Chapter 1 - The Woman Who Accidentally Walked Into the Wolf’s Office
“I’ve never been touched.”
Avery Hart had imagined saying those words exactly zero times in her thirty-one years of life.
Certainly not at eleven forty-seven on a freezing November night.
Certainly not in the penthouse of a man half of Chicago whispered about and the other half pretended not to recognize.
And absolutely not while Dominic Vale stood less than a foot away from her, one hand braced against the marble counter behind her, his dark eyes fixed on her face with the terrifying stillness that had made grown men lower their voices when he entered a room.
Avery’s heart hammered so hard she could hear it.
Dominic didn’t move.
She swallowed.
“I mean it,” she whispered. “No man has ever… gotten that close.”
Something changed in his face.
Not disgust.
Not amusement.
Not triumph.
That was what frightened her.
Because Dominic Vale was a man rumored to take anything he wanted.
Buildings.
Companies.
Territory.
Loyalty.
Revenge.
But when Avery finally offered him the one truth she had never offered anyone, he did something nobody in Chicago would have believed.
He stepped away.
Two full steps.
Then he lowered his hands to his sides.
“Avery.”
His voice was almost painfully quiet.
“You don’t owe me anything because you told me the truth.”
She stared at him.
The distance he had created between them somehow felt more intimate than his closeness had.
“I didn’t say I wanted you to stop.”
“I know.”
That answer stole her breath.
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“And that’s exactly why I’m stopping.”
Three months earlier, Avery Hart had walked onto the wrong floor of Vale Tower and changed both their lives by accident.
She was supposed to meet a hospitality executive named Martin Keller on the nineteenth floor at two o’clock to pitch the restoration of the aging Lakehaven Hotel.
Instead, the elevator opened on twenty-seven.
Avery stepped out carrying a leather portfolio, a coffee she had forgotten to drink, and the calm expression she had perfected during ten years of being the youngest person in rooms where older men frequently assumed she was somebody’s assistant.
The floor was unnervingly quiet.
No receptionist.
No waiting chairs.
No motivational art on the walls.
Just dark wood, polished stone, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a man standing at the far end of the corridor.
He wore a charcoal suit without a tie.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Dark hair pushed carelessly back from a face too severe to be called conventionally handsome, though Avery immediately understood why some women would make bad decisions around it.
A black tattoo disappeared beneath his shirt collar.
Another touched the edge of his left hand.
He looked at Avery.
Then at her portfolio.
Then back at her.
“You’re lost.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I’m here for Martin Keller.”
“He’s on nineteen.”
Avery glanced at the elevator display.
Twenty-seven.
She closed her eyes briefly.
“Wonderful.”
The man’s mouth shifted almost imperceptibly.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m an architect. Half my career is discovering that somebody measured something incorrectly.”
That almost earned a smile.
Almost.
She turned toward the elevator.
“Ms. Hart.”
Avery stopped.
She had not introduced herself.
The man walked closer.
“I’ve seen your proposal.”
Now she understood.
Dominic Vale.
She had seen photographs, though none captured the weight of his presence.
Officially, Vale Holdings owned hotels, commercial property, private transportation companies, restaurants and construction interests across Illinois and neighboring states.
Unofficially, Dominic Vale was something else.
Nobody seemed able to define exactly what.
Avery’s sister Claire once called him “the kind of businessman whose competitors suddenly discover a passion for retirement.”
Avery had dismissed it as gossip.
Now Dominic stood ten feet away.
“You’re Dominic Vale.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I was hoping you were the receptionist.”
For the first time, his expression genuinely changed.
A faint line appeared beside his mouth.
Then disappeared.
“Come inside.”
“I already have a meeting downstairs.”
“Keller reports to me.”
“That doesn’t mean he wants you taking his meeting.”
Dominic studied her.
People probably rarely told him no.
Avery had spent her entire adult life building an existence where other people’s intimidation had little practical effect.
Finally Dominic opened the door beside him.
“Five minutes.”
She should have refused.
Instead she followed.
His office occupied the corner of the tower, overlooking the Chicago River and a gray afternoon skyline.
Dominic remained standing as Avery opened her portfolio.
Five minutes became fifteen.
Then thirty.
He asked precise questions.
Not cosmetic ones.
Why had she moved the hotel’s main staircase?
How would she preserve the original limestone without creating moisture problems?
