Chapter 1 #2
I forced a breath and steadied myself with the thought of Mama’s voice, soft and fierce on a night that she tucked me in after a rough school day when kids mocked me for having no dad.
“You’re tougher than they know, baby girl. They’ll try to shrink you, but you keep growing.”
I wasn’t that scared kid anymore. I had grown. And I had just proved it.
Dimitri leaned forward, his dark eyes locked on mine. Not impressed, not pleased—just intense, calculating.
“You’re saying the original deal would have cost us eight million in the first quarter alone?”
“Yes, sir.” My voice didn’t waver. “I have the documentation if you’d like to review—”
“That won’t be necessary, Ms. Garrett.” He cut me off smoothly. “And who was it that brought the Castellanos deal to Ravencrest?”
Marcus shifted in his seat. “I-it was me, sir.”
Dimitri’s gaze swung to him like a weapon. “And was it also you who thought it was a smart idea to give this deal to an intern?”
Marcus’s head snapped up, immediately defensive. “She said she could do it, sir. She said she wanted—”
“I don’t care what she said.” Dimitri’s voice cut through the room like a blade, and a hushed silence fell. “You’re the head of an important department in this company, and you’ve just proven you’re not worth that position. Or any position, for that matter, at Ravencrest Global.”
Marcus looked like he wanted to disappear. He was practically shaking. “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t.” Dimitri leaned back in his chair. “Because this is the last time you’ll ever set foot in Ravencrest Global. Clear out your office in the next five minutes, or I’ll have security drag you out. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.”
Marcus looked stricken, but he knew better than to beg. Dejected, he grabbed his laptop and walked out of the conference room—but not before shooting me a look filled with pure venom.
The door clicked shut behind him, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
I’d just gotten a man fired. A senior executive. The other department heads were staring at me with naked hostility.
I’d just added to my long list of people who hated me.
“Ms. Garrett?”
Dimitri’s voice pulled me from my spiraling thoughts. His expression was neutral, but there was something in his eyes—something that wasn’t quite a smile but felt like approval.
“Excellent work. Your meticulous attention is exactly what this company needs.” He paused. “Starting today, you’ll be my Executive Assistant. You’ll review all documents and deals to spot any…inconsistencies.”
“What?” Maia shot to her feet, her face flushed with fury. “That position is reserved for people who are worth it! She—” Her eyes burned with anger and disgust as they landed on me. “She deserves nothing.”
My chest tightened, waiting for Dimitri to cave. To take back the promotion. To put me back in my place.
Instead, Dimitri turned to face her, his expression carved from stone. “It's my company, Mother. Let me run it.”
Something flickered in my chest. It was hope, dangerous and fragile.
Then his gaze landed on me, and whatever warmth I'd imagined vanished. “Besides, we've invested significantly in Isabella's education and position. It's time she started repaying that investment. This role will allow her to do exactly that.”
The hope died as quickly as it had sparked.
Investment. Repayment. Debt.
Not recognition. Not merit. Just another reminder that I owed them everything, that I was here on borrowed time and borrowed grace.
I nodded, throat tight, and forced the words out. “Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Ravencrest.”
My wolf whimpered somewhere deep inside me, small and broken. There was no fierceness in her, only the dull ache of surrender.
One day, I told myself as he stood and buttoned his suit jacket with practiced ease. One day I’ll be free of this place. One day I won't owe anyone anything.
“Meeting dismissed,” Dimitri said and walked out without looking back.
The weeks that followed were a study in torture.
Dimitri was demanding, perfectionistic, with expectations that bordered on impossible. But he was also brilliant, fair, and when I succeeded—which I made damn sure I did—he acknowledged it.
“Good work,” he’d say, those two words sending warmth through my chest that had no business being there.
Once, when a senior executive made a snide comment about my age in a meeting, Dimitri’s eyes had gone cold as winter.
“Ms. Garrett’s analysis has saved this company more money in three weeks than your entire department managed last quarter, Patterson. I suggest you focus on your own performance.”
The man had practically shrunk in his seat.
And I—Goddess help me—I’d fallen a little bit in love with Dimitri Ravencrest right then and there.
Not the stupid childhood crush I’d had at thirteen when I’d first seen him.
This was something deeper. Something dangerous.
Every day I spent in his office, it grew.
I watched him lead with strength and intelligence, saw the way he treated his people with respect, caught those rare moments when his mask slipped, and I glimpsed the man beneath the Alpha.
It was killing me.
Because I knew it was impossible. I knew he saw me as nothing more than an obligation, his father’s dying wish.
Knew that even if, by some miracle, he was not likely to feel something for someone like me with no social status.
Not when he had been surrounded by beautiful socialites and debutantes all his life.
Plus, his father abandoned him for my mother.
Because of my mother, he didn’t get to be with his father while he was growing up.
And just like everyone else, he hated me for it. Maybe even more.
