Ch. I can hear my cold husbands dirty thoughts 10 I can hear my cold husbands dirty thoughts 10

Chapter 10 

Chapter 10 

+45 Coins 

We read clause forty-seven in his study at one in the morning, both of us still in formal wear, the prenup spread 

across his desk like a crime scene. 

There it was. Page thirty-one. Cold legal language dressed as my wish: without physical intimacy, in perpetuity, at the bride’s request. Initialed by the lawyers. Slipped into a two-hundred-page document during a chaotic week of merger negotiations and wedding planning, when both families had teams of attorneys passing drafts like hot potatoes. 

“Marcus handled the final consolidation of the documents,” Damian said. His voice was flat in the way that meant the wolf was very close to the surface. “As family counsel. He stood at our wedding, Sienna. He toasted us.” 

I thought about it-really thought about it-and the whole rotten architecture came into view. 

“He couldn’t stop the marriage,” I said slowly. “The merger was too valuable, the families wanted it. So he made sure it would fail. A bonded wolf is stronger-you told me that, in the office, in the wolf-mind, the images-a wolf with a mate, with a pack, is untouchable. So he kept you alone. He kept us…” My throat closed. 

“One wall apart,” Damian finished quietly. “For two years.” 

Two years of him recoiling from my touch-not revulsion. Honor. The man had fangs and claws and a nine-hundred-year bloodline, and he’d flinched away from his own wife because he believed a contract clause was my boundary, and he would have rather lost me entirely than cross it. 

“And then the tabloids,” I said. “The secretary. The escort. Three hundred rounds, Damian, the headlines were very 

specific- 

“Fabricated. All of it. I had legal trace the sources last year-shell companies.” He pulled up a folder, turned the screen toward me. The trail of payments ended at a familiar name. “He couldn’t make me cheat, so he printed it. He needed you to file. The bond severs cleanly if the human walks away of her own will. No bond, no claim-and a divorced, scandal-soaked, unbonded alpha loses the family vote.” His hands flexed on the desk; the wood creaked. “And when the divorce was taking too long, he moved to the endgame. The wolfsbane. Force me to turn at the shareholder 

meeting, under the full moon, in front of two hundred cameras.” 

“Which is tomorrow night.” 

“Which is tomorrow night.” 

The clock ticked. Somewhere below us, Manhattan glittered, full of people who didn’t know that the city’s most boring marriage was actually a two-year siege. 

“Okay,” I said, and stood up, and started pacing, because that’s what my mother does when she’s about to ruin someone’s life and I am her daughter. “He’s built everything on three pillars. The clause-we just found it, that’s evidence of fraud. The tabloids-you’ve got the payment trail. And the public shift-” I stopped. “He’ll dose you again. 

Chapter 10 

He has to. He can’t count on the full moon alone, can he?” 

+45 Coins 

“No. I have decades of control. He needs the wolfsbane. Damian’s eyes lifted to mine, gold flickering at the edges, and his thoughts came through, no longer hidden, offered up freely now like an open palm: “She’s pacing my study at one a.m. planning a counter-coup in a ballgown. I have never wanted anyone so much in my entire life.” 

“Focus,” I said, pointing at him, my face on fire. 

“I’m extremely focused.” 

“Lacey,” I continued, pacing harder. “He blackmailed her once; he’ll use her again-she’s his deniable hands. But she owes me two more scenes and her soul, and she’d flip on him for a sandwich. Kane-“I paused. “Kane has cameras in everything. The man livestreams his lingerie workshop. We need eyes on the catering line tomorrow.” 

“You want to run a counter-intelligence operation,” my husband said slowly, “using a cursed homewrecker and a 

lingerie analyst.” 

“I want to win, Damian.” 

He came around the desk. He stopped in front of me, lifted my hand, and pressed his lips to my knuckles-the first kiss of our entire marriage, two years late, soft as a vow. 

“Mine,” the wolf thought, warm and absolutely certain. “My mate. My Luna.” 

“Tomorrow we take back the company,” he said against my hand. “But Sienna-about clause forty-seven.” 

“Yes?” 

His eyes lifted, and they were fully gold, and his slow smile showed the faintest hint of fangs. 

“I’m having it stricken.”