Page 41 of Rejected By My Shifter Billionaire

“ Y ou summoned me?”

I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, but apparently my mouth hadn’t gotten the memo that I was trying to play it cool. Nicolo Celestini didn’t look up right away. Just kept flipping through the pages of the printed proposal in his hands.

As in...the one that, as of approximately thirty-seven minutes ago, had been accidentally emailed to a curated list of potential sponsors...plus, apparently, my stepbrother.

And there it was, sitting on his desk like a physical manifestation of my impending humiliation. Glossy, stapled, and page corners aligned. Betrayal in twelve bullet points or less.

His office looked like him. Cold, organized, and every inch of it designed to intimidate with his subtle flex of wealth and power. Even his desk was meant to induce fear, a massive slab of black granite that he could, at any given moment, turn into an altar where living sacrifices were made.

“Sit down, Maryah.”

Ugh.

Everyone had always called me Ry, my own mother included. But to Nicolo, I was always Maryah, and the way he always said it?

Slow, quiet, and deliberate, with every syllable filled with this weight I could never shake off. He always said my name like he was one step away of announcing my death sentence, to be honest.

And it always, always had me bristling.

Just like now.

Which was why I crossed my arms and lifted my chin as I answered...

“I’d rather stand.”

“Then stand.”

He didn’t even glance up, his bland tone effectively putting me in my place with just two words. Why was this man so good at making me feel childish?

For a full ten seconds, I debated launching myself over that intimidating desk and setting the proposal on fire. The silence stretched between us, thick with tension and the faint scent of his cologne.

“You’re really going to pretend you didn’t read this just to watch me squirm?”

His green eyes lifted. Calm. Amused. Deadly.

“I’m not pretending,” he said. “I read it three times.”

I groaned. “You weren’t even supposed to be on the list!”

“You used company servers. Which fall under my legal jurisdiction. So technically, it was smart of Ada to include me.”

“She didn’t include you—she accidentally cc’d you!”

“Same outcome.”

“I swear,” I muttered, “I’m going to lock her out of the entire system and make her work by typewriter.”

His mouth twitched. Just barely. Like he was fighting a smile and winning.

“If you’re finished,” Nicolo said as he set the pages down, “I have a response.”

“Oh, please. Enlighten me.”

He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. The position should have looked casual. Instead, it looked like a predator deciding whether you were worth the hunt.

“Your business model is sound. The matchmaking concept is unique. The branding is clever. And the mating bond science is...ambitious.”

I waited for the other shoe to drop. With Nicolo, there was always another shoe.

My jaw clenched. “So you’re saying no.”

“I’m saying I’ll approve it. Under one condition.”

Every nerve in my body tensed. I’d known him long enough to recognize this tone. This was the voice he used right before he destroyed someone’s entire world and called it a favor.

“No.”

“You haven’t heard the condition yet.”

“I don’t need to.”

He smiled. Slowly. Like a wolf who’d just noticed the hen house door was open.

“You’re going to enter your own trial pool.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You’ve created a system to find compatible partners for human-shifter bonding. You’ve made claims about accuracy, efficiency, and romantic fulfillment.” His tone didn’t shift, but something in his eyes darkened. “I want to see how it works. From the inside.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m the founder. I’m not a test subject.”

“You’re both. Starting today.”

The air in the room shifted. Got heavier. More dangerous. I could feel the alpha energy rolling off him in waves, and every instinct I had—human though they were—screamed at me to back down.

I didn’t.

“You can’t make me.”

“I’m the alpha.”

I hated how much that word still hit. Like it lived under my skin. Like it belonged to him even in conversations that had nothing to do with pack law. Like my body remembered things my brain tried to forget.

“And,” he added, pulling out a tablet, “your agency technically operates as a subsidized venture under Celestini Holdings, which gives me full executive override.”

“Oh, come on—”

“I’ll even make it easier for you.” He swiped the screen and turned it toward me.

My name was at the top of a pairing schedule.

So was his.

“First match is you and me.”

I snatched the tablet out of his hand, my heart hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it. “You’re abusing your power.”

“Probably.”

“This is harassment.”

“Unlikely. I can forward you the legal release you signed.”

“I signed that before I knew you were going to be—”

My throat closed, and something feral glinted in his eyes.

“Say it.”

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

“Then I’ll say it for you,” he murmured, standing slowly. “Your first match is me. Unless you’d rather shut the agency down before it even launches.”

My hands curled into fists as he walked around the desk. Each step was deliberate, controlled, like he had all the time in the world to corner me. And that’s exactly what he was doing—backing me into a corner where I had no choice but to agree.

He stopped just short of touching me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his skin.

My pulse betrayed me.

So did the way I leaned back against his desk and didn’t move away.

