Chapter 28


    Hot and Cold


    “Out,” Angelique ordered.


    Jane looked around her at the concrete and ss towers, the busy city street, the tightly packed


    pedestrian paths. “Where are we?”


    N?velDrama.Org: text ? owner.


    “Oh, dopey Doris,” Angelique purred. “We are at the center of the universe. Get the f-k out the car and


    come along.”


    She grabbed Jane by the elbow and propelled her into one of the glossy buildings, past the reception


    desk and into an elevator, and swiped a card before prodding the very top number on the long, long


    columns of numbers.


    When the elevator opened, Angelique pushed Jane out into a lobby where the floor was the sort of


    slippery tile that every woman in high heel shoes viewed with dread, and past the receptionist who


    muttered into her headset even as her eyes followed Angelique’s passage into the bowels of the


    building.


    They moved through a wide hallway nked by meeting spaces and rooms where flustered looking


    people stared atputer screens in consternation, through to a double door, which Angelique shoved


    open with her hip before half throwing Jane into the chamber so that Jane staggered and fell.


    Baron sat at a desk near a wall of windows and stood upon their entry, tugging his waistcoat down, his


    eyebrows pulling together, and Jane realised that the glossy tower was his building from which he ran all


    the various branches of his business: the center or the universe indeed.


    “What the f-k Angelique?” He demanded, striding around his desk, and picking Jane up off the carpet.


    “I took care of your little problem,” Angelique sneered. “The imnt is gone, the b-tch will ovte in the


    next few days, and you can f-king f-k her to your heart’s desire, get her fat with your litter, so that we can


    get the f-k on with what we‘re here to do.” She turned on her heel and clipped out of the room before he


    could formte a response.


    Baron looked down at Jane and offered her his hand. She refused it, standing by herself. “Jane…” He


    started.


    She had hit him before she had even realised that the thought had urred to her to do so, and saw the


    outline of her hand appear on his cheek white and then red. The force of the p turned his face, and he


    seemed baffled for a moment, before turning back to her.


    “I hate you,” she told him through her teeth. “I hate you, Baron Western. I hate you for making me believe


    that this was a love match. I hate you for f-king raping me on our wedding night. I hate you for humiliating


    me by keeping a mistress after you married me. I hate you for forcing yourself on me during my first heat.


    I hate you for having your mistress drag me to the f-king doctor to have my imnt removed against my


    wishes. And I hate you for…”


    He twirled her in his arms, catching her so that her back was against his chest and his hand closed over


    her mouth. “I am tempted to let you continue,” he breathed into her ear. “But there is just so much to


    unpack from what you have said that I expect that if I did, we might never end this conversation.


    “So, let’s start from the beginning,” he released her mouth. “From how you thought that this was a love


    match?”


    She dragged in a breath, and felt her control disintegrate, until she sobbed her grief bitterly, her legs


    giving beneath it, bringing them both down onto the luxurious carpet, so that he curled over her as she


    cried her sorrows out into the silken fibers. He murmured and stroked her back.


    “Jane,” he breathed into her ear. “Oh, my Jane.”


    She did not know when his stroking turned into sex, but, before she knew it, he had dragged her jeans


    down her legs and had thrusted into her, face down on the carpet of his office. She cried out, half in


    protest and half desire, and he lifted her hips into him as he drove himself into her bringing her on to her


    knees, the pace unforgiving, iming, taking.


    She came, her fingers clenched into the carpet, and felt him follow, his cry harsh, and then the sink of his


    weight over her. “So,” he breathed into her ear. “Start from how I misled you into thinking this was a love


    match.”


    She was crying too hard to answer, the sobs shaking through her, ugly, snot filled tears as she pressed


    her face into his carpet. She cried until she passed out under him, aware that he continued to f-k her


    despite the fact that she had faded out beneath his body.


    She woke in the bed in the gold and cream room, alone, with the night pressing in around her, her pulse


    leaping in her head, the primal rhythm of its pounding driving her out of the covers and into her closet


    She pulled on a dress, stroking its fabric down over her body, twisting and turning before the mirror.


    Part of her knew that something was wrong, and that part of her was an insistent voice to stay home, to


    lock herself into her room, but the other voice was louder, and she wanted to dance somewhere with a


    dark beat, and other bodies pressed against hers, her pulse racing.


    In the front hall, Heathridge took one look at her, and his expression shifted. “Madam,” he said, his voice


    tight. “You need to return to your room immediately.”


    She scented him, feeling him recoil even as his pupils dted, instinct warring against sensibility. She


    turned away from him and tossed her hair. “Call the car, or I will drive.”


    A limousine pulled up within a minute of Heathridge’s signal, and even as she slid into the cab, she saw


    that Heathridge was on the phone talking at full speed.


    The car pulled up out front of Baron’s club, and she stepped out, pausing under the sh of the


    photographer’s lights, bewildered by them, before walking in past the concierge. Baron and


    Angelique were not there, she thought immediately. They were somewhere else, and sheughed as she


    worked her way through the patrons onto the dance floor.


    Her arrival seemed to scatter the werewolves, as if she had dived into a pond, sending ripples out.


    And then, as the water swept back in, they were pulled towards her, their expressions reacting to her


    scent, pupils dting, nostrils ring.


    She threw her hair over her shoulder and swayed with the music, feeling it’s beat to her soul, writhing


    beneath the waves of desire that rolled over her from the betas and alphas that gathered, salivating,


    around her.


    Fights broke out, brief tussles of dominance, victors edging closer whilst losers backed off, and all the


    while, she danced, indifferent, giving herself to the music, and knowing that the males that reached her,


    that sweated over her, fought for their position.


    “F-king mine,” the growl dominated, and blood sprayed. Over the males between, her eyes met Baron’s.


    His wolf dominated and he carved his way through her would-be suitors with tooth and w his


    expensive suit showing the tracks ofpetitor’s defenses, shredded beneath ws, skin peeking


    through rents in the fabric, blood staining where ws had found purchase.


    And yet, he reached her, his body between her and her suitors, his chest heaving with the effort, the blue


    dominated by ck and the back-glow of his wolf, as his hands closed over her shoulders and tugged


    her up against him. “Jane,” he growled into her ear. “You are in f-king heat. In my f-king club. Again.”