Unraveling Delilah 4

Delilah’s POV

The elevator doors slid shut again, sealing me in sudden silence. 

The charged electricity of thirty seconds ago vanished as if it had never existed. My fingers trembled around the black card. My thighs were slick, my underwear ruined, my core still pulsing with the aftershocks of what he had done to me. I stared at the card. It was simple and elegant, with his name embossed in silver. Alpha Zedd Vale.

What the hell have I done?

Shame burned hot across my skin. I was still technically married. Papers or no papers, bond or no bond, I had just let another man finger me to orgasm in an elevator inside my husband’s building, in broad daylight. The humiliation sat thick in my throat. I could still feel his fingers stretching me, his voice low and amused against my ear. Little storm.

Anger followed fast. It was anger at myself. Maggie had been right there. I could have walked away. I could have taken the stairs. Instead, I had stayed, pushed, and let him unravel me because some broken part of me had wanted it, wanted to be seen like that.

And beneath the shame and the anger, quiet and persistent and absolutely infuriating, was the wanting. It was not just about the release, although that was heavenly, it was the way he had said it—“You’re magnificent… I see you, little storm. All of you.” Those words lodged somewhere deep in my chest and refused to dislodge.

I straightened my skirt with shaking hands, smoothed my emerald blouse, and pressed the lobby button. When the doors opened, I walked out with my chin high, heels clicking as if nothing had happened, like I hadn’t just sold another piece of myself in that metal box.

The house was empty when I got home. 

Again. 

Karyk’s absence had a different weight tonight. Before, it had been familiar dullness. Tonight it was sharp and pointed. I knew exactly where he was. Who he was laughing with. Whose bed he would crawl into.

I tried to work. Emails blurred on my screen. I poured a glass of wine and drank half of it standing at the kitchen counter. I reorganized the spice rack that didn’t need reorganizing. Nothing stuck. My body refused to settle. Every shift of fabric against my skin reminded me of his hands. The patience in his fingers. The way he had watched my face as if my pleasure was the most fascinating thing he had ever witnessed.

I went to bed early. Lying in the dark staring at the ceiling I had chosen, in the house I had built, in the life I had constructed entirely alone.

The memories came anyway. His stormy blue eyes locked on mine while I came apart on his fingers. The low growl in his voice. The way he had licked his fingers clean afterward, like I was something decadent. My hand drifted down my stomach almost without permission. I stopped myself, yanking it back like I had been burned.

Pathetic.

I did not sleep well.

Morning came grey and unforgiving. I stood in front of my wardrobe longer than I should have. The burgundy dress, the one that hugged every curve, the one I hadn’t worn in over a year because there had been no one worth wearing it for, called to me. I told myself it was professional. Appropriate for a business meeting. I was lying, and I knew it.

I paused in front of the mirror before leaving and really looked at myself. The woman staring back had green eyes that still carried last night’s storm. I could not remember the last time a man had looked at me with genuine, focused desire and hunger. I had been starved of it so long I had forgotten what hunger felt like.

I picked up my bag and his card, then left.

In the car, Maggie was already waiting with her tablet. She gave me one long look at my dress but said nothing about it.

“I dug as deep as I could on short notice,” she informed me. “Public info on Zedd Vale is exactly what you’d expect. Billionaire. Alpha. Private. Untouchable. But Karyk’s company…” She hesitated. “It’s worse than we thought. The numbers under the shine are ugly. That deal with Alpha Zedd isn’t an expansion, it’s survival, and without it, Karyk collapses in months.”

I froze.

All those confident conversations. All those late nights where I had believed in him. I had built him so well that even his lies had felt solid. The shock lasted maybe ten seconds. Then it folded neatly into something colder. 

Good.

Let it burn.

Alpha Zedd’s building rose like a monument to controlled power. A conversation with his secretary informed me that he had cleared his afternoon. That detail settled low in my belly and stayed there. I was led to his office almost immediately.

His office was massive with tall windows overlooking the city, but it wasn’t sterile. Books lined the shelves, real ones, spines cracked from reading. This was a space that belonged to someone who actually thought.

He was already standing when I entered, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, stormy blue eyes finding mine the moment I walked in. Heat moved through me before I could stop it. Then he offered me a warm smile.

“Delilah,” he called me, voice smooth. “Drink?”

I cut straight through the pleasantries.

“Don’t close the deal with Karyk Moonbane,” I said.

He settled back in his chair slowly, fingers laced together, watching me like I was the only thing in the room. “Sit down first, Delilah.”

“I’d rather stand.”

A faint smile crossed his face. He gestured at the chair anyway, patient as ever, and I sat.

“The pitch you heard yesterday was cosmetic,” I stated. “The numbers beneath it are ugly. His company has been bleeding for over a year, and the deal you’re being offered isn’t a growth partnership; it’s a rescue. And Karyk Moonbane has a history of promising what he cannot deliver. I know his record better than anyone. It would be a bad investment.”

He was quiet for a moment, just watching me.

“You know his record better than anyone,” he repeated slowly, like he was tasting the words. “Interesting way to phrase that.”

“It’s accurate.”

“It is.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, that dangerous smile returning. “Naughty girl.”

I held his gaze. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re trying to sabotage your husband’s company.” He said it without accusation, almost with admiration. “After sleeping with his business rival. I find that genuinely impressive, Delilah. Audacious, even.”

Heat flooded my face. “That has nothing to do with—”

“The elevator?” he asked, echoing my thought. “This is business. Sure, let’s tell ourselves that.” He tilted his head. “Tell me something. Do you actually believe he deserves your protection after everything?”

The question landed somewhere tender. I said nothing.

“I didn’t think so.” He stood, moving around the desk slowly. “Here is my condition.”

“You have no leverage to offer conditions—”

“One week.” He said it simply. “You give me one week. In return, I don’t just walk away from Karyk’s deal; I dismantle it. And I think you know I have the reach to do exactly that.”

I stared at him. “You don’t even know what happened between us.”

Something shifted in his expression. “The affair with that woman, Layla, is it? Started fourteen months ago. He had the divorce papers drawn up before he served them; he was simply waiting for the right moment.” He paused. “He chose poorly.”

The air left my lungs. “How do you—”

“I know a great many things about a great many people, Delilah. That is what it means to be where I am.” He returned to his side of the desk, unhurried. “Now. What happens if you refuse?”

“I walk out that door,” I muttered, even though I was unsure of my own answer.

“You could.” He nodded thoughtfully. “And then I tell people what happened at my party. What happened in that elevator yesterday afternoon. It will be my word against yours, except I am the Alpha and you are the woman who crawled into my bed the night her husband announced his engagement to her best friend.” He let that sit for a moment. “You would not be able to control that narrative.”

My jaw tightened. “That’s a threat.”

“It’s a reality.” His voice was quiet and completely sincere. “And I want to be clear, it is not one I want to use. I like you. I think you are worth considerably more than that man led you to believe you were. I am telling you the reality because I respect you enough not to pretend it doesn’t exist.” He held my gaze. “Give me a reason not to use it.”

A thick silence stretched between us.

“One week,” I said finally.

He nodded once, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Then he reached into his desk drawer and set a small, elegantly packaged box between us. I knew what it was before he spoke.

A remote-controlled panty vibrator. 

I swallowed.

“You’ll wear this this afternoon,” he said, voice calm and businesslike, as if discussing quarterly reports. “We have an important engagement. I want you to wear it the entire time.”

My nipples tightened painfully against the burgundy dress. Every alarm in my body screamed at once. Heat pooled low in my belly. My fingers twitched.

I reached for the box.