Once I’d blinked a couple of times, he came into focus at last.
I blinked again, because I couldn’t help it.
Okay, no. He might not have a mullet or a man-bun, and he’d been early for our meeting—and he was obviously an alpha—but there the list of qualifications as a mate ended as suddenly as if it’d run into a brick wall.
Which he kind of resembled himself, actually. His shoulders, anyway.
Rumpled, overly long black hair, the harsh-featured face of a hard man who’d lived a hard life, at least a few days’ worth of unshaven beard, piercing gray eyes, and those absurd shoulders straining the threadbare seams of an olive-green Henley with a hole in one sleeve.
He had all the polish of a battered piece of scrap metal I might find in a junk yard—at least, if I’d ever set foot in a junk yard.
And he looked to be well over six feet, probably a good half-foot taller than me, though I’d only know for sure once he stood up.
Alphas did tend to the large, and I needed an alpha for my plan to work, but…no. He’d dwarf me if we stood next to each other, which we’d need to do all the time: at the formal mating reception, in photos, at our public appearances…and any authority I had would be eroded by the comparison between his overt alpha-ness and my lack of it.
Of course, any authority I had with members of my family or with the pack would derive from having an alpha mate in the first place. The less traditional werewolf and human employees of Castelli Industries might view me with respect—because I’d earned it. But their opinions wouldn’t matter a damn without my father’s willingness to hand over the reins.
A cold, heavy clench caught at my chest. Yeah. And if I showed up withthisalpha as a mate, my father would laugh in my face.
On the other hand, Pechorin did fulfill the nominal requirement my father had laid down. And he’d bemychoice, not my father’s. If I went along with him and let him choose an alpha from our milieu, someone sophisticated and educated and acceptable, he’d step in and take credit for everything I’d worked for. My father would put him in charge. Between the two of them, my father and his hand-picked alpha, they’d decide I’d be much better off spending my time suitably for an influential alpha’s mate: making myself as pretty as possible—not very, in other words—and standing behind him, smiling and keeping my fucking mouth shut.
He’d already strongly suggested a couple of men who’d fit that bill, and I’d started running out of time to put him off. I had to find my own mate if I didn’t want one forced on me.
No way to win, except to change the rules of the game.
When Pechorin spoke again, it startled the hell out of me. “You going to keep staring at me, or what?” he demanded.
I swallowed hard. “Excuse me,” I managed. “My eyesight’s not the best.”
“The glasses clued me in,” he said, with a hint of sarcasm that made me flush and fidget. He picked up his beer and took a swig, his own sharp eyes, that probably hadn’t missed a thing, never leaving my face.
Oh, hell. What did I have to lose, anyway? My father would never put Blake in charge; he cared about appearances, but he cared more about his shareholders’ profits. And Drew, my alpha cousin, whom my father had tried to groom for the job and marry to a female alpha with a distinguished pedigree—well, he’d vanished for months, come back mated to a human, and then taken off for California. Even if my father had been willing to overlook all that, Drew had made it more than clear my father could stuff it. Blake would’ve drawn a hefty salary and fucked off to Hawaii or something, leaving me the de facto boss. And Drew—well, he wasn’t an asshole, and he’d have shared the job with me, at least, and listened to me. I could’ve lived with either of those two options, as much as it would’ve chafed me to do all the work and never get any of the credit for it.
Now it was either get mated off to someone who’d be in control of me for the rest of my life, leave the family completely…or find my own alpha.
I couldn’t go off on my own. Much as my overbearing, unloving family made my life hell, the prospect of being completely alone in the world, cut off and without a pack, chilled me to the bone. I simply couldn’t do it. Maybe that made me a coward.
But I couldn’t do it. And even if I did bring myself to, it’d mean giving up everything I’d worked for.
I cleared my throat and leaned forward, putting my forearms on the table in a pose that I’d learned, from a lot of tense meetings, looked focused and serious.
“Johnny told me you have unmet financial obligations and some other individuals you’d like to avoid,” I said. I’d meant to work up to the point a little more gradually, but the impatience on Pechorin’s face and the blunt way he’d spoken to me so far suggested he wouldn’t appreciate it. “I have the resources to bail you out of whatever trouble you’re trying to outrun. And I have a personal issue I think you could help me with. I think we could help each other.”
Pechorin raised a skeptical eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched up. “I believe you about your resources, but if you really want someone to off your brother, arranging it in person, in a bar, under your real name, is about as stupid as it gets. And I don’t think I want to work for someone that fucking reckless.”
Atoff your brotherI started to choke, and by the time he finished I could hardly hear him over my own wheezing. Kill Blake? Okay, yes, I could see the appeal in the abstract, but…kill Blake? He thought I’d had him meet me here to pay him to murder my brother? What the hell had Johnny said to him?
My eyes watered, and I waved Pechorin off as he frowned at me, even though he hadn’t made the slightest move to slap me on the back or anything. “I’m fine,” I gasped. “Jesus. I’m fine.”
Not that he’d bothered to ask. Asshole.
“So that’s a no on killing your brother?” Pechorin said nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly? Had that been his terrible version of a joke? Was he fucking with me? Christ, either way I might be out of my depth. “Okay,” he went on. “What’s your problem, then?”
I stuck a finger under my glasses to dry off my eyelids, not a very dignified maneuver, and blinked him into focus again.
Fuck. This. I’d shoot my shot, and then he could finish his beer while I took off to find a bar with acceptable liquor to drown my sorrows.
“I want to take over Castelli Industries when my father retires,” I said baldly—albeit quietly, because I really didn’t want to be overheard. Especially not after Pechorin’s voicing of his assumptions. “I’ve been working my whole life for it. I’m competent. The board respects me—to a point. But I’m not an alpha, and in my family, being an alpha’s everything. So I want an alpha mate, someone my father would see as being the real man in charge. In return for financial security, that alpha would stay out of my way and have nothing to do with the actual running of the company.”
