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CHAPTER 1

Emilia

My tolerance for bullshit, which was low on my best day, was dwindling fast. I could only keep my plastered-on smile in place for so long, and I was quickly approaching my limit.

What was his problem?

I leaned over the cloth-covered cocktail table far enough to give him a clear view of my cleavage, and he hadn’t looked once. It was borderline insulting. I wasn’t wearing two layers of spandex and a corset to be ignored.

Other attendees had directed enough no-so-discrete glances and outright ogling my way to confirm I looked damned good. This pudgy, sweaty man with the bushiest gray eyebrows I’d ever seen was more interested in taking in the vaguely authentic Mexican-themed decorations than me. So, Mr. Olvera was either a true gentleman, a literal fantasy man who could keep his eyes where they belonged, or I wasn’t his type.

Neither of those options seemed plausible.

From what I read in his file, I was the walking, talking, breathing embodiment of his dream woman.

So why the hell was he not interested?

I checked the guest list for the museum exhibit gala as recently as an hour before arriving. None of his normal acquaintances were coming. He didn’t have to worry about anyone he knew seeing him with a strange woman.

Was he nervous? Intimidated? I ran into that from time to time and had to dial back the sex goddess and turn up the innocence.

“Are you thirsty?” I interrupted his speech about the benefits of sourcing farming equipment internationally and dragged a finger down his tux sleeve with practiced widened eyes and fluttering lashes. It was a look I used when I wanted men to trust me. To see me as weak or naïve.

“Oh yes,” he paused his story long enough to look around. A waiter noticed and hurried over with a tray of champagne flutes.

Mr. Olvera accepted two and handed me one without touching my skin. I smiled my thanks and tried to come up with a new topic, but he picked right back up with his story.

“The views are quite unremarkable, so I’ll never move to there even if Guadalajara is close, but the profits are worth it.”

He slipped right back into droning on and on about the agave farm he recently inherited. His eyes stayed forward, landing on mine for a split second every minute or so—just enough to force me to lock in a look of genuine attention. The last thing I needed this far into the operation was for him to think I lost interest and abandon our conversation.

If he wasn’t my target, I’d have killed him anyway, out of sheer boredom.

I didn’t get to pick my missions, but maybe I could put in a request for something more exciting next time. A challenge to get my heart pumping.

The guys on my team would kill for the missions I got assigned, but they were lazy. They liked them quick and clean. I wanted to have to try. Unfortunately, the guys weren’t sexy, young women that men loved to underestimate.

They were bulky, trigger-happy wolves with absolutely zero finesse or ability to improvise.

So they got the sniper missions. Or the beat downs. The warning visits.

It wasn’t fair. Just because I was unlucky enough to have breasts and no penis.

Not even the best of them could do what I did. I knew it. They knew it. Our boss knew it.

If only rich straight men who so often ran afoul of the Pack would stop making bad decisions, then I could get more exciting cases.

I nearly chuckled to myself. That was as likely to happen as pack leaders giving women equal rights.

All right.

Back to work.

It was time to speed things up. I was sick of these heels, and my bed was calling my name. If I got this done quickly, I’d could catch the last half of the new reality dating show I discovered. Human men and women were so simple, yet they didn’t understand each other at all. If they only knew how easy they had it.

No bonds or bloodlines or alphas to worry about.

Oh, there!