Meadow's POV
The room felt smaller after his words.
I do want to ruin you.
They echoed in my head, reverberating through every fragile place inside me, settling somewhere deep and dangerous. Not shouted. Not bragged. Spoken like a fact. Like gravity. Like inevitability.
Alaric's hand was still wrapped around my wrist, warm and unyielding. He wasn't squeezing, wasn't pulling me closer. He didn't have to. The contact alone tethered me to him, kept me suspended in that moment where fear and want blurred together until I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
"Let go," I said.
My voice came out steadier than I expected.
He studied me for a long second, something calculating flickering behind his eyes. Then, slowly, deliberately, he released my wrist.
I pulled my hand back to my chest like it had been burned.
"Good," he murmured. "You're not as broken as you think."
I laughed sharply. "You don't get to decide that."
"No," he agreed calmly. "But I get to notice."
I crossed my arms, his jacket still hanging heavy on my shoulders, grounding me more than I wanted to admit. "You talk like you already know me."
"I know enough," he said, turning away from me and moving toward the seating area. "Sit."
It wasn't phrased as a command.
Which somehow made it worse.
"I didn't agree to…"
"Meadow." He said my name again, slow and deliberate, and my protest died in my throat. "If you walk out now, you leave with nothing but tonight's humiliation and tomorrow's consequences. If you stay, you leave with options."
I hesitated.
Options.
That word snagged on something raw inside me. Because options were exactly what I didn't have right now. Not after the wedding. Not after my sister. Not after Tyler made sure I was left with nothing but a dress I hadn't worn and a future that had evaporated overnight.
My legs moved before my pride could stop them.
I sat.
Alaric poured another drink but didn't offer me one. Instead, he leaned against the table across from me, posture loose, eyes sharp.
"Tyler Cross," he said. "Has been embezzling from me for eighteen months."
My breath caught.
"That's…" I swallowed. "That's not possible."
"It is," he replied. "He's careless. Entitled. Thought proximity to power made him untouchable."
I shook my head, a hollow laugh escaping me. "You expect me to believe my ex-fiancé is some criminal mastermind?"
"No," Alaric said. "I expect you to believe he's desperate."
The room tilted.
"What does that have to do with me?" I asked quietly.
His gaze pinned me. "Everything."
I stood abruptly. "No. Absolutely not. I am not part of some revenge fantasy between you and Tyler."
"You already are," he said calmly. "You just didn't know it yet."
My pulse roared in my ears. "Then enlighten me."
Alaric straightened, his presence sharpening, filling the space in a way that made it impossible to ignore him.
"Tyler was going to use you," he said. "Your name. Your credit. Your silence. Your loyalty."
A chill crept up my spine.
"And your sister," he continued, watching my face closely now. "Was already helping him."
The words landed like a physical blow.
"No," I whispered. "She wouldn't."
"She did," he said. "And when it all collapses, they'll both be looking for somewhere to land. Somewhere soft."
His gaze swept over me.
"Somewhere forgiving."
I felt sick.
"You don't want to ruin me," I said hoarsely. "You want to use me."
A smile touched his mouth. "Now you're paying attention."
I hugged his jacket closer around myself. "Why?"
"Because," he said simply, "you're the one thing Tyler doesn't expect me to touch."
Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating.
"And if I say no?" I asked.
Alaric stepped closer, stopping just far enough away that I could still breathe. "Then I let things play out. Publicly. Messily. And you get dragged through it whether you like it or not."
My nails bit into my palms.
"And if I say yes?"
"Then," he said softly, "you stay where I can protect you."
Protect.
The word shouldn't have sounded like a trap.
It did anyway.
"From what?" I asked.
His eyes darkened. "From them."
"And from you?" I challenged.
Something unreadable crossed his face.
"No," he said after a beat. "From me, you'd need something else."
"What?"
His gaze dropped to my mouth again, brief but devastating.
"Consent."
My heart slammed against my ribs.
"I'm not offering you romance," he continued. "Or comfort. Or salvation. I'm offering you leverage. Safety. Control."
"And what do you get?" I asked.
A pause.
Then, honestly, "You."
The word sent a shiver through me.
Not my body.
Not my loyalty.
Me.
"I need time," I said.
"You don't have much," he replied.
"But I'll give you tonight."
He stepped back, reclaiming space, control snapping back into place like armor.
"Go home," he said. "Sleep. Tomorrow, you decide."
I moved toward the door on unsteady legs.
"And Meadow?" he added.
I stopped but didn't turn around.
"If you choose me," he said quietly, "there's no pretending you don't know what I am."
My fingers curled around the handle.
"And what are you?" I asked.
A beat.
"Honest," Alaric Ashford said. "About the damage I do."
I left without looking back.
But his presence followed me anyway.