Chapter 16
Stephen shuffled into the conference hall, clutching his coffee like it contained the last drops of sanity in an increasingly unhinged universe.
Three hours of sleep in an obscenely comfortable hotel bed had left him more exhausted than if he'd pulled an all-nighter on his lumpy mattress back in Barking.
Turns out luxury was wasted on the anxious.
The message that had pinged his phone last night had been from Lysander, of all people.
Heard you're in Geneva with your alpha boyfriend! Dad says you're pretending it's work but we both know better ??
Followed immediately by:
Send pics of you two being disgustingly cute or I'll assume you're making the whole thing up to seem more interesting
Stephen had stared at his phone in horror, wondering which part deserved his rage first. Lysander gossiping about him with their father.
The "alpha boyfriend" designation that was technically false but emotionally complicated.
Or the assumption that Stephen would ever, under any circumstances, send his twin selfies of him and Ryland "being cute. "
He'd settled for a terse reply:
He's not my boyfriend. It's a work conference. And I will literally pay you actual money to never use that winky emoji in a text to me ever again.
To which Lysander had immediately responded:
Not very convincing, Stevie. Dad says you get this little crease between your eyebrows when you talk about him. THE CREASE DOESN'T LIE
Stephen had switched off his phone and buried his face in a pillow.
Now, as he scanned the rapidly filling auditorium for a seat, he caught sight of Victoria Harlow waving him over. The Head of Legal had saved him a spot in the Dabney delegation's designated seating area, directly in the centre of the third row. Prime viewing position for Ryland's keynote address.
Perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect.
"Morning, Huxley," Harlow greeted as he slid into the seat beside her. "You look... well-rested."
"Thank you," Stephen replied, knowing full well that he looked like someone who'd spent half the night staring at the ceiling, contemplating the thin wall separating him from David Bloody Ryland. "The Windsor Suite is very comfortable."
"I'm sure it is," Harlow said, with the particular inflection that made it clear she wasn't thinking about sleeping. "Ryland seems quite calm this morning. Your influence, perhaps?"
Stephen nearly choked on his coffee. "I wouldn't say that. We hardly spoke before he left for pre-presentation preparations."
This was technically true. They'd exchanged precisely seven words over breakfast on their shared terrace:
Ryland: "Good morning. Sleep well?" Stephen: "Fine, thanks. You?" Ryland: "Adequately."
The conversation had been strained, both of them hyperaware of the suite's geography. Stephen had fled as soon as he'd finished his croissant, mumbling something about needing to review notes.
"Well, whatever you're doing, keep it up," Harlow said, scrolling through emails on her tablet. "Last year in Stockholm, a two-minute conversation he had with the Swedish Energy Minister cost us a potential contract worth eight figures."
"Sounds like Ryland," Stephen muttered, settling deeper into his seat.
The lights dimmed, and a hush fell over the auditorium as the conference organiser stepped up to the podium.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are honoured to present Dr. David Ryland, Director of Research at Dabney, who will be discussing breakthrough innovations in electromagnetic field modulation for renewable energy storage."
Polite applause. Ryland walked onto the stage, and Stephen nearly dropped his coffee.
This wasn't the dishevelled genius who paced the server room muttering equations under his breath. This wasn't the carefully controlled alpha from the gala who'd needed Stephen's scent to regulate his sensory overload.
Ryland strode to the centre of the stage with the confident grace of a predator.
His usual rumpled look had been replaced by a crisp charcoal suit that fit him like it had been painted on by Italian artisans with a religious devotion to the male form.
His hair, normally falling across his forehead in unruly waves, was styled just enough to look intentional rather than chaotic.
Stephen's mouth went dry.
"Good morning," Ryland began. "Thank you for joining me at this ungodly hour to discuss the fundamentally broken state of energy storage technology."
A ripple of surprised laughter moved through the audience. Ryland's lips curved in a small, knowing smile that did absolutely illegal things to Stephen's internal organs.
"I say broken," he continued, pacing the stage with measured steps, "because our current solutions are operating at approximately twenty-seven percent of theoretical optimal efficiency.
