Lykan
“Liquidate the assets and fire everyone.”
I end the call without waiting for a response. The board had two years to turn the company around. They failed. Now their three thousand employees will pay the price for that incompetence.
Is it harsh? Yes .
Is it necessary? Also yes .
Business isn’t charity. It’s war, and I’ve never lost a battle.
A notification flashes on my phone: stock prices already dropping on rumors of the acquisition. By Monday, I’ll buy back controlling interest at half the price. By next quarter, after restructuring, the company will be worth triple its current valuation.
It’s almost too easy. Predictable. Boring .
I tuck my phone away and return my attention to the small bakery across the street. Through the large front window, I can see her.
My fiancée.
Even in my thoughts, the term still feels foreign...but in a good way.
She sits at a corner table, her auburn hair catching the morning light streaming through the window. She’s laughing at something, her head tilted back, completely unaware that I’m watching her from the tinted window of my limousine.
Like a stalker.
I almost laugh at the absurdity of it.
Sheikh Lykan Qahiri, CEO, investor, heir to the throne of Sharasa, reduced to lurking outside a small-town bakery because I can’t seem to stay away from a woman I’ve known for less than three days.
This isn’t like me.
None of this is like me.
I’m a man of strategy, of careful calculation. I don’t act on impulse. I don’t make decisions based on want rather than necessity.
And yet here I am.
Every instinct my father drilled into me screams that this is dangerous. Women who make you forget yourself are the most dangerous kind. Wasn’t that the lesson of his life? A king who became a puppet because he couldn’t resist a beautiful face and a seductive laugh.
I should drive away. Go back to Manhattan. Forget the bakery, forget the fiasco of an engagement, forget her .
Instead, I find myself watching the curve of her throat as she swallows her coffee, the way her fingers tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, the spark in her eyes as she speaks.
I’ve been sitting here for seventeen minutes.
Like a man who’s lost control of his own time management.
I’m not that man.
I make billion-dollar decisions before breakfast. I’m on the boards of six companies, three of which I reshaped from the inside out. I do not loiter curbside, ogling twenty-something women with whipped cream on their noses.
Which—yes—she has now.
And no, I don’t know why I’m still staring.
This is exactly how it started for your father.
The thought slinks in like it always does. One smile. One kiss. One woman who didn’t come from the right bloodline, and the kingdom fell apart.
He called it love...while the rest of his kingdom called it sheer idiocy.
I swore I would never be so weak.
And yet here I am. Staring. Waiting. Acting like the weak always act—hoping she looks up. Hoping she smiles.
She doesn’t.
But someone else does.
A man enters the bakery, and I wouldn’t have paid him any attention if not for the way he makes a beeline toward Scarlette’s table.
What the fuck?
My lip curls as I study him. He’s the tall, nerdy, older-man-next-door-type that some women would probably kill to date. If Scarlette’s one of them, then I’d just have to kill him.
He moves around her grandmother’s bakery-slash-cafe like he’s been coming here for years. Probably has, with how Scarlette seems at ease with him.
My hands clench.
I’m not fucking jealous.
I’m just...possessive.
And when I see him lean over as he says something that makes her laugh, just befor reacing for her face— my fiancée’s face, the fuck!—to wipe something from her cheek...
All I see is red.
Who the fuck does he think he is?
Does he know merely looking at MY woman can have him beheaded in my kingdom?
I step out of the limo.
Straighten my jacket.
Adjust my cuff links.
And start walking.
The small-town square is quaint, picture-perfect in a way that feels artificial to someone who grew up surrounded by palace walls and armed guards. People stop and stare as I cross the street, conversations faltering as I pass.
I ignore them all. My focus narrows to the glass door of the bakery, to the woman sitting just beyond it, still smiling up at the man who now occupies the seat across from her.
Fine .
If she needs reminding, I’ll give it to her.
Time to teach my little Scarlette Hood what it means to be engaged to the Big Bad Wolf.