I notice Caleb’s nostrils flare slightly. His eyes dart to Elle, then back to me, a knowing look spreading across his face that makes me want to throw him from the plane.
“Speaking of proprietary,” Caleb says slowly, his gaze lingering on Elle for a beat too long, “you’ve managed to keep quite the asset all to yourself, Cole.”
My back teeth grind together. “Ms. Park is NovaDyne’s executive assistant, not an asset.”
“Hmm,” Caleb hums, unconvinced. “Executive assistant who knows every detail of your business, handles your schedule with military precision, and somehow manages to keep you from throttling your board members. Sounds like quite the asset to me.”
Elle continues typing, seemingly oblivious to the conversation, but I catch the slight tightening around her eyes. She’s listening to every word.
“Your point?” I ask Caleb, though I already know exactly what he’s implying.
“No point,” he shrugs, faux-innocent. “Just observing that talent like Ms. Park’s is rare. If she ever decides NovaDyne is limiting her potential, Synercom has several positions that might interest her.”
Before I can respond with something appropriately cutting, Elle looks up, her expression professionally pleasant yet somehow arctic.
“While I appreciate the recognition of my skills, Mr. Rios, I’m quite satisfied with my current position. Though I’m sure your HR department would be thrilled to know you recruit executives’ assistants during shared flights.”
Miles actually smirks at that, and even I feel a surge of something dangerously close to pride. Elle’s verbal jabsare precision weapons, elegantly deployed and devastatingly effective.
Caleb raises his hands in surrender, but his eyes gleam with undiminished interest. “Just planting seeds, Ms. Park. Just planting seeds.”
The flight attendant returns to offer drinks. I request black coffee, Elle asks for water, Miles declines with a curt shake of his head, and Caleb, predictably, orders another whiskey.
“It’s 10 AM,” I comment as the attendant retreats.
“And somewhere in the world, it’s 5 PM,” Caleb counters cheerfully. “Besides, if I’m going to be trapped with you two fun-vacuums for five hours, I’m going to need some social lubricant.”
Miles makes a disgusted noise. “Must you phrase everything in the most objectionable way possible?”
“It’s a gift,” Caleb grins.
The exchange continues, verbal sparring that neither seems particularly invested in winning. I tune them out, focusing instead on the presentation materials Elle has pulled up on her laptop. But my concentration is fragmenting, my awareness of her presence beside me growing with each passing minute.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing the curve of her neck where I know she applies extra blockers. The gesture is innocuous, yet I find myself tracking it with inexplicable intensity. When she reaches for her water, the sleeve of her blouse rides up slightly, exposing the delicate bones of her wrist. I can see the faint redness there—evidence of the industrial-strength blockers she uses, the kind that irritate the skin with their chemical harshness.
Something primitive and unwelcome stirs in my chest. A ridiculous, possessive impulse to tell her to ease up on the blockers when it’s just us working late. That I’m not some uncontrolled Alpha who can’t function in the presence of an Omega’s natural scent.
But that would be crossing a line I’ve carefully maintained since the day I realized I’d hired an Omega assistant without knowing it. A line that keeps our working relationship efficient, professional, and completely devoid of the biological complications that plague mixed-designation workplaces.
Elle glances at me, catching me staring at her wrist. “Is there something else you needed for the presentation?” she asks, voice low to avoid drawing Caleb and Miles into our conversation.
“No,” I reply, perhaps too quickly. “The materials are fine. But we should review the neural response data before we land.”
She nods, already pulling up the relevant files. Always three steps ahead, anticipating what I need before I fully articulate it. It’s what makes her invaluable as an assistant.
It’s also what makes her dangerous to my concentration.
“I’m going to rest my eyes for twenty minutes,” I inform her, needing distance from both her proximity and my unwanted awareness of it. “Wake me if anything urgent comes up.”
“Of course,” she says, not looking up from her screen.
I close my eyes, leaning back in the leather seat, but rest eludes me. Instead, my mind cycles through the upcoming presentation, potential questions from investors, competitive angles Caleb and Miles might exploit. And beneath it all, like an annoying background process consuming valuable RAM, runsmy awareness of Elle beside me. The soft sound of her typing. The occasional shift of her position. The whisper of her scent that shouldn’t be detectable but somehow is.
It’s just biology, I remind myself. Basic, primitive biology that modern humans should be evolved enough to ignore. Elle is an Omega. I’m an Alpha. My brain is hardwired to notice her, just as it’s hardwired to register potential threats like Caleb and Miles. It’s nothing more than evolutionary baggage, useless in the corporate battlefield where intellect and strategy are the only weapons that matter.
I repeat this to myself as the plane continues its journey, a mantra of denial that does nothing to quiet the part of my brain that keeps cataloging every movement, every almost-scent, every small sound she makes.
It’s just biology. That’s all.
