Alphas' Indecent Proposal

Chapter 10

Kate's POV



I woke up with no memory of how I'd gotten back to the bedroom.

The dried salt on my cheeks told me I'd been crying. My pillow smelled faintly of tears and whatever cheap hotel detergent they used on the sheets. But the dream itself? Gone. Dissolved like smoke the second my eyes opened.

One thing I knew for certain: none of the Voss brothers would have carried me here. Damon and Darius had left hours ago. I'd heard them say goodnight through the fog of sleep. Which meant the last person in the apartment had been Damian.

And Damian would sooner set himself on fire than touch me voluntarily.

So I must have walked myself back. Sleepwalking. A brand new habit, apparently, courtesy of the universe's ongoing campaign to make my life as bizarre as possible.

Wonderful. Add it to the list.

By evening, I was standing in front of the closet, staring at the three sad blazers I'd packed for a "business trip" that was actually a covert surveillance operation, when the doorbell rang.

I opened it.

What followed was a small-scale invasion.

Garment racks. Shoe stands. Velvet trays of jewelry. A parade of uniformed staff wheeling everything into the living room with military precision, transforming the space into a private fitting room in under ninety seconds. No one spoke. No one made eye contact. They arranged, adjusted, and vanished.

And then Damian appeared in the doorway.

"Stop staring," he said, already walking past me. "Get inside."

Not a request.

I followed him into the living room, still barefoot, still half-caffeinated, still processing the fact that my temporary apartment now looked like the backstage area of a fashion week show.

A full-length mirror had been positioned at the center of the room. It caught my reflection in brutal honesty: unbrushed hair, yesterday's mascara smudged beneath my lashes, and the blank, slightly stunned expression of a woman who had not consented to any of this.

But the mirror wasn't the main event.

Hanging on a brass rack directly across from it, displayed like a museum piece no one had invited me to view, was a dress.

Black. Floor-length. The fabric was so deeply pigmented it seemed to swallow light rather than reflect it. The drape had a matte, liquid quality that moved like water. The neckline would skim my collarbones. The slit would end precisely at mid-thigh.

Below it: heels. Black satin. Red soles the color of a fresh wound.

Beside the heels: a clutch. Small, angular, pale as mother-of-pearl.

And to the left, arranged on a strip of black velvet: earrings, a bracelet, and a necklace of crushed diamonds that caught the light like scattered stars.

Every piece matched.

Every piece was unmistakably, offensively expensive.

And every piece, I realized with a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature, was my exact size.

I didn't need to try anything on to know. But I did anyway.

The dress fit like it had been sewn directly onto my body.

I stood in front of the mirror and watched a stranger stare back at me. I clipped on the earrings. Fastened the bracelet. Fumbled with the necklace clasp until it finally settled against my throat, cold and precise.

The woman in the glass was beautiful.

She was also someone I didn't recognize.

She looked like the version of me that existed in the gap between who I really was and who other people expected me to be. Polished. Controlled. The kind of woman who could walk into a room full of wolves and not flinch.

Ronald used to buy me clothes, too.

Birthday dresses. Anniversary lingerie. That cashmere coat the winter I said my old parka was fine. He'd always lay them out on the bed like offerings, and when I walked in, he'd stand behind me in the mirror, watching my face with an expression I'd always read as love.

He'd ruin it, of course. He always did. Every gift came with the same punchline: You owe me. I'd asked him to stop saying that a hundred times. He never did.

I smiled at my reflection. The stranger's sharp edges softened, just for a moment, because even now, even after everything, the memory of Ronald still felt like home.

He loves me. He's not perfect. But he loves me. And love means accepting someone's flaws.

That's what I believed.

That's what I needed to keep believing, at least until this was over and I could go back to our apartment, our life, our normal.

But tonight, in this mirror, the man standing behind me was not Ronald.

Damian had settled onto the sofa at my back, flipping through documents, not once glancing up.

"Thank you for the dress," I said stiffly. "How did you know my size?"

His eyes lifted. Scanned me head to toe with exactly zero change in expression, as if the woman in the mirror who'd startled even herself was nothing particularly remarkable.

"Every employee's physical measurements are recorded during onboarding medical exams," he said. "Company file. Not hard to find."

"Voss Group keeps that kind of data on file?"

"Of course."

He said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

I turned away and rolled my eyes.

Then caught myself smiling.

I picked up the clutch, the last piece still waiting on the rack, and took one final look at the mirror.

"Let's go."

I took a breath.

The woman staring back at me was someone I envied and feared in equal measure. But she looked like the kind of person who could survive tonight.

I didn't know her.

But I needed her.

The restaurant was called Aurelius, and it felt like stepping into a cathedral built for secrets.

The moment I took Damian's arm and crossed the velvet threshold, every shred of composure I'd rehearsed in the car evaporated. My nervous system went into full revolt. The valet, the doorman, the hostess, the sommelier... their words entered one ear and exited the other without leaving a single imprint.

My legs were shaking beneath the silk.

"Mr. Voss, your table is ready."

The hostess turned to guide us, and I noticed her gaze never once landed on me. It stayed locked on Damian with an expression I recognized instantly. The same look people wore at the office whenever he stepped off the elevator. Not just attraction. Something more complex. Deference. Gravity. As if his mere presence forced everyone in the room to recalibrate.

Damian acknowledged her with a slight nod.

Then his hand found the small of my back.

His palm was broad, warm, and utterly deliberate. The heat of it burned through the fabric and struck something at the base of my spine like a match head dragged across a strike plate. A jolt of pure electricity shot through my core.

I went rigid. My breath stopped.

"Smile, Kate." He leaned down, his mouth close enough to my ear that I felt the words more than heard them. "We're a couple celebrating tonight. That's the story."

"I know that," I managed, each syllable requiring individual effort.

I knew the plan. I'd gone over it so many times the details were branded into my brain.

But Damian touching me like this was not part of any plan. This was the variable that could blow the entire operation.

It's an act, I told myself. He's pretending. I'm pretending. This is a surveillance mission with a wine list.

He guided me through the main dining room and into a curved booth tucked against a floor-to-ceiling window. The city spread out below us like a circuit board, roads glowing like veins of light, and for a dizzying second I felt like I was floating above it all rather than sitting inside it.

Damian pulled out my chair. Waited until I was seated. Then took his place across from me.

Course after course arrived. A sommelier materialized with a bottle Damian had preselected. When the wine came, he picked up my glass and poured it himself, bypassing the sommelier entirely.

I swallowed a half-chewed bite of filet and reached for the glass as he extended it. My fingers brushed his.

A normal touch. Perfectly reasonable for two people sharing a table.

But his fingertips lingered. Just a beat too long. Long enough for me to feel the callus on the side of his index finger press against my knuckle.

When he finally let go, the absence of contact left a mark on my skin that was both freezing and burning at the same time. The heat crawled up my arm, climbed my neck, and settled across my cheeks.

I cleared my throat. Took a sip. Tried to let the cold wine extinguish whatever was happening inside my body. Stared out the window and pretended to admire the view.

This is the mission, I reminded myself. Playing a couple requires normal physical contact. He's acting. I'm acting. Nothing is wrong.

I wanted to reach for my wolf. Her growl, her rage, her instinct... any response at all would have been a comfort. But she stayed silent. A void where my compass used to be.

Every wolf understands what that absence feels like. She was my built-in radar, the part of me that could read danger, decode emotions, sense the architecture of a room before my human brain caught up. Without her, I had nothing. Just white noise and my own hammering pulse.

Then Damian stood again.

Closer this time.

He bent toward me until our faces were nearly touching, his lips hovering beside my ear. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. It's fine, I told myself. This is fine.

"Catherine's table is on the opposite corridor," he murmured. "Third booth by the window. She arrived five minutes ago. Two companions. One woman I don't recognize. One man I do. He's a member of her father's legal team."

His breath ghosted across my earlobe. His lips grazed the curve of my ear like a kiss that hadn't decided whether to land.

"Your left side, forty-five degrees. You'll catch the edge of her table. She won't be able to see you."