Dangerously Aligned (Billionaire Deal Trap #3)

Chapter One

Eliza

Here’s a rule I learned the hard way: if you walk into a boardroom full of men who think your uterus invalidates your MBA, you don’t ask permission. You wear heels sharp enough to sound like a warning, and you don’t speak until you’re ready to make someone regret interrupting you.

My heels cracked against the marble floor as I approached the front desk; measured, deliberate, loud enough to announce that I wasn’t sneaking in. This wasn’t an office. It was a battlefield with better lighting.

Lose today, and my name slid from the org chart into the polite footnotes of “former leadership.” Lose today, and I’d spend the rest of my career being introduced as almost impressive. I tightened my grip on my bag and gave the receptionist a nod that said don’t slow me down. She didn’t.

The water features I’d chosen, water sluicing down an uneven, tilted glass wall, calmed me as always, and the thought that this might be one of the last times I saw it left my throat aching.

Stopping at the threshold of the elevator, I touched my badge to the panel; it beeped, the light went green, and access was granted.

The elevator ride was mercifully short. The doors opened onto glass, steel, and ambition; open-plan wood-and-glass desks arranged like a maze meant to keep everyone visible and slightly on edge. I loved this place, loved the way it was designed to make people uncomfortable. Comfort is the enemy.

My heels echoed as I cut through the bullpen, the sound steady even while my stomach twisted hard enough to crawl toward my throat. It was too early for chatter. Too early for mercy.

Someone had left a two-sided whiteboard filled with projections and buzzwords. One typo glared at me like an insult. But I didn’t fix it. Not my problem. Not today.

As I passed the glass of the executive offices, the lighting shifted; softer here, more expensive.

The kind of glow meant to suggest power without warmth.

I slowed outside my mahogany door, glancing at my name on the metal plate, and how that plate could be slid out and replaced.

Everyone is replaceable. I inhaled the sterile air, then pushed inside.

I was supposed to be alone.

The soft zip of a file drawer cut through the room.

My spine locked.

“Are you lost,” I said evenly, setting my bag down instead of throwing it at his head like I wanted to do, “or do you usually break into offices before sunrise?”

Gabriel Valor stood at my filing cabinet like he’d always belonged there.

I didn’t give myself time to catalog him.

I didn’t have the bandwidth. All I registered was presence; solid, infuriating, exactly where he shouldn’t be.

He didn’t even look at me. He finished reviewing the document in his hands, movements calm and unhurried, then closed the drawer with a quiet, precise click.

“I needed last quarter’s sales projections,” he said. “You filed them under your emergency food supply.”

“Some of us prepare for twelve-hour sprints.” I crossed the room, heels striking harder now.

“Some of us,” he replied, still not facing me, “don’t hoard protein bars like currency.

” And finally, he looked up at me. The glance was quick—assessing with no trace of appreciation.

Like he was gauging risk instead of aesthetics, which irritated me more than if he’d stared.

Everything about him was controlled—his posture, his expression, even the timing of his breath, with no wasted motion and no tells he hadn’t approved.

“You always come in this early?” he asked.

“I always win,” I said, reaching my desk and powering on my laptop. The screen lit up with the presentation I’d revised into near-perfection. Charts and forecasts, the proof I deserved to stay. It would be enough. It had to be enough. I couldn’t bear the thought that it wouldn’t be.

His mouth twitched. “Then why do you look like you’re gearing up for impact?” he asked mildly.

I bristled and his gaze traced over me before meeting my eyes again.

That was his talent—not numbers, not strategy but people.

I shoved my chair back and faced him. “I don’t outsource what I can do better myself. And I don’t take advice from men whose primary skill is showing up at the last minute and claiming credit.”

He circled the desk with infuriating ease. Too close. Close enough that the scent of his cologne, dark, clean, intentional, cut through my concentration. “Some of us prevent public disasters,” he said. “It’s called teamwork.”

“I’d rather eat broken glass.” I yanked the file from his hands and froze. The top page wasn’t data. It was my LinkedIn photo. A cartoon villain mustache had been added in pen. I lifted it slowly. “You broke into my office to vandalize my face?”

“Stress relief,” he said. “You should try humor.”

I let the silence stretch and sharpen, aware of the fragile place it pressed against inside me, until he looked away first. “You here to sabotage my pitch,” I asked, “or steal breakfast?” I nodded at the protein bar sticking out of his pocket.

He pulled it free from his pocket and examined it critically. “This isn’t food. This is a cry for help.”

“Give it back.” I said tightly but he didn’t. And we reached for it at the same time. Our hands collided - his warm against my cold - and for half a second neither of us moved. He didn’t let go.

“Strong grip,” he murmured and smiled.

“Get your own.” I said as I ripped it from his hand. My pulse betrayed me, skidding out of rhythm, but I refused to let him see it. But he was watching anyway.

“You’re nervous,” he said.

“Nervous isn’t in my vocabulary.” My voice cracked on the lie and there was no way he didn’t catch it.

He leaned close, just enough to box me in, and lowered his voice. “You love this. High stakes. Winner takes all.”

“What I love,” I said tightly, “is not losing.”

“That’s the problem.” His words turned surgical. “What if you do?”

They landed harder than I expected.

“What if you’re not as essential as you think?” he continued quietly. “What if today proves it?”

For a split second, I couldn’t breathe.

Then he stepped back, resetting the distance like nothing happened. Except his exhale wasn’t quite steady.

I gathered my notes and moved past him. He tracked me with his eyes, but I could not read but just felt the heat of his stare and anger built in me.

At the door, I paused. “You’re projecting,” I said. “It’s been years. Get over losing the hackathon to me when I was in the third grade. This obsession is embarrassing.”

He didn’t answer.

Out in the corridor, I leaned against the wall and protein bar crushed in my fist, fury tightened my chest. I hated him for getting under my skin and I hated myself for letting him.

But in the meeting, I was going to win.

Because the thing about pressure?

It makes diamonds.