CHAPTER 7: ALONE WITH THE DEVIL
1841 Words
ROSETTE’S POV
The growl that ripped from Ethan’s throat was pure jealousy.
It rumbled through the boardroom, primal and furious. The sound of a wolf watching another male touch what he still considered his.
Every head in the room turned toward him. Board members shrank back in their seats. Even the air seemed to thicken with the promise of violence.
Zavien Giordani didn’t even flinch.
If anything, his smile widened.
Those gray eyes flicked toward Ethan with the casual interest of a cat who’d spotted a particularly stupid mouse.
His lips still hovered over my knuckles. I could feel my pulse hammering against the pad of his thumb.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
“Ethan.” My voice cut through the tension. “Sit. Down.”
“That is my MATE!” Ethan snarled, shoving back from the table so hard his chair crashed to the floor. “You don’t get to TOUCH her!”
The audacity of it nearly made me laugh.
His mate. The mate he rejected. The mate he called nothing in front of over a hundred witnesses. The mate he threw out with the garbage while his mistress kissed him on stage.
Now he wanted to claim me?
Zavien released my hand slowly, letting his fingers trail across my palm in a way that sent heat racing up my arm. I hated my body for responding.
Then he turned to face Ethan fully, and the temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees.
“Mate?” Zavien’s voice was cold with amusement. “I must have misheard. Because the way I remember it, you rejected her. Quite publicly. Something about her being…” He tilted his head, pretending to recall. “What was the phrase? Unworthy to stand beside you?”
Ethan’s face went white, then red.
“That was—I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean to humiliate her in front of your entire pack?” Zavien took a step toward him. “You didn’t mean to call her nothing while your mistress celebrated? You didn’t mean to have her dragged out and dumped in the snow on Christmas Eve?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about.” Zavien’s smile turned sharp. “The whole world knows, actually, Blackwell. Forty million views, wasn’t it? The video of your ex-mate emphasizing what a small-dicked moron you are.”
The board members sat frozen, watching this exchange with the horror of spectators at an execution. No one dared breathe.
Ethan’s hands were shaking.
“Who even ARE you?” he demanded, voice cracking. “What right do you have to be here? To touch her?”
Zavien laughed. The sound was dark and rich, and it did things to my spine I refused to acknowledge.
“Who am I?” He adjusted his cufflinks, utterly unbothered by Ethan’s fury. “I’m Zavien Giordani. Perhaps you’ve heard the name. Perhaps not. You seem rather illiterate when it comes to power structures beyond your little pack.”
Illiterate. He’d just called an Alpha provincial to his face.
“I know who you are,” Ethan spat. “You’re that Lycan asshole from the news. You’re our enemy. Sinclair Global’s competitor. You have no business being here—”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Zavien’s eyes glinted. “I have every business being here. But we’ll get to that.”
He turned back to me, dismissing Ethan entirely. A calculated insult that made a vein throb in Ethan’s temple.
“Apologies for the interruption, Miss Sinclair. You were conducting a meeting, I believe?”
The way he said Miss Sinclair was nothing like how the board members said it. From them, it was deference. From him, it was a game. A private joke between the two of us, though I hadn’t agreed to play.
I hated it.
I hated him.
And I hated the way my wolf was practically purring at his proximity, drawn to him in ways that made no sense.
“Rosette—” Ethan started again.
“For the last time, Ethan Blackwell, it’s Miss Sinclair.” I finally turned to look at him, letting every ounce of ice I possessed freeze my expression. “And I believe I gave you instructions. Sit. Down.”
“I won’t sit down while he—”
“You will sit down.” I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to.
The Alpha command rolled off me in waves, and I watched Ethan’s knees buckle involuntarily. He caught himself on the edge of the table, face contorting with the effort of resisting.
But he couldn’t resist. Not against a True Blood.
Slowly, he sank back into a chair. His jaw was clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack.
“Good boy,” Zavien murmured, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
Someone at the far end of the table choked on a cough.
I shot Zavien a glare that could kill. He met it with perfect innocence, though his eyes danced with amusement.
“Mr. Giordani.” I kept my voice clipped. “You’ve made quite an entrance. But this is a private board meeting, and unless I’m mistaken, you’re not on the Sinclair Global shareholder registry.”
“Not yet,” he agreed pleasantly.
Those two words made my stomach tighten.
“Then you have no right to be here.”
