Page 67 of The Heart of Winter

"Like I said. It should be you running this company someday."

"I still think that honor will go to you," Winter replied in a tone that sounded like he was suppressing a bitter grimace.

"We could always get married. Then you could be CEO."

Yep. I said that. Winter shot me a quick glance, as if trying to gauge whether I was joking or not.

To keep things from getting awkward, I smiled briefly. His eyes flickered to my lips. Interesting.

"Hilarious," he muttered. "That would just make your father very eager to chop me into tiny pieces and not only kick me out of this company but off this planet."

"Funny how you say that like the only problem here is my father and not, you know… whether you'd actually want that." I narrowed my eyes slightly.

Winter’s gaze snapped back to my face for a split second before shifting to the distant horizon again.

Silence settled between us.

And then I whispered, "You feel it too, don’t you? There’s something between us."

I could hear his heartbeat, pounding like a drum.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum!

"I can hear your heart, you know," I said. "It’s beating as fast as mine."

Winter suddenly sucked in a sharp breath.

"I’ve always thought it was unfair how you alphas have such an advantage over betas."

Interesting. He still hadn’t reacted to my words, not even to dismiss them. As if what I were saying was completely normal. As if there really was something humming in the air between us.

"Can I smell you?"

Yep, I was dragging us into madness, into impossibility. But what stunned me was how little resistance I felt from him. As if, on some level, he was accepting all of this.

"Another thing I’ll never understand about alphas," he muttered. "How much you rely on scent."

"I don’t know about others. But I definitely do. Your skin is so pale, like alabaster. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just leaned in and breathed you in."

Winter stayed silent, still gazing out at the city.

And then, unexpectedly, he said, "Don’t play games with me, Sariel."

Silence.

He turned to face me, and I tensed. He was keeping his expression neutral, but I could still feel his annoyance.

"I know you’ve heard about my stance on hiring alphas. And now, you’re doing exactly what’s always bothered me about them, bringing a mating game into a space where there is absolutely no place for it. And there is zero chance, none, that anything is going to come out of your little provocation."

Boom. Just like that, all the excitement, the thrill of the moment, gone.

Winter had just laid it all out.

Yes, there was a part of me that had always known this was impossible. But… another part of me was a rebel.

"I want you," I confessed, and it sounded surprisingly calm and firm. "I’m attracted to you."

"You need to stop, Sariel."

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