Page 124 of Rejected By My Shifter Billionaire

I stared at him, unable to process what I was hearing. “And this is coming from the Blood Oval? Not from you?”

Something flashed in his eyes, too quick to identify. “It’s a condition of your continued operation. Take it or leave it.”

“And if I leave it?”

“The agency will be placed under Black Tiger supervision. You’ll retain ownership but lose operational control.”

I laughed, the sound hollow and slightly hysterical. “You...are you seriously asking me to get married to keep my business?”

The tension between us was thick enough to cut with a knife, charged with all the things we weren’t saying. All the things we apparently were never going to say.

“Do you have someone in mind?” His voice was oddly flat. “For this marriage.”

For one wild, insane moment, I thought he was offering himself. That this whole bizarre conversation was his roundabout way of proposing.

But the hardness in his eyes—

God, it was so, so hard.

“No,” I said, my voice small. “I don’t.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll give you two weeks to make a decision.”

Two weeks?

“Is that all?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice even.

“For now.”

The moment he was gone, I collapsed into the nearest chair...

And then I just cried.

I cried for the girl who’d spent seven years in love with someone who would never love her back. I cried for the woman who’d been stupid enough to think that a compatibility score meant something more than science. I cried for the business owner who was going to have to choose between her dreams and her heart.

But mostly, I cried because Nicolo Celestini had just made it crystal clear that I meant absolutely nothing to him beyond a problem to be solved and a responsibility to be managed.

And there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.

NICOLO SAT IN HIS OFFICE, staring at the stack of papers scattered across his desk and wondering how everything had gone so wrong.

Compatibility profiles. Dozens of them. All marked with Maryah’s agency letterhead and addressed to “Mr. Block of Ice.”

He’d been receiving them for a week, ever since the night of the ball. At first, he’d assumed they were some kind of filing error. But they kept coming, day after day, each one a fresh reminder that Maryah was actively trying to find him a mate.

Her subtle way of telling him that whatever had happened between them at the ball was strictly business. Professional obligation, not personal desire.

Her way of saying she wasn’t interested in anything more.

The profiles were diverse, carefully selected. All of them sophisticated, powerful, exactly the kind of matches that would make sense for the Celestini heir.

All of them representing everything Maryah apparently thought he should want instead of her.

He’d spent seven days convincing himself that this was for the best. That Maryah deserved someone who could give her a normal life, not an alpha who’d spent years hiding his feelings behind authority and control.

Seven days telling himself that if she wanted to find him someone else, he should let her.

But seeing her today, watching her face when he’d delivered his ultimatum about marriage, had been harder than he’d expected. She’d hidden her reaction well, but he’d caught the flash of pain in her eyes before she’d locked it down.