“I told you before,” Nicolo said, voice quiet and deadly. “You don’t get to start a fire on my land and act surprised when the smoke finds me.”

I stared up at him, breathing hard, trapped between his body and the desk. This close, I could see the flecks of gold in his green eyes, could smell that maddening cologne mixed with something purely him.

“Fine,” I whispered. “One test. That’s it.”

He smiled again, and this time it was all predator.

“See you at the first trial, Maryah.”

I WAS HALFWAY TO MY car when my phone buzzed.

Ada: Emergency meeting in your office! Crisis level: DEFCON 1!

I sighed and turned around, my heels clicking against the concrete as I made my way back to the Concord Agency offices. Whatever Ada had managed to catastrophically mess up this time, it couldn’t be worse than what I’d just agreed to.

Right?

The glass doors to my office swung open before I could even reach for the handle. Ada stood there, bouncing on her toes like a caffeinated chihuahua, her tablet clutched against her chest.

“Thank goodness you’re here!” she blurted. “I have so much to tell you, and none of it is good, and I think I might need to update my resume—”

“Breathe, Ada.”

She sucked in a dramatic gulp of air. “Okay. Breathing. Got it.”

My mind went back to the time she had started working here.

She hadn’t even meant to, actually, since Ada being Ada, she had accidentally responded to a job posting for a personal assistant with a detailed analysis of why my agency’s logo font choice was “emotionally manipulative but in a good way.” Somehow, that had convinced me she was exactly what I needed.

I was starting to question that decision.

“What’s the crisis?” I asked, settling behind my desk.

“Well,” Ada began, wringing her hands, “you know how you asked me to compile that list of potential trial matches for the agency beta testing?”

“Yes...”

“And you know how I’ve been really, really careful about following protocol since the whole email incident?”

My stomach dropped. “Ada.”

“I might have accidentally sent the preliminary compatibility reports to Prince Alexei instead of saving them to the internal database.”

I stared at her. “You what?”

“But!” She held up one finger like this somehow made it better. “I caught the mistake really quickly! Only took them three minutes to read everything!”

“Three minutes to—” I rubbed my temples. “Ada, those reports contain confidential client information. Alpha bloodline data. Mating compatibility algorithms that took me two years to develop.”

“I know! That’s why I called it a DEFCON 1 situation!” She paused. “That is the really bad one, right? I always get confused about whether one or five is worse.”

“One is worse, Ada. One is definitely worse.”

She wilted. “So...you’re going to fire me?”

I looked at her—twenty years old, tears already gathering in her brown eyes, wearing a sweater with a cartoon llama that said “No Prob-llama” across the front—and felt my anger deflate.

“No, Ada. I’m not going to fire you.”

She brightened immediately. “Really?”

“Really. But we need to do damage control.”

“Yes, exactly, and that’s why...I think what I’m about to say is a good thing.”

“I highly doubt that, but just...give it to me.”

“Prince Alexei’s office sent a formal request for an in-person meeting. Tomorrow.”

I dropped my head into my hands.

“How formal?” I asked, my voice muffled.

“It was in a language that Google Translate can’t even read?”

I’m-about-to-die-formal then.

Perfect.

Just perfect.

In the span of one afternoon, I’d agreed to let my stepbrother—my gorgeous, impossible, infuriating stepbrother—test my matchmaking protocols on me personally, and I’d accidentally exposed my entire business model to one of the world’s most powerful and dangerously unpredictable shifter princes.

“Ada?” I said, lifting my head.

“Yes?”

“Next time you make a mistake this big, just run away and join the circus. It’ll be less complicated.”

Ada looked at me suspiciously. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“Probably.”

“Oh, good. I was worried for a second.” She bounced back to cheerful. “So! Should I start preparing for the meeting with Prince Alexei? I could make a presentation! With charts!”

“No charts, Ada.”

“Graphs?”

“No graphs.”

“What about—”

“No visual aids of any kind.”

She deflated slightly. “You’re no fun when you’re stressed.”

I laughed despite myself. Somehow, Ada always managed to do that, pull me back from the edge of total panic with her weird superpower of turning disasters into life application exercises for clueless optimism.

“Just...schedule the meeting,” I said. “And Ada?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe double-check the recipient list this time?”

She gave me a thumbs up. “Triple-check. Got it.”

As she bounced out of my office, I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.

Tomorrow, I’d face Prince Alexei and try to explain why I’d accidentally submitted classified compatibility data to his Council.

Next week, I’d subject myself to whatever twisted matchmaking trials Nicolo had designed.

And somehow, in between all of that, I had to figure out how to run a business without dying of embarrassment or spontaneous combustion.

Just another day in the life of Maryah Gray, entrepreneur extraordinaire.

What could possibly go wrong?