I reached out to them through my lawyer,” she continued, watching him go straight to her kitchen and start unloading the bag of groceries he had brought with him. “And he confirmed that it wasn’t a scam. An unknown person really wrote me into their will for some reason." “That’s just weird,” Caspian muttered, turning back to her. His brows rose as he caught her looking at her phone’s screen again. He didn’t know she realized what she was doing, but she had been checking her phone with each word spoken. But he wasn’t going to be the
"Seven days," Alistair muttered to himself, dragging a heavy hand down his face. "No, no, it’s now just three more days left. Fuck!"He paced the length of his sprawling penthouse suite. His heavy footsteps thudded rhythmically against the expensive hardwood floor. He felt entirely caged. The walls of the luxurious suite felt like they were closing in on him.The heavy double doors of the room cracked open, and Marcus peeked his head around the corner."Sir, did you call for me?" Marcus asked cautiously.Alistair stopped pacing and looked up, his eyes slightly wild. "No, no, no, Marcus. I did not call for you.""Okay," Marcus said softly. He started to close the door, but then he paused. He watched his Alpha pace back and forth with a tense, aggressive energy. Marcus frowned in concern. "Are you good, sir? Is everything all right?"Alistair forced himself to stop moving. He gave a sharp, dismissive nod. "Yeah, sure. I am good."Marcus hesitated in the doorway, clearly unwilling to le
Solange felt a literal snap in the center of her chest as she stared at the heavy oak doors. It wasn’t the metaphoric ache of a breakup. It was a white-hot blade of agony carved through her ribs, twisting around her heart and pulling tight.She tried to scream, but the air in her lungs had turned t
Solange looked at him, her brows furrowing as confusion rose alongside irritation. If he wanted to insult her, he could have done it outright. “What are you talking about?” she bit back. “What smell? I literally just took a bath.” He shook his head; his eyes had a faraway look, like he wasn’t hear
Solange woke slowly, her body aching in all the ways that made her heart flutter and a strange humming in her chest. Her head was foggy, but she felt a calm she had never known, like she was connected to something that had been missing all her life. She felt… claimed, as if the night had somehow gi
The moment the penthouse door shut, Alistair’s restraint evaporated.He pinned her against the door, his large, calloused hand sliding up to grip the back of her neck with a terrifying but delicious pressure, and he slanted his lips over hers again.He was rough, but in a calculated way that made h







