Chapter 467: Offers and Danger at the Door

It was a long table. They were at the penthouse—and the dining area stretched beneath the high glass ceiling with the city sprawled below like a carpet of light and naked ambition.

Emily opened her eyes. Looked at the screen. Looked at the ceiling. Looked at Phei.

"

Zata Fashion Group,

" she said.

The table went attentive.

"They want you for their new sneaker line and the sports attire collection they just launched." She scrolled. Read. Scrolled again. "Full campaign. Print, digital, video. They want your face, your body, and

apparently—"

She squinted. "—your lifestyle aