Alphas' Indecent Proposal

Chapter 2

Kate's POV

"Your husband is sleeping with my fiancée. I need you to help me prove it."

For three full seconds, I didn't breathe.

Then I laughed.

Not a polite laugh. Not a nervous laugh. The kind of laugh that erupted when reality became so absurd your body didn't know what else to do—unhinged, involuntary, borderline hysterical.

"You're joking."

"I don't joke."

"Then you're wrong."

"I'm never wrong."

"You are spectacularly wrong." My voice shot up an octave, turning sharp and unfamiliar even to my own ears. "Ronald would never—he's not that kind of person—we've been together since we were seventeen! He texts me every single day. He makes my coffee before I even wake up. Last week I sneezed twice and he thought I was getting sick—he drove forty minutes in the rain to bring me medicine!"

Damian's expression didn't change. Not a flicker. "Touching."

"It's not touching, it's the truth! And I have no idea why I'm standing here defending my husband to some—some stranger playing God from his ivory tower when I should be trusting my own judgment. My wolf would tell me if something was wrong—because eveybody knows one would be in pain if she's cheated on!"

I was on my feet, heading for the door. And as if to prove my point, my wolf—silent for so long—finally stirred.

But the growl that rumbled through me wasn't the anguished howl of a betrayed mate.

It was aimed at him. Low. Feral. Hostile.

"I'm not asking you to believe me," Damian said behind me, his voice unhurried. "I'm asking you to install cameras in your apartment. One month. If I'm wrong, you'll see it for yourself—and I'll compensate you and your beloved husband generously."

My hands were shaking as they closed around the door handle. I wasn't going to dignify another word from this man with a response.

The sheer, weapons-grade audacity.

Asking an employee to install surveillance in her own home. Saying it like it was a reasonable request. Like he was asking her to reschedule a meeting.

This company was doomed if this was the man at the helm.

"Are you sure," his voice came from behind me—and for the first time, it wasn't flat, it was amused—"that the lingerie you just bought is worth wearing for a man who's betraying you?"

I slammed the door behind me.

But his words didn't stay in the room. They followed me out, curling around me like smoke.

My eyes went wide. My cheeks burned.

He saw my screen.

He absolutely saw my screen.



And he was absolutely shameless enough to say it to my face!

The corridor outside Damian Voss's office stretched on for what felt like miles.

My cheeks were burning so hot I was genuinely surprised the overhead sprinklers hadn't triggered. I jabbed the elevator call button with the kind of frantic energy usually reserved for defusing bombs, my eyes locked on the floor indicator as if I could will it to move faster.

Come on. Come on, come on, come on.

The doors slid open with a soft chime, and I lunged forward, head down, desperate to put as much distance as possible between myself and that man before the humiliation metastasized into a full-blown panic attack—

And walked straight into a wall of expensive sandalwood, mint, and solid muscle.

"Easy there." A voice like velvet wrapped around a laugh. Two large hands caught my shoulders, steadying me with a gentleness that caught me completely off guard.

I looked up.

My breath snagged in my throat.

Him. The same dark hair. The same razor-cut jawline. The same impossibly beautiful eyes. But the cold, suffocating stare was gone—replaced by a smile so warm and disarming it reached all the way to his eyes, crinkling at the corners like he was genuinely delighted to have a frantic woman crash into his chest.

"Damian... Mr. Voss?" I stammered, stumbling back a step.

The man flashed a perfect eight-tooth grin. His laugh was low and rich—a sound that belonged in a jazz bar, not in the sterile hallway I'd just fled through.

"Please don't insult me. I'm a man with a personality." He extended his hand. "Damon Voss. General counsel for Voss Group, and currently the full-time crisis manager for my brother's spectacular social catastrophes."

I stared at his hand. Then up at his face.

Identical. Terrifyingly identical. And yet—not. Standing in front of Damon felt like stepping into a patch of sunlight. Damian had been a blizzard in a bespoke suit.

"Triplets," I blurted, Priya's reverent whisper echoing in my skull.

"Guilty as charged." Damon smiled. When I didn't take his hand, he withdrew it smoothly, unbothered. Instead, he tilted his head toward the imposing double doors I'd just stormed through. "Give me five minutes, Kate. Come back in. I promise I'll make him apologize for every stale, tactless word he just said to you."

"No." I shook my head, gripping my bag like a lifeline. "I'm going back to my desk. And then I'm going home."

Damon's smile shifted into something more dangerous.

Sympathy.

"I know you're angry. You have every right to be angry. But my brother is an extraordinarily powerful i***t, and right now, he needs this more than you do." He held up an open palm. "Five minutes. If you still want to leave after that, I'll personally escort you to the front door."

Every rational cell in my body screamed walk away.

But maybe it was the fact that Damon hadn't looked at me like a specimen under a microscope. Maybe it was the way he said my brother is an i***t with the weary affection of someone who'd been cleaning up messes his entire life. Or maybe I was just too stunned to keep running.

I exhaled a shaky breath. "Five minutes. And he doesn't get to speak unless I speak to him first."

"Deal."

Damon pushed the door open.