Why eliminate fourteen guest rooms to enlarge the public spaces?
“Because an expensive hotel with nowhere worth sitting becomes an expensive hallway,” Avery said.
Dominic leaned back slightly.
“That answer wasn’t in the proposal.”
“I didn’t think anybody would pay me for writing it.”
“I might.”
The meeting lasted fifty-eight minutes.
At the end, Dominic closed the portfolio.
“Take the Lakehaven project.”
Avery blinked.
“Mr. Keller hasn’t interviewed me.”
“He doesn’t need to.”
“With respect, you can’t hire an architect because she accidentally got off an elevator on your floor.”
“No.”
Dominic’s gaze stayed on hers.
“I’m hiring you because you told me fourteen profitable rooms were ruining my building.”
Avery accepted the contract two days later.
She told herself the decision had nothing to do with Dominic.
For three weeks, she nearly believed it.
The Lakehaven stood on a corner near the river, an elegant twelve-story building constructed in the 1920s and ruined by decades of bad renovations.
Avery loved it immediately.
She arrived before contractors most mornings, hair tied back, boots replacing her office heels, notebooks tucked beneath one arm.
Dominic began appearing during her second week.
At first Avery assumed it was normal.
He owned the hotel.
By the sixth visit in ten days, normal seemed less convincing.
“You have thirty-seven other properties,” she told him one afternoon.
“Thirty-nine.”
“Then why are you always at this one?”
Dominic looked through the empty ballroom toward her.
“Because this one matters.”
“To the company?”
“To me.”
She waited.
He gave her nothing else.
Their relationship changed gradually.
He began asking whether she had eaten.
She began leaving coffee on the corner of his desk.
He learned she hated elevators but loved old buildings.
She learned that Dominic hated being touched unexpectedly, never drank more than two fingers of whiskey, and always checked the locks twice before leaving a room.
He was frightening to everyone except, increasingly, her.
One evening a contractor snapped at Avery over a structural change.
Dominic was across the room before Avery even realized he had heard.
“You will speak to Ms. Hart with respect.”
The contractor went pale.
Avery later found Dominic beside the river, staring at the black water.
“You scared him.”
“He was disrespectful.”
“I could have handled it.”
“I know.”
He looked at her.
“That’s what I like about you.”
The words followed her home that night.
Weeks passed.
Then one rainy December afternoon, Avery cut her hand on a broken piece of architectural glass.
Dominic reacted as though she had been shot.
He grabbed a clean cloth, wrapped her fingers, and stared at the blood.
His hands were surprisingly gentle.
“You’re trembling,” Avery whispered.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
He looked up.
Their faces were inches apart.
Neither moved.
Then Dominic whispered, “You have no idea what you do to me.”
Avery’s pulse jumped.
“Maybe I’m starting to.”
He leaned closer.
She didn’t retreat.
But at the last second, he stopped.
The moment shattered.
He walked away.
After that, tension followed them everywhere.
Avery tried to pretend nothing had happened.
Dominic stopped pretending altogether.
But he also never crossed the line.
Until a charity gala in November, when Avery discovered something she had not expected to feel.
Jealousy.
Dominic was surrounded by beautiful women.
Avery stood near a column, watching him laugh at something a woman in a silver dress whispered into his ear.
She felt ridiculous.
She had no claim on him.
When Dominic finally came to her, he frowned.
“You’re upset.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re lying.”
“You have plenty of people willing to keep you company.”
His gaze sharpened.
“Is that what bothers you?”
“No.”
“Avery.”
She looked away.
He gently turned her face back toward him.
She whispered, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“With me?”
She nodded.
Neither spoke.
He touched her cheek.
The contact was so light it almost wasn’t there.
Avery’s eyes closed.
“I’ve never…”
Dominic waited.
She opened her eyes.
“I’ve never been touched.”
He went completely still.
“What?”
“No man has ever touched me. Not like this.”
She expected surprise.
Instead she saw something almost like pain.
“Avery, why?”
She looked down.
“Because every man who ever tried made me feel like I had to give him something.”
Dominic removed his hand.
“You never have to give me anything.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
He stepped away.
It was the first moment Avery understood that the most dangerous man in Chicago might also be the only man she had ever met who knew how to stop.
But she did not yet know why.
She did not know that Dominic’s restraint was not simply respect.
It was fear.
May you like
And his fear had a name.
Avery Hart.
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