I don't know when or how we got up here. One moment there were cameras, then there was an elevator, and now my blood is running hot enough that I have Adrian Miller by the collar, shoved hard against the wall of his own penthouse entrance before I've made a conscious decision to do it.
The whiskey taste is still on my lips. His whiskey. From his mouth.
"You have five seconds to explain what the hell that was." I growl.
"You've got some anger issues for a beta," he says, completely unbothered, as if I am not currently one bad second away from biting through his throat like a rabid dog.
"Four," I warn. My breath is hot against his ear.
"Sir—" A voice behind me. Guard, attendant, I don't look.
Adrian lifts one hand casually, and whoever it is goes quiet. I still cannot get a read on him. From this distance even my dull beta senses are catching the hint of his scent — faint, just barely there, like cold air before a storm, a fresh crispy musk.
From this distance, even a beta like me can catch the faintest traces.
"That won't be necessary," he says, those ice-blue eyes locked on mine, full of arrogance that makes me want to put him back through the wall. He tilts his head slightly closer to my face. "I'm certain our friend here is sensible enough to remember who's holding his leash. Aren't you, Brendon."
Not a question.
Dammit.
I hate that he's right. I hate it so specifically and so completely that I have to stand there for a full second just sitting with it.
I release him with a rough yank and step back. Adrian rolls his shoulder, shakes out his collar like I was nothing more than a minor inconvenience, and straightens his shirt.
"Good boy."
I grit my teeth and swallow the rage back down where it came from.
"I did not sign up for whatever that was."
"Wrong." He's already moving past me into the penthouse. "You signed up to do whatever I need."
I stare at his back.
What the actual fuck is wrong with this man.
A mocking smile pulls at my mouth before I can stop it. I follow him in, and it's only now that I properly take in where I'm standing.
Penthouse. Sure. But this is less penthouse and more — I don't have a better word for it — territory. Vast and open, floor-to-ceiling glass along the entire far wall, the city laid out below in every direction.
Digital fireplace built into the far wall, its blue-white flame doing absolutely nothing to warm the space it's in.
White marble, black furniture, sharp clean lines everywhere. The L-shaped seating pit in the centre of the living room is large enough to sleep four people comfortably.
Everything in here is expensive, considered, and cold as a surgical theatre. It doesn't feel like anyone is actually living here.
He genuinely needs warmer lightbulbs. The white LEDs are not helping.
The place looks like a damn villain's lair. I suppose a fitting reflection of his personality.
A small gesture from Adrian and the attendants melt out of the room without a word. Just — gone. Like they were never there.
I don't let myself sit. Can't quite relax enough for that yet. I circle the far side of the couch instead, keeping the furniture between us, watching him.
Adrian has his jacket off, tossed onto the nearest surface without looking. An attendant materialised and vanished with it before it finished sliding. His tie is loose now, white shirt open at the collar, a faint shine of sweat at his throat from the heat of the cameras outside. His collarbones catch the light.
I make myself look at his face.
"Don't tell me," I say, "that the most sought-after bachelor in the city — great alpha, heir to all of this—" I gesture broadly at the palace around us— "actually has to pay his assistant because he can't manage to find someone on his own."
The sneer comes out sharper than I planned. The whiskey is still making my mouth looser than usual.
Adrian tilts his head.
"And if I said yes?"
I scoff. "What — you can't get it up?" I cross my arms. "Half the city would crawl through glass for one night with you and somehow you need to put it in a contract. So which is it?"
The room is very quiet.
Adrian looks at me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind those cold eyes, and then the corner of his mouth does something that isn't quite a smile and isn't quite anything else either.
The fireplace flickers blue between us.
"Would you like to check for yourself?"
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and spreads his legs just enough to make his point without saying it.
I look. Involuntarily. Just for a second.
If that's him soft— I pity his partner…
Fuck this creep.
I drag my eyes back up. Swallow the odd burning sensation sitting in my throat and file the whole thing somewhere I intend never to open again.
Right. Alpha biology. I guess that answers that. I cross my arms. "So then what was that show outside for? Unless you just get off on being watched."
"While I do have some..." he pauses, seeming to consider the word, "...interesting preferences — unfortunately for you, that kiss had nothing to do with any of them."
Unfortunately for me. Ha. In his dreams.
Though I'll admit, some part of me is curious enough to let him keep talking.
Adrian leans back, pours himself a generous glass of water from the coffee table, and his eyes drift to the fireplace. The digital flames play blue and cold across his face, and for a moment he just sits there, looking at them like he's lost in a memory.
"Do you remember what the paparazzi were shouting when we got out of the car?"
I don't have to think long.
"Which part? The scandal from last week or the alleged fiancée?"
Something shifts in his expression. Pleased, but quietly. His eyes stay on the fire.
"You pick things up fast."
"That's my job, isn't it?"
"It is." He pauses for a moment. "As is playing the part of my lover in the public eye."
I blink.
"What?"
He turns and looks at me then, those ice-blue eyes leaving the fire and finding my face with the same calm certainty he's had since the moment I walked into his office this morning.
Like he's been waiting for me to catch up.
"I hope you do not have a lover already, because you signed yourself up to me completely, Brendon Archer."
Click…And just like that I feel that invisible collar on my neck tighten.