We were stepsiblings, if only on paper. The pack would never accept me. And if Maia ever found out, she’d burn my whole world to the ground.
So, I kept my feelings buried, invisible like my pain, and pretended my heart didn’t race every time he said my name.
I blinked at the spreadsheet glowing on my screen, fingers frozen above the keyboard. For the third time tonight, I had to remind myself to focus. Finish the client email, Isabella. Don’t think about him.
The office was silent now. Everyone had gone home. Only the hum of the computers and the faint buzz of the city below kept me company.
Then I noticed it, his light was still on.
I stood and moved to his office. After a knock, and the faint permission to come in, I opened the door.
Sir,” I called softly, peeking in, “do you need anything? Maybe coffee?”
He looked up from his desk to see me. For a moment, he just studied me—then, in a voice low and unreadable, he said, “Come here, Isabella. Come closer.”
I moved to stand beside his chair, my heels clicking against the hardwood floor.
“This clause here,” he said, pointing to a section of the contract displayed on his monitor’s screen. “What’s your read?”
I couldn’t see clearly because I’d left my glasses on my desk, so I leaned over his shoulder to look.
His scent wrapped around me like a claim, scattering my thoughts.
He smelled faintly of scotch and something masculine.
But beneath the physical scent, my wolf recognized something deeper—a scent that made every instinct in me growl mine.
Something that called to his wolf. Something I didn’t quite understand. Yet.
The warmth of it seeped into me, coaxing out a reaction I couldn’t hide. My wolf stirred restlessly beneath my skin, and I had to reprimand her to stay still. I tried to strain my eyes, to focus on the document in front of him, but all I could think about was how close I was to him.
I could feel his gaze burning into my skin. I made the mistake of turning to look at him and met his dark brown eyes searching me in a way that made me feel naked, sending a thrilled shiver racing through my inner wolf.
My breath hitched, and I immediately stood straight.
“I-I have to get my glasses, sir.”
I started to pull back, to put a safe distance between us, but his hand shot out, catching my wrist.
“Wait, Isabella.”
I froze, my pulse thundering.
Slowly, he stood, his six-foot-five frame towering over me, filling the space between us. His thumb brushed over my wrist as he looked at me with an intensity that made my knees weak.
“Do you do it on purpose?”
I blinked, trying to focus my scattered thoughts. But I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. “I—what?”
“Every day, you walk into my office in your prim little skirt, with your hair pulled back in that messy bun I now itch to let loose.” His fingers moved from my wrist to my hair, finding the pin keeping it in place and slowly pulling it out.
My long black hair fell around my face, and gently, he tucked a strand behind my ear.
His gaze dropped to my chest, watching the heavy rise and fall of it.
“And every day, Isabella…” He bit his lip as though it hurt to say the next words.
“Every day I have to remind myself why I can’t touch you. ”
“Why can’t you?” The words slipped out in a whisper before I could stop them, raw and breathless.
His eyes went darkened, but within that darkness, gold flickered. “You know why.”
“Because I’m your stepsister? Or because I’m the whore’s daughter who’s not good enough for—”
He moved faster than I could track, standing so close I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. His hands framed my face, gentle despite the tension evident in the way his jaw flexed.
“Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t ever call yourself that.”
“It’s what everyone thinks.”
“I don’t care what everyone thinks.” His forehead dropped to mine, and I felt him shudder. “God help me, Isabella, I don’t care about anything other than what you taste like. Other than hearing you call me by my first name and not ‘sir’ or Mr. Ravencrest.”
The intention was clear in his eyes, clear in the way the gold in them seemed to expand as if his wolf stirred restlessly within him, and in the way his gaze dropped to my lips and stayed there.
I let my eyes flutter closed as his head lowered. I could taste his breath, feel the heat radiating from his body, the desperate desire to have him touch me the way I wanted him to.
His lips were barely a breath from mine when he suddenly jerked away like I’d burned him, stumbling back against his desk, his chest heaving.
I opened my eyes to find him staring at me the same way he’d always done since I was thirteen. The gold in his eyes was gone, replaced by its usual dark brown. All traces of that need and desire were gone, replaced by cold distance.
“Go home, Isabella.” His voice was hoarse.
When I didn’t move, frozen in shock, he growled, “Now!”
I stumbled out of his office, my heart pounding in my chest, and didn’t stop running until I reached the elevator.
My reflection in the polished doors showed a woman I barely recognized—hair wild, lips parted, eyes too bright.
What the hell had I almost done?
What the hell had we almost done?
Dimitri and I? No! It couldn’t be.
I touched my lips, still tingling from the promise of a kiss that never came, and felt something unfurl in my chest.
This couldn’t happen. We were stepsiblings. He was about to become Alpha. He was only being nice to me because of the promise he made to his father.
That is what I told myself.
But God help me, I wanted him anyway.
And from the look in his eyes before he’d pulled away, he wanted me too.