craving his son fiance

CHAPTER 1

I should have stayed home.

That's the thought running through my head as the cab pulls up outside Club Noir, the bass from inside vibrating through the door, through the pavement, through the soles of my shoes.

Three months.

Luca had been gone three months for Alpha training and I'd missed him so badly I'd done something stupid. Bought a last-minute flight. Booked a hotel. Told myself it would be romantic — showing up unannounced, surprising my fiancé.

I was so sure he'd be happy to see me.

The bouncer lets me in without question. Inside, the music is loud enough to make thinking difficult, which is maybe why I don't turn around when I should. Strobe lights cut across bodies on the dance floor. The air smells like alcohol and expensive cologne and something else underneath it — recklessness, maybe. The kind that gets into your lungs.

I text Luca.

Hey, I'm actually in the city. Surprise? Where are you?

No response.

I ask the bartender if he knows where the VIP section is. He points up. Glass stairs. Red rope. A bouncer who doesn't even look at me twice before stepping aside.

I should have taken that as a warning.

The VIP hallway is quieter. Darker. Private rooms with frosted glass doors line the corridor, and I can hear voices, laughter, the high-pitched shriek of women having the time of their lives.

I find the room with Luca's name on the reservation.

The door isn't fully closed.

I stop.

Through the gap I can see enough. Luca on a white leather sofa, jacket off, shirt half-unbuttoned. Two women I don't recognise draped around him like decoration. His friends — Remi, Dax, that one they call Stone — spread across the room with their own company, all of them in various states of not caring that this is wrong.

I don't go in.

I don't know why. Maybe some part of me needs to hear it. Needs the full picture before I let myself fall apart.

"—so how far have things actually gone?" Remi's voice. He sounds genuinely curious, like he's asking about a sports score.

Luca laughs. It's the lazy kind of laugh — the kind he does when he's three drinks deep and completely comfortable. "Nowhere. She acts like her body is a locked vault."

"Still?"

"Six months." He says it like a sentence. Like a verdict. "Six months and she still won't sleep with me. Kept saying she wanted it to be right. Wanted it to mean something."

The woman on his left says something I don't catch. The room laughs.

"She's doing the whole innocent thing," Dax says. "Pretty and pure. Classic play."

"Oh it's absolutely a play," Luca agrees. "But here's the thing — my family loves it. My father wants a good girl. Someone respectable. Someone who looks right standing next to me at pack events."

"So you're suffering for the optics."

"I'm suffering for the legacy." Another laugh. "But the second we're married — the second I get what I've been waiting for — I'm done. She thinks she's getting a husband. She's getting a one-way ticket back to her parents with a broken engagement and no explanation."

The room erupts.

I step back from the door.

My hand finds the wall behind me and I press my palm flat against it because I need something solid right now. Something real. The music from downstairs is still pumping, completely indifferent, and for a second the disconnect is so sharp it almost makes me laugh.

Almost.

I walk back down the corridor. Down the glass stairs. Through the crowd. Out the door.

The cold air outside hits me and I just stand there on the pavement, cab noise and distant voices and the city carrying on like nothing happened, because for the city, nothing did.

My phone buzzes.

Luca. Hey! Not in the city after all, training ran late. Miss you though. Call you tomorrow?

I stare at the lie on my screen for a long time.

Then I go back to my hotel.

My mother picks up on the second ring, which means she was waiting for something. She always is.

"Zara." Her voice is careful. She already knows something's wrong. "What happened?"

I tell her everything. I keep my voice level. I don't cry. I lay it out like a report — what I heard, exact words, no interpretation needed.

When I finish, the line is quiet for three seconds.

"Cancel the engagement," I say. "I want out."

"Zara—"

"Mom. Did you hear what I said? He told his friends he's going to sleep with me and then dump me."

"Men talk." Her voice is firm now. Settled. Like she'd already decided before I'd finished speaking. "That's what they do in groups. It doesn't mean—"

"It means exactly what it sounds like."

"He comes from a good family. His father is Alpha Blackwood — do you understand what that means for us? If Luca becomes Alpha, you become Luna. You think that opportunity comes twice?"

"I don't care about—"

"You're twenty-two." Her voice drops, quieter, more final. "You don't know what you care about yet. Tolerate it. Every man has something you have to tolerate. That's marriage."

"Mom—"

"Go to sleep. Fly home tomorrow. Forgive him and move forward."

She hangs up.

I sit on the edge of the hotel bed and look at my reflection in the dark window across the room. The girl looking back at me is still wearing the sensible outfit I'd put on to surprise my fiancé. Modest neckline. Covered up. Respectable.

The kind of girl who gets used as a prop and told to be grateful for the privilege.

My parents arranged this engagement. Luca's family approved it because I looked right on paper. And the whole time, the man I thought I was in love with was running a clock on my virginity.

I open my suitcase.

I'd packed a black dress on impulse — tight, short, the kind I never wore because it always felt like too much. I'd thrown it in at the last second thinking maybe, if the moment was right, I'd wear it for Luca.

I hold it in my hands.

If they value it so much — this thing everyone seems to have so many opinions about — then I'm done keeping it for someone who doesn't deserve it.

I change.

I don't look at my reflection on the way out.

The hotel bar is low-lit and mostly quiet, which is exactly what I need. A few businessmen. A couple at the far end who can't stop touching each other. A woman alone at the bar nursing something red.

I scan the room without knowing what I'm looking for.

And then I find him.

Corner table. Alone. A glass of something dark in front of him, barely touched. He's not on his phone, not looking around the room — he's just there, completely self-contained, like the noise of the world doesn't reach him unless he decides to let it.

Dark suit. No tie. The kind of face that's been somewhere. Late forties, maybe, though something about him makes age feel like an irrelevant detail. There's an ease to the way he sits that doesn't come from comfort — it comes from control. The kind of man who decides what happens in any room he walks into.

I cross the bar before I've made a conscious decision to.

He sees me coming from three tables away. Doesn't react. Just watches.

I stop at his table.

"Can you buy me a drink?"

He looks at me for a moment. Not up-and-down the way men usually do. He looks at my face first. Then he speaks.

"Why me?"

"Because you're the most handsome man in this room."

Something shifts in his expression. Not quite a smile. "You're not as confident as you're pretending to be."

"Is that a no?"

He leans back slightly. "I'll buy you a drink. But you should know — I'm not someone you want to start something with. There are men your age in this bar."

I reach over and pick up his glass and drink from it without asking.

He watches me do it.

"I want you," I say. "I'll pay for my own drinks and yours and the room upstairs if that's what it takes. I know what I'm asking for."

A pause.

"It's the first time a woman has offered to pay me." His voice is low, unhurried. It moves through me in a way I wasn't expecting. "If you're sure — come with me. If you're not, walk away now and I'll forget this conversation happened."

My heart is hammering.

I don't walk away.

He stands — taller than I expected — and leads me toward the elevator without touching me, without looking back to check if I'm following.

I follow.