Imagine driving a car that wastes seventy-three percent of its fuel.
You wouldn't accept that. So why are we accepting it for technologies that will determine whether our species has a habitable planet in fifty years? "
He tapped the remote in his hand, and the massive screen behind him flared to life with elegantly designed slides. Nothing like the text-heavy, eye-bleeding presentations Stephen had come to expect from technical experts. Minimalist, visually striking, key data highlighted in Dabney blue.
"The problem is fundamentally one of field stability," Ryland said, gesturing to a complex diagram that somehow became instantly comprehensible as he explained it.
"Traditional approaches treat the electromagnetic field as a static entity, when in reality it's dynamic, constantly shifting in response to even minor external stimuli. "
Stephen found himself leaning forward. Not just because of the content, which was well beyond his understanding, but because of Ryland himself.
The alpha moved across the stage like he owned it, his hands sketching concepts in the air with elegant precision.
His voice shifted between powerful and intimate, drawing the audience into his intellectual world with the skill of a master storyteller.
"The breakthrough came when we stopped fighting this instability," Ryland explained, his eyes alight, "and instead embraced it.
By introducing controlled chaos into the system, we created a self-regulating feedback loop that actually harnesses environmental interference rather than being disrupted by it. "
He clicked to the next slide, showing comparative efficiency graphs with a dramatic improvement curve.
"The result is a seventy-four percent increase in energy transfer efficiency, with a theoretical ceiling approaching ninety-two percent under optimal conditions."
A murmur rippled through the audience. Stephen glanced around. The entire auditorium was leaning forward, every face turned to the stage.
"But enough about the past," Ryland said, his voice dropping slightly, creating an immediate sense of intimacy despite the room's size. "Let's talk about where this technology is going, and why it matters beyond quarterly profit reports and shareholder dividends."
What followed was a twenty-minute exposition on the global implications of efficient energy storage that managed to be technically rigorous, morally compelling, and occasionally funny.
Ryland referenced everything from classical thermodynamics to pop culture, making complex concepts accessible without dumbing them down.
Stephen shifted in his seat, suddenly, mortifyingly aware that he was getting slick. Properly, embarrassingly wet, his omega biology responding to Ryland's alpha confidence with all the subtlety of a neon sign flashing "TAKE ME NOW" in fifty-foot letters.
He was a professional adult, for God's sake, not some hormone-addled teenager.
He was not going to get aroused at a conference because his colleague was good at public speaking.
Even if said colleague looked criminally attractive in that suit.
Even if his voice had dropped to that particular register that seemed to bypass Stephen's brain entirely and communicate directly with parts of his anatomy that had no business being involved in a renewable energy presentation.
Stephen's omega hindbrain, however, had staged a coup against his higher cognitive functions and was broadcasting a series of increasingly unhelpful observations:
Smart alpha. Very smart alpha. Smartest alpha in room. Could explain complicated maths during foreplay.
Strong alpha. Look at confident stance. Could probably carry you to bedroom while simultaneously explaining thermodynamics. Excellent multitasker.
Breeding potential exceptional. Imagine the pups. Little geniuses with perfect bone structure doing differential equations before primary school. Would never have to help with homework.
Would fuck with same precision as PowerPoint transitions. Methodical. Thorough. Likely has spreadsheet of optimal techniques.
Stephen crossed his legs tighter and silently begged his lizard brain to shut up before his pheromones broadcast "WILLING OMEGA SEEKS IMMEDIATE KNOTTING" to the entire European energy sector.
The last thing he needed was slick-stained conference chair upholstery in a room full of renewable energy experts.
He shot a nervous glance at Harlow beside him. But the Head of Legal appeared focused on Ryland's presentation, taking occasional notes on her tablet.
"The prototype we've developed," Ryland was saying, his voice pulling Stephen's attention back to the stage, "isn't just an incremental improvement on existing technology. It's a fundamental reimagining of how we approach energy transfer and storage."
He clicked to a new slide showing a sleek, simple-looking device that pulsed with blue light in the animated demonstration.