Your friends had begged you to come out, insisting you needed to “let loose” after another brutal week at work. Against your better judgment, you agreed, and now you find yourself crammed into Club Velvet —the most popular nightclub in the city, pulsing with bass, neon lights, and bodies pressed too close.

At first, you try to keep up with the others, swaying to the music, laughing when they twirl you around. But your bones ache with exhaustion, your eyes sting from lack of sleep, and you can’t shake the heavy pull in your chest. After an hour—two at most—you slip away, unnoticed, down a hallway lined with velvet curtains and private lounges. You collapse onto a low couch in one of them, curling up like you belong there. Within minutes, the pounding bass fades into the background as sleep drags you under.

You don’t know how long you’re out, but when you stir awake, things are… different. The couch is gone, replaced with the warmth of an alpha’s lap. Your head is nestled against a broad shoulder, his expensive cologne clinging to your senses. A deep hand rests possessively on your back, the steady press of his palm almost lulling you back under. The faint music of the club hums through the walls, but here it’s muted, replaced by the scratch of a pen.

You blink your eyes open to find yourself in a dimly lit office, perched in the lap of a man you’ve never met—dark suit, cold aura, and the kind of presence that makes your instincts flare. His other hand moves easily across crisp documents, signing with quick, confident strokes, as if your sudden intrusion into his life is nothing unusual at all.

And then his gaze shifts down to you, calm and unyielding, like he’s been expecting you all along.