“I have an offer for you, Miss Sinclair.” He said it casually, the way one might comment on the weather outside. Through the windows, I could see snow falling gently over the city, the last gasp of the holiday season before the new year arrived. “One I think you’ll find impossible to resist.”
“I doubt that. Giordani Enterprises and Sinclair Global are enemies. Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”
“Humor me.” He spread his hands, the picture of reasonableness. “Sixty seconds. If you’re not interested, I’ll leave peacefully.”
“You’ll leave now.”
“Will I?” He raised an eyebrow. “Your security is good, Miss Sinclair. But we both know they can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.”
He wasn’t bragging. He was stating a fact.
Zavien Giordani was over two hundred and fifty years old. The last pure Lycan. A threat so genuine that even my father treated him with caution.
My security detail could throw themselves at him until the end of time, and he’d walk through them like they were made of paper.
I sighed. Patience, Rosette. Patience.
“Sixty seconds,” I said flatly. “Then you’re gone.”
“Delightful.” He turned to address the room at large, as if he owned it. “Ladies. Gentlemen. This has been fascinating, but I believe Miss Sinclair and I have private matters to discuss. You’re dismissed.”
The audacity.
The sheer, unbelievable audacity of this man, walking into my boardroom and dismissing my board members as if they were servants.
But before I could snap at him, I caught the looks on their faces. The fear. The discomfort. The desperate desire to be anywhere else.
They’d just watched me eviscerate Madison Pierce. They’d watched Ethan get put in his place.
Now there was an ancient Lycan radiating menace in the corner, and no one wanted to be caught in the crossfire.
Maybe clearing the room wasn’t the worst idea.
But I’d be damned if I let him be the one to do it.
“Meeting adjourned,” I announced, cutting off whatever Zavien was about to say next. “Everyone out. Mr. Giordani and I will continue this discussion privately.”
The executives practically trampled each other getting to the door. Papers abandoned. Coffee cups left behind. They fled as if the building were on fire.
Luther stepped forward, positioning himself between me and Zavien. His hand was on his weapon, his eyes hard.
“Miss Sinclair, I strongly advise against—”
“Wait outside, Luther.”
“Ma’am, this man is—”
“I’m aware of what he is.” I met his eyes steadily. “I can handle myself. Wait outside.”
Luther’s jaw tightened. He looked at Zavien with undisguised hostility, a guard dog who desperately wanted to bite but had been ordered to heel.
“I’ll be right outside the door,” he said finally. A warning directed at Zavien as much as a reassurance to me.
“Noted,” Zavien said lazily.
One by one, the room emptied. The board members. The assistants. Luther, with one final glare.
Ethan was the last to leave.
He stood at the doorway, hovering, his expression caught between wounded pride and desperate hope. His eyes found mine, pleading.
“Rosette… can we please just—”
“Mr. Blackwell.” I put every drop of ice I possessed into those two words. “I believe I made myself clear. This meeting is adjourned. Whatever discussion you and I need to have about your new position can wait.”
The reminder hit him fresh, as if he still hadn’t quite understood our new dynamic.
His new position. Executive assistant. Coffee fetcher. Errand boy.
Something flickered across his face. Shame. Rage. The ghost of his pride screaming at him to refuse, to fight, to demand the respect he thought he deserved.
But then I saw something else. Calculation. Something shifting behind his eyes, some internal battle I wasn’t privy to.
Whatever war was happening inside him, desperation won.
He swallowed whatever argument was building in his throat.
“We’re not done,” he said quietly. Then he turned and walked out.
The door clicked shut behind him.
And I was alone with the devil.
The silence that followed pressed in from all sides. Without the buffer of other bodies, other heartbeats, Zavien Giordani’s presence filled the room completely.
That ancient energy pushed against my senses, testing my boundaries, tasting my defenses. Invasive. Addictive. Wrong in every way that mattered.
My wolf should have been snarling. She should have been warning me, urging me to run, to fight, to do anything but stand here trading barbs with a creature who could end me before I drew my next breath.
Instead, she was curious.
Interested.
Traitor.
Zavien watched me with those impossible gray eyes, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.
He looked utterly at ease. As if he hadn’t just walked into enemy territory and made himself at home.
“Alone at last,” he murmured.
The words curled around me, warm and unwelcome. I suppressed a shiver.
“Your sixty seconds started the moment that door closed, Mr. Giordani.” I folded my arms across my chest, refusing to give him an inch. “Talk fast.”
His smile widened.
“Oh, little Alpha,” he said softly, something wicked flickering in his gaze. “This is going to be fun.”
- Writer
