Chapter 3
Prince Rylan el Sandir tapped his pen against the binder in front of him, each strike precise, controlled—like a clock counting down. The speaker’s voice droned on, but his thoughts were nowhere near the conference room. They were still back in the lobby.
The image of the gorgeous woman refused to fade—the green eyes, bright and unflinching, lips so soft they’d haunted his thoughts from the second she’d met his gaze.
Those beige heels had brought her closer to his height, but even without them—five foot six, maybe—she carried herself with the presence of someone taller.
Her curves were unapologetic, made to be admired, the kind of beauty that demanded a man take notice whether he wanted to or not.
And he did want to.
Her purposeful stride had caught his attention first, but he wasn’t fooling himself.
It was her legs—long, toned, and made lethal by those heels—that had tightened his chest. His gaze had climbed higher, taking in the lush curve of her hips, the narrow waist, the full swell of her breasts, and he’d known one thing with absolute certainty: she wasn’t simply beautiful.
She was dangerous. Distracting. And already under his skin.
He wanted her. And Rylan never wanted without acting.
“We should just go for it,” someone said, snapping him back to the present.
His pen stilled mid-tap, the faint click echoing in the sudden quiet of his own mind. He drew in a slow breath, dragging his focus back from the memory of green eyes and sexy heels to the here and now.
The proposal lay in front of him. He flipped it around with a practiced flick, his gaze sweeping over the columns of figures.
Years of negotiations and billion-dollar infrastructure deals had trained his mind to cut through fluff and find the truth in seconds.
His eyes narrowed. The numbers weren’t just optimistic—they were reckless.
A grim smile curved his mouth as he set the binder flat.
“Absolutely not.” His voice was calm but carried the finality of a gavel strike.
“We’re not risking eighty million on projections without accurate numbers to support them.
” He let the weight of his words settle before adding, “Rework the data. Fix the bottleneck at the south port. Then I’ll consider it. ”
The room fell into line as easily as if he’d pulled invisible strings.
That was the thing about being both prince and Interior Minister—people listened.
His job demanded precision: overseeing the roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, and harbors that kept Lativa moving and safe.
He didn’t make guesses. He made decisions based on hard data.
Across the table, Max Diatras lounged in calculated ease, a predator at rest. The man’s reputation from Seattle was well-earned—brilliant ideas wrapped in the kind of quiet menace that made allies nervous.
Max’s technology proposals for harbor security were sound, but his endgame…
Rylan wasn’t sure yet. And he always knew the endgame.
Their eyes met across the polished table.
For a fraction of a second, the hum of conversation faded, replaced by a silent exchange between two men who understood the game better than most. Alpha to alpha.
Predator to predator. The faint lift of Max’s brow said he’d noticed Rylan’s momentary lapse in focus earlier—but his lack of comment was deliberate, a tacit acknowledgment that even the sharpest hunter might have his attention caught for a reason.
The subtle curve of Rylan’s mouth in return carried its own message: it won’t happen again. The moment hung between them, an unspoken pact layered with the respect only two apex players in the business world could share.
As the meeting broke, Max pushed back his chair and joined Rylan by the door. “Drinks soon?” Max asked, tone easy but eyes sharp.
Rylan gave a short nod. “Name the night.”
Max smirked. “Good. Maybe you’ll tell me then what had you so distracted in there. Let me guess—a woman?”
Rylan arched a brow. “You’ve been in Seattle too long. You’re starting to sound like the tabloids.”
Max chuckled, unbothered. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
Rylan shook his head, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him with the faintest upward curve. They stepped out into the corridor, parting at the elevators—friends, but men who never stopped reading the angles.
Rylan continued toward the building’s exit, his stride steady, his thoughts already pulling in two directions. Yet here he was, walking out with one name missing from his mental index—the green-eyed woman.
He stopped so abruptly that his security detail nearly collided with him. “Find out who she is,” he ordered, voice clipped, eyes hard. “Today.”
His head of security, Tom Hicks, gave a single nod, already speaking into the mic hidden beneath his cuff.
That was all Rylan needed to hear. He turned on his heel and strode toward the waiting SUV, his mind splitting neatly into two tracks—one charting the fastest way to identify her, the other calculating the next moves for the empire of concrete, steel, and commerce he managed.
Inside the vehicle, his personal assistant handed him a tablet with updates on the harbor construction project.
He scanned the screen in seconds, instantly locating the weak points in the timeline and the budget.
His tone was brisk, decisive. “Push the suppliers on materials. No delays. And get Isef on the line.” His voice dropped into the sharper register that always made people move faster.
“I want a full report on the Tijan bridge project. They’re behind schedule, and I want to know why.
If there’s a problem, replace the engineer.
We’ll bring in someone who can deliver.”
The assistant’s fingers were already moving. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Even while issuing instructions that would shift millions in resources, the image of the green-eyed woman threaded through his mind like a distraction he couldn’t seem to dismiss.
Those eyes—sparkling jade with a hint of defiance.
The determined set of her jaw. The subtle, floral scent that had lingered in the air when she’d brushed past him.
He leaned back against the leather seat, letting his eyes close for the span of one slow breath. The memory didn’t fade. If anything, it sharpened, filling in details—the tone of her skin, the confident rhythm of her stride, the way her gaze had met his without flinching.
By the time the SUV rolled to a stop at his next meeting—interviewing engineering firms for upcoming infrastructure projects—he had his focus reined back in. Efficiency was his trademark. Every decision needed contingencies, every contingency a backup plan.
Yet even as he evaluated proposals and dissected each presentation with ruthless precision, part of his mind drifted. She’d been in his orbit for less than a minute, but she had shifted something inside him. That was rare. Too rare to ignore.
By the end of the day, Rylan knew two things with absolute certainty: the woman was a mystery he intended to solve, and until he did, she would haunt the edges of his thoughts.