Life was all about choice, except, in this case, his wolf side seemed to have other ideas.
Meantime, the she-wolf across from him wouldn’t look at him. He’d liked that in the boardroom. Now, not so much.
What was the last thing she’d said to him before his mind had tilted sideways? Oh, right. She’d asked if this was some kind of joke.
“No.” He cleared his throat since his voice had actually cracked. He rubbed his forehead. Could that be any more humiliating? Alphas didn’t lose it, not even when they met their mates. Or at least he didn’t think they did. Other than Travis, he’d never known any wolf to actually find a true mating.
“Then I think you’ve made a mistake.” She looked around the floor.
“Could you look at me? Please?” Wow, he really wanted her warm brown eyes to meet his.
She raised her eyes to his. He had one moment to drown in the caramel-colored windows of her soul before she turned red and looked down again.
Okay. He knew how to instill confidence in submissive wolves. No one in his pack cowered from him. He might growl a lot, but he never bit. Unless they did something very, very bad.
“Could you tell me your name?” He tried to keep his voice calm. All he wanted to do was to haul her over his shoulder and drag her back to his penthouse where he would keep her forever. If she was a full-bred wolf or had been raised in a pack, she wouldn’t object. She might even bite him or run to make him chase her. But she was a half-breed and, if she was like Lilliana, actually latent. She might think she was human. Hauling wouldn’t work with her.
He needed to figure out how to behave.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She took a sip of her coffee. “You’re some psycho who sat down here and said a lot of weird stuff. I don’t tell my name to strangers, let alone deranged ones.”
He laughed, a long, hard sound that surprised him with its intensity. All right, so she had claws. His nameless she-wolf wouldn’t look at him, but she’d tear at him. The new discovery made him obscenely happy.
Now she raised her eyes. For a full thirty seconds, she stared straight at him. “That was funny?”
“No, but I found it amusing just the same.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out his card. With a flick of his fingers, he slid it across the table to her. “I’m sorry I seem deranged. This is a case of mistaken identity. I have a friend who looks an awful lot like you. I thought you were she, but you are fantastically not. That’s my card. I’m not insane. Google me.”
She picked up his information and studied it for a second. “Are you somebody I should know? I don’t watch the news or read the papers. I’m new to the area.”
“I don’t know that I’m somebody you should know. But you are going to know me. Count on that.”
“Look, I think you should go. It’s not right, you sitting here.”
Now that was a statement. “Why isn’t it right?”
“Because it’s not.”
He tried to keep his tone soft. “Look at me when you say that, and maybe I’ll believe you.”
She gripped the table in front of her. Her knuckles turned white, and she raised her eyes again. But he couldn’t meet her gaze. Not this time. Not now that he’d noticed her left hand. It had been in her lap the whole time.
The she-wolf who was his mate—even if he didn’t yet know her name—wore a diamond on the ring finger of her left hand. He couldn’t seem to pull his attention from the spot. It was a tiny piece of jewelry. Square cut atop a silver base, it caught and reflected the sunlight on the table. Wolves didn’t give rings to their mates. It was a human tradition that they saw no need for. But, by all that mattered to him, he wanted to rip that thing off her finger, throw it out the window, and go buy her the biggest, most expensive piece of jewelry he could find to replace the one she wore. Something that screamed she belonged to him, not to whoever had infringed on his territory.
Cyrus sat back in his seat. Protecting borders from outside invaders was actually something he did really well. He hadn’t gotten to be Alpha of Manhattan by not knowing how to wage war. In this case, he’d have to take something that had already been claimed by someone else. This didn’t bother Cyrus in the least. She was his mate, and she’d been placed right outside of his office building in the nick of time. There was still time to set this right. She wasn’t married yet.
The fiancé could be dealt with. He’d yet to find a human male that couldn’t be, and no wolf was going to challenge his claim in Manhattan. Cyrus took a deep breath. There was a faint hint of another non-wolf male on her, but not enough to indicate true, long-term intimacy.