Page 102 of Rejected By My Shifter Billionaire
Iwas fine, I told myself the next day.
Just fine.
Awesome even.
Really.
So what if I’d spent the last hour rotating between fuming, cringing, and silently begging the floor to open up and swallow me whole? That was normal. That was healthy. That was textbook damage control for someone whose stepbrother had just scientifically proven they were perfect for each other and then walked away like it meant nothing.
I sipped my second mug of Fae-brew coffee and tried to pretend the testing room didn’t still smell like him.
The room still held traces of Nicolo’s scent. Clean mountain air mixed with something darker, something that made my pulse skip in ways I absolutely refused to acknowledge. I’d cracked a window to help air it out, but the breeze only made it worse. Now it smelled like Nicolo and pine needles, a combination designed specifically to ruin my concentration.
I should’ve felt smug about the 98.7% compatibility score. That was elite-level matchmaking. A headline result. A client’s dream.
Instead, I just felt like a desperate little idiot with no shirt and too many feelings.
Knock, knock.
I quickly checked my face on my window’s reflections.No tears? No tears. Phew.
Ada poked her head in. “Ready to go?”
“Absolutely.”
Anything—even facing Death, I mean Prince Alexei himself—was better than moping around about my stepbrother.
Ada was still having trouble with her seatbelt by the time I slipped into the driver seat. “Everything okay?”
“Absolutely.”
Both of us were lying with the same word.
Perfect.
The drive to Prince Alexei’s fortress took us up into the Colorado Rockies, following roads that seemed to exist only when you were supposed to find them. One minute we were on a normal highway, the next we were winding through a forest that felt older than civilization itself.
“Are you sure this is right?” Ada asked, gripping the passenger door handle as we rounded another impossible curve. “Because I feel like we’ve been driving uphill for like an hour, and physics says that’s not possible.”
“Prince Alexei’s territory doesn’t follow human physics,” I said, trying to project more confidence than I felt. “It works similar to how the old Fae territories protected itself. The place exists in a pocket dimension anchored to the mountain. Space gets...flexible.”
“Flexible,” she repeated. “Right. That’s totally normal.”
The trees began to thin, and suddenly we were driving through what looked like the entrance to a fairy tale. Massive stone pillars carved with intricate runes rose on either side of the road, each one humming with barely contained magic. Between them, the air shimmered like heat waves, but it was the middle of winter.
“Whoa,” Ada breathed.
The headquarters itself came into view as we crested the final hill, and even though I’d seen pictures, nothing had prepared me for the reality.
It was a fortress made of glass and granite, carved directly into the mountainside like some ancient civilization had decided to build a palace for gods. Towers spiraled impossibly high, their surfaces reflecting the sky so perfectly they seemed to disappear into the clouds. Bridges of what looked like crystallized moonlight connected different sections, and the entire structure pulsed with a soft, otherworldly glow.
“This is where we’re going?” Ada squeaked.
“This is where we’re going.”
The parking area was a simple stone platform that materialized as we approached, complete with discrete markers that definitely hadn’t been there a second ago. I pulled into a spot marked “VISITORS” in letters that seemed to write themselves as I watched.
“Okay,” I said, turning off the engine. “Remember what we talked about. Be polite, be respectful, and please don’t compare anyone to fictional characters.”
