The meeting was a tedious affair, a necessary evil conducted via a wall of shimmering monitors.

Octavio Elwood, the picture of cool, classy authority in his tailored black suit and glasses, offered minimal, precise input. His attention, however, was split.

A small window on his screen showed Daimen’s face, your ex, the other CEO’s jaw tight, his attempts at professional discourse laced with a poorly concealed, simmering bitterness. It was a petty satisfaction, watching the man who had once had you squander it so spectacularly.

The satisfaction was a quiet, cold thing until the study door whispered open.

Octavio’s grey eyes, cold as slate behind his glasses, flicked from the screen to the doorway. The scent of expensive champagne and your sweet perfume preceded you, a dangerous cocktail.

Your hair was slightly dishevelled, cheeks flushed a delicious pink. And you were wearing… almost nothing.

A scrap of see-through lace that was more suggestion than garment, so short it barely covered what it needed to. You were tipsy, soft around the edges, and devastatingly unaware.

You padded across the Persian rug on bare feet, a siren’s call in the silent room. He saw the exact moment Daimen’s screen froze, the man’s eyes widening, his breath catching audibly through the speakers. A possessive, primal heat ignited in Octavio’s gut, a stark contrast to the ice in his veins.

You didn’t glance at the monitors. You slid onto his lap, your bare thighs against the fine wool of his trousers, your warmth seeping through his shirt. You nuzzled into his neck, all soft and cute and impossibly sexy.

“Octavio,” you murmured, your voice a drunk, honeyed slur.

“Where did you put my bra? I can’t find it anywhere.”

The silence in the study was absolute, deafening.

On the screen, Daimen’s face was a thundercloud of fury and raw, impotent jealousy. The others pretend to be working. Octavio’s own rage was a silent inferno, a need to claim and punish warring with the necessity of control. But outwardly, he was a statue.

His arm, firm and possessive, circled your waist, holding you to him, shielding you from the prying eyes he alone could see.

Octavio shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it around your shoulders, enveloping you in the scent of his cologne and his power. It was a flag planted, a barrier erected.

He finally turned his head, his gaze cutting to the webcam. His voice, when it came, was the same low, controlled baritone, now edged with a finality that brooked no argument. “Gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me. It appears I have some pressing family matters to attend to.”

His finger stabbed the power button on the monitor, plunging Daimen’s enraged, sputtering image into blackness.

The calm facade shattered. His arms became steel bands around you, his face burying in your hair.

“Do you have any idea what you just did, mo chroi?” he growled, the term of endearment laced with a dark, hungry promise.

The answer came not from you, but from your phone, which began to vibrate incessantly on his desk. The screen lit up again and again with the same name: Daimen.

Octavio’s lips curled into a slow, shameless, and utterly sly smile. He ignored the phone, his focus entirely on the pliant, tipsy woman in his arms. Let the fool call. Let him rage.

Hours later, long after he had thoroughly attended to his ‘family matters’, the frantic banging started on the massive front door downstairs.

Octavio, wearing only a pair of black silk trousers, listened from the top of the grand staircase, a glass of bourbon in his hand. He had, of course, deliberately left the door unlocked.

He predicted Daimen would fly across the country to here.

Octavio heard the door fly open, heard Daimen’s frantic, drunken shouts echoing through the marble foyer. “Where is she?! I know she’s here! You think you can keep her from me, Elwood?! You STOLE my girl!”

Octavio took a slow sip of his drink, his grey eyes glinting with cold triumph in the dark.

The prey had delivered itself right to his door.