Damian was exactly where I'd left him—leaning against that massive mahogany desk in his tailored suit, looking like a thunderstorm that had learned to wear cufflinks.

The second we stepped inside, he opened his mouth. "I thought I already told you—"

"Sit down and shut up, Damian." Damon cut him off, bright and direct, as casually as if he were telling him to pass the salt. He guided me to the soft leather sofa in the corner and settled into the armchair across from me, elbows on knees, leaning in.

Damian's brow furrowed. But—miraculously—he clenched his jaw and stayed silent.

"Let me translate what my brother's famously nonexistent emotional intelligence failed to communicate." Damon spoke in the easy, conversational tone of a man who could sell you a bridge and make you thank him for it. "Damian is the eldest. He's set to formally inherit the Alpha title of our pack. But there's a condition. Our father, in his infinite and deeply outdated wisdom, refuses to hand over the position unless Damian marries the daughter of his oldest ally—Catherine."

"So he's being forced into an arranged mating." My voice came out flat. "Welcome to the eighteenth century. What does any of this have to do with me?"

"Everything." Damon's eyes sharpened, the playfulness draining away in an instant. "Under pack law, if an Alpha breaks a formal pairing contract without cause, he forfeits his title and owes the bride's pack a financial penalty large enough to bankrupt a small country. But—" He raised one finger. "If the bride is the one who breaks faith?

Say, if she's caught being unfaithful before the bonding ceremony?"

"The contract is voided." The pieces clicked into place before he finished. "He keeps the title. No penalty. No payout."

"Exactly." Damon's face lit up with what looked like genuine admiration. "You're quick. Now—Damian has reason to believe Catherine has been pursuing... extracurricular entertainment. Specifically, with a certain charming sales manager at MedVance Pharmaceuticals."

My stomach dropped.

Ronald.

"That's absurd." The words came out sharp, my gaze cutting between the two brothers. "Ronald isn't the kind of man who wrecks homes. He would never betray me. And your fiancée—the future Luna—why would she even look at a man who isn't an Alpha?"

"Because she's a greedy, title-hungry narcissist who feeds on attention like oxygen." Damian's voice cracked through the room. He'd finally hit his limit on silence. The disgust in his tone was visceral—raw and unfiltered. "She treats the Luna title like a blank check. She wants the power, the status, the wealth—but she can't stand that I refuse to play the role of her adoring lapdog. I haven't spoken to her in weeks. Why would I waste my time appeasing a woman I despise?"

Silence.

Damon pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something under his breath.

I stared at Damian.

The sheer, undiluted arrogance of this man was suffocating. But something had shifted inside me. The fear was gone. The humiliation had evaporated. What replaced it was white-hot, righteous fury.

"So let me get this straight."

Damian's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"You ignore her." I rose from the sofa. It had suddenly become claustrophobic. "You treat her like a business deal you regret signing. You freeze her out, you go weeks without speaking to her—Valentine's Day was just a few days ago, if I'm not mistaken, and you couldn't even be bothered on that—and then you have the audacity to be outraged that she might seek comfort somewhere else?"

Damian went rigid. The ice in those winter-lake eyes cracked, and something volcanic surged beneath it. "What are you saying?"

"You heard me." I stepped forward, my finger pointing at this billion-dollar Alpha like I was scolding a child. "You demand absolute loyalty and give nothing in return. You expect her to sit on a shelf, quiet and pretty, until you need her for a photo op? You are cold, arrogant, and completely devoid of basic human decency."

"Kate." Damon's voice was soft. A warning. He'd felt the shift in the room—the atmospheric pressure plummeting like a storm front rolling in.

But I was past the point of no return.

"You didn't bring me up here because you want the truth, Mr. Voss. You brought me here because you need a scapegoat for your pathetic, failing engagement. And you actually expect me to sacrifice my marriage to salvage your pride?"

A growl tore through the office.

Low. Seismic. The kind of sound you felt in your sternum before your ears even registered it.

The air turned to lead. Alpha dominance crashed through the room like a physical force—a barometric drop that pressed against my lungs, demanding submission. Any normal wolf would have bared her neck by now.

But my wolf?

Silent. Unmoved. The same eerie stillness she'd maintained for longer than I could remember.

As for the human half of me? I was done.

Damian advanced. One slow, deliberate step. His shadow swallowed me whole, six-foot-something of pure Alpha fury looming over me like a verdict.

"Watch your tone, intern." His voice had dropped to a frequency that could c***k glass.

"Or what?" I blinked back the angry tears—the involuntary, infuriating kind that always showed up when I was fighting, not crying—and tipped my chin up, refusing to break eye contact. "You'll fire me?"

Damian's jaw tightened.

I didn't wait for an answer.

I reached behind my neck, unclipped my Voss Capital badge, and tossed it onto his pristine, empty desk. The plastic hit the wood with a c***k that rang through the silent room like a gunshot.

"Save yourself the trouble." I grabbed my bag. "I quit."

I turned on my heel and walked toward the door.

"Congratulations on the engagement, Mr. Voss." I didn't look back. "Sounds like you two deserve each other."

I pushed through the doors and let them swing shut behind me.

This time, the most powerful Alpha in the city had nothing to say.