Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 233 – Voren doesn’t take NO for an answer

The smile that came across Seraphine’s face was lovely and about as warm as January concrete.

She remembered their first negotiation clearly, every carefully applied pressure point, every moment of maneuvering she’d had to do before Voren finally gave ground.

She’d worked for that investment. Earned it the hard way, through patience and precision and knowing exactly when to push. And now here he was, running the exact same play back at her with the same unhurried, unshakeable confidence, like he’d studied the manual she’d written and decided it applied both directions.

She couldn’t quite decide if she was more annoyed or grudgingly impressed by that. She settled somewhere in the narrow space between the two and made sure she showed neither.

"Mr. Ashkael." Her voice was smooth and pleasant the way a surface is pleasant right up until the moment you realize there’s nothing solid underneath it.

"Since when did increasing your investment become non-negotiable? Say one more thing to provoke me and I will have every share you own returned to you, interest and all, by end of week."

Voren didn’t move, didn’t blink. "Don’t use that line on me." His voice was flat, absolute, and final, as he refused to accept her refusal. "I’m not one of your boy toys you could use and damp whenever you want."

That landed somewhere it had no business landing, Seraphine went still. "Excuse me?"

"I’m not Corvine," he said, and rattled off the rest of the list with the blunt, unembellished efficiency of someone reading names off a page they’d already memorized.

"Not Leon, not Damon, not Augustine or not any of the men who quietly rearrange their whole lives around whatever you need that particular week."

pulled

mine around yours instead?" Seraphin’s voice dropped into something that was soft and sharp at the exact same time, the mock-pout she

your ego just too oversized to handle the possibility that a mouth this

forgotten the day Voren

said from Voren’s mind, timing it with an

This is business, and you know how

attention back to the table. Seraphine had resettled into a posture of pointed, elegant exhaustion, chin resting in her

inside Ravyn’s pack," Voren said. "And

still, and then a sound came out of her that wasn’t quite a growl but lived right next to one, low and involuntary and pressed down hard before it could fully take shape.

had his phone

being her spy could amount to Damon being executed right there and then. He was at the pack so

termed betrayal to his Alpha, even if he was wealthier, and as a former

it, and for the sake of Damon, Seraphine

running the options quickly, her mind already sorting through the angles while her face

much did you

execute your spy before morning and take every lead you’ve been building through him with it. Every piece of inside

voice had dropped into something almost easy, the specific ease that belongs to someone who knows they’re holding the better hand and isn’t

to ask what you’re doing or why. Whatever happened between you and Ravyn... that’s between the two of you. It’s none of my business.

exactly how that sounded. "I am