MIKAEL'S FORBIDDEN ADDICTION (UNDER EDITING)

CHAPTER THREE

Mikael Roosevelt leaned his head against the cool leather of the Maybach’s headrest, his eyes fixed on the rearview mirror. He watched the small, retreating figure of Lyara McKinley until she was nothing more than a speck in the darkness of the city.

A slow, dangerous smile pulled at his lips. The robbery had been a setup—a staged play to see if the girl who had treated him like a ghost on the runway was truly as cold as she looked. He had expected her to run. He had expected her to scream for help. He hadn't expected her to grab a wooden plank and charge at two armed men to save a stranger.

"She has teeth," Mikael whispered, his voice a low growl of approval.

As the car pulled away, Mikael’s mind flashed back to the hours following the fashion show. He hadn't been able to shake the image of her walking away from him on that runway. No one walked away from Mikael Roosevelt.

He remembered sitting in his office late that night, the blue light of his laptop illuminating his face. He had called his lawyer, his voice cold and commanding.

"Find out who owns Elite Edge Entertainment," he had ordered. "I don't care what the price is. Buy it. By Monday morning, I want to be the one who decides which models stay and which ones go."

He had waited, sipping scotch, until the call came back. The agency was owned by a man named Miller—Jacob’s father. The man was struggling with debt, making him an easy target. Mikael had authorized the wire transfer without a second thought. Millions of dollars were nothing compared to the look of shock he wanted to see on Lyara’s face.

Once the papers were signed, he had made one more call—to Mr. Miller.

"Call Lyara McKinley," Mikael had instructed, his voice leaning into a threat. "Tell her there is a mandatory meeting on Monday morning. Tell her the new stakeholders are coming. Do not mention my name. If you breathe a word of this to her or your son, the deal is off and I’ll bury your company by noon."

Mikael watched through the tinted window as the city lights blurred past. He could almost hear the phone ringing in Lyara's pocket. He could imagine her confusion, her worry, and her determination to be professional. She thought she was going to a meeting to save her career.

She had no idea she was walking into a trap he had spent millions to build.

When the car finally pulled up to the iron gates of his sprawling estate, the mansion glowed like a haunted palace. He stepped inside, the heavy marble floors echoing his every stride. He felt a restless energy buzzing under his skin, a hunger that the night’s events had only sharpened.

"You’re late, Mikael."

A woman emerged from the shadows of the grand foyer. She was a top-tier lingerie model, draped in a sheer silk robe that barely clung to her shoulders. She walked toward him, her eyes dark with a hungry, desperate fire. She wrapped her arms around his neck, the scent of jasmine and heat radiating from her skin.

Mikael didn't speak. He grabbed her waist, his fingers bruising the silk as he pulled her flush against him. He needed to drown out the image of Lyara in that hoodie, but the harder he tried, the more her face haunted him.

He carried the woman to the velvet sofa, his mouth crashing onto hers with a sudden, rough intensity. He stripped the robe from her shoulders, his hands roaming over her curves with an impatient, restless energy. He felt her arch against him, her skin slick and warm, her breath hitching in a series of desperate gasps as he moved against her.

The arousal was a sharp, biting thing, but it wasn't fueled by the woman in his arms. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt the cool air of the alley. He felt the phantom touch of Lyara’s gaze. His movements became faster, more demanding, driven by a dark need to reclaim the control he had lost the moment she walked away from him on that runway.

He buried his face in the woman’s neck, his teeth grazing her skin as his heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The heat in the room was suffocating, the air thick with the sound of his own heavy, ragged breathing. He pushed her deeper into the cushions, his body reacting to a ghost, his mind trapped in a loop of silver silk and defiant eyes.

As the tension reached a shattering breaking point, his grip tightened until the woman cried out in a mix of pain and pleasure. He felt the world blur, his control finally snapping, and as the release hit him like a tidal wave, a name he hadn't spoken in years ripped from his throat in a guttural, breathless groan.

"Lyara..."

The woman beneath him went dead silent. The heat in the room evaporated instantly, replaced by a suffocating, icy chill. She shoved at his chest, her eyes wide with shock and humiliation as she scrambled to pull her robe back over her trembling frame.

