Primal Instinct

5– FIRST IMPRESSION

By the time I reached the headquarters, the sky had brightened from hazy blue to clear, hard daylight. The building looked even more sharp-edged in the sun, all glass and stone and glinting metal.

Damien dropped me at the front entrance with a “Good luck,” that sounded suspiciously like, You’ll need it. The receptionist greeted me with the same knowing smile as yesterday and handed me a slim tablet and a badge with my photo already printed on it.

“You’re all set, Ms. Carter,” she said. “Mr. Steele is in his office. You can go straight up.”

No easing into it then. No orientation video. Just straight back into the lion’s—wolf’s?—den.

The elevator hummed its way up. My palms were already damp. I wiped them on my pants and told myself to get it together. He was just a man. A ridiculously powerful, unsettling, stupidly gorgeous man. But still a man. The doors opened.

The open floor plan was busier now. People at desks, heads bent over screens, voices low in discussion. A few glanced up as I stepped out, eyes lingering a beat longer than strictly polite before darting away. The hum of work buzzed under the quieter hum that lived under my skin, the two almost, but not quite syncing.

His office door was open.

He was at his desk this time, not the window. Jacket off, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, tie abandoned somewhere I couldn’t see. A watch gleamed at his wrist, understated and expensive. Papers were laid out in front of him in precise stacks, a laptop open to one side, a phone on the other. He looked up as my heels clicked softly on the polished floor outside his doorway.

For a split second, his eyes shifted to silver, then brown. Then his expression smoothed.

“Seven oh-three,” he said. “You’re late again.”

I glanced at the time on the tablet. 7:03 a.m. Exactly.

“Three minutes,” I said. “I thought that would be acceptable.”

“It’s not about acceptable,” he said. “It’s about whether you understand promptness in margins. If your day starts at seven, you are available before seven. Not arriving at seven. We don’t operate on bare minimums here, Ms. Carter. Not at this level.”

I ignored the flicker of irritation that tried to flare in my chest. “Understood. It won’t happen again.”

He watched me for a heartbeat, like he was measuring whether I meant it. Then he nodded toward the chair opposite his desk.

“Sit.” I did as he slid a leather-bound folder across the desk toward me.

“This is your starting docket,” he said. “My calendar, key contacts, standing calls, and the projects that require priority over the next two weeks. You will manage my time, my access, and my tolerance. If something doesn’t need to cross my desk, don’t bring it to me. If it does, make sure it comes formatted, summarized, and with a recommended course of action.”

I flipped the folder open. The first page was his weekly schedule. It made my old boss’s calendar look like a lazy Sunday.

Meetings stacked on meetings, calls wedged between flights, blocks marked only with vague labels like “Review” and “Internal.” I recognized some names as regional directors, major vendors, and a couple of government contacts. Others were just initials. There were blocks of time blacked out with no explanation at all.

“You’ll also filter my email,” he went on. “I receive more than is useful. You’ll decide what’s noise and what isn’t.”

“And if I’m not sure?” I asked.

“Use your judgment,” he said.

“And if my judgment is wrong?”

His mouth curved not quite a smile. “Then you’ll learn faster.”

It should’ve sounded like a threat. Weirdly, it didn’t. It sounded like a dare.

He continued, outlining expectations in clean, sharp sentences. No eating at my desk unless given permission. No unnecessary chatter. Availability outside normal hours when required. Discretion as default.

I’d worked for demanding execs before. Men who thought yelling made them sound important. Men who needed three reminders for a single meeting and blamed everyone else when they missed it anyway.

He wasn’t like that.

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t repeat himself. His control was absolute, coiled under his words, under his movements. If those other men were small storms throwing tantrums, he was the weather system that decided which way the winds blew.

“And one more thing,” he said finally.

I looked up from the docket. “Yes?”

His gaze held mine, steady and unblinking.

“Your personal life ends at that elevator. Whatever habits, attachments, or chaos you left in Atlanta, they do not exist here. You are not here to fix yourself. You are here to fix my problems. If anything from your past interferes with that, you won’t last.”

The words stung more than they should have. Maybe because they were too close to the voice in my own head.

“Understood,” I said, even though it made something inside me bristle.

He nodded once, like we’d agreed on something binding. “You’ll be at the desk outside my office. Elias will show you the rest of the floor.”

As if summoned, a knock sounded on the doorframe. I turned.

A man leaner than Damien but just as tall leaned one shoulder against the glass. Hazel eyes with gold specks, sharp jaw, tailored navy suit. He looked like an ad copy for a men’s cologne ad very expensive, a little dangerous, but smiling.

“You rang, boss?” he asked.

Trenton didn’t look at him. “Elias, this is Ms. Carter. She’ll be taking over EA duties.”

Elias pushed off the frame and stepped in, offering a hand. “Elias Cross. Gamma. External operations. Human translation. Occasional chaos manager.”

Gamma. The word twitched at something in my memory. Greek letters, science, frat names. It didn’t quite fit here, but the way he said it made it sound like a title more than a joke.

“Nahiry,” I said, shaking his hand. “Executive assistant. New meat. Apparently late.”

His mouth kicked up. “Already on his bad side? You’re fitting in great.”

Trenton’s gaze flicked to him in a way that said he was one comment away from being thrown off the mountain.

Elias cleared his throat. “I’ll give her the tour.”

“You have ten minutes,” Trenton said, glancing at the sleek clock on the wall. “I expect her at her desk before the eight o’clock meeting with the Atlanta region lead.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Elias said.

The word slid out so smoothly I almost missed it.

Alpha.

My brain snagged on it, but before I could process it, Elias was gesturing me out of the office.

“Come on,” he said. “Let me show you your kingdom.”