"Who?" she hissed, her voice shaking with rage. "Who is Lyara, Mikael?"

Mikael sat up slowly, his face returning to its usual cold, emotionless mask. He didn't apologize. He didn't even look at her. He simply reached for his glass of scotch on the side table and took a slow, deliberate sip.

"Nobody," he said, his voice flat. "Go home."

After the woman had scurried out of the house, clutching her robe and blinking back tears of humiliation, Mikael stood by the floor-to-ceiling window. He didn't feel the usual post-coital calm. Instead, he felt a jagged, restless hunger. He stared at his reflection in the glass, the city lights of Los Angeles twinkling behind his head like a cold crown.

"See you Monday, Lyara," he whispered to the glass, his breath fogging the pane. "Let’s see how fierce you are when I’m the one who signs your checks."

The heavy silence of the lounge was suddenly broken by the rhythmic, metallic thud of a cane against the marble floor.

Mikael didn't turn around. He knew that pace. It was a walk he had feared as a child and learned to mimic as a man. He poured another three fingers of scotch, the ice clinking sharply against the crystal.

"You always did have a habit of discarding things when you were finished with them, Mikael," a voice like shattered silk drifted from the doorway. "But calling out another woman’s name while in the arms of a guest? That’s sloppy. Even for a Roosevelt."

Mikael finally turned. His mother, Eleanor Roosevelt, stood in the archway. She was dressed in a sharp charcoal suit, her silver hair pulled back so tight it looked painful. She was the true architect of the Roosevelt empire, and her eyes were as cold as the diamonds at her throat.

"It’s late, Mother," Mikael said, leaning back against the bar. "What are you doing here?"

"I am here because the board of Roosevelt Global is tired of waiting," Eleanor said. She stopped a few feet away, her gaze scanning his disheveled shirt and flushed skin with clinical disgust. "They don't care about your movies or your little modeling agencies. They care about the merger. And for that merger to happen, we need an image of stability."

Mikael let out a dry, humorless laugh. "And I suppose a wedding is the only way to get it?"

"A strategic alliance," Eleanor corrected, her cane hitting the floor with a sharp crack. "We’ve discussed the Vanderbilt girl. She’s wealthy, she’s polished, and most importantly, she is controllable. She will be the perfect fiancé to sit beside you at the gala next month."

Mikael took a slow sip of his drink, his mind flashing back to the girl in the alley—the girl who had looked at him like he was a piece of trash. He thought of the fire in Lyara’s eyes and compared it to the hollow, plastic smile of a Vanderbilt.

"I’m not interested in the Vanderbilt girl," Mikael said quietly.

Eleanor’s eyes narrowed into slits. "This isn't a choice, Mikael. If you don't announce a fiancé by the end of the month, the board will move to replace you as CEO. You have a role to play."

Mikael stepped toward her, his height casting a long shadow that swallowed her small frame. "I've already found someone."

Eleanor paused, her grip tightening on her cane. "Who? One of your little runway playthings? A girl from a magazine cover?"

"A girl from nowhere," Mikael said, a predatory glint appearing in his blue eyes. "She has no family, no connections, and currently, she thinks she hates me. But she has more life in her than a hundred of your society dolls."

"You would risk the family legacy for a 'nobody'?" Eleanor’s voice rose, vibrating with suppressed rage. "She’ll ruin you. She’ll be a scandal before the first course is served."

"She won't ruin me," Mikael hissed, leaning down until he was face-to-face with his mother. "Because by the time I’m done with her, she won't have a choice but to be exactly what I need her to be. I’m not just going to marry her, Mother. I’m going to own her. And the world will love her because I’ll tell them to."

Eleanor stared at him, seeing the dark obsession that had always simmered beneath his charm. "And if she says no?"

Mikael straightened his cuffs, his face settling into a chillingly handsome mask.

"She’s a model at Elite Edge Entertainment, Mother. I bought the agency tonight. On Monday morning, I became her boss. By the end of the week, I’ll be her world. She can say no all she wants... it won't change the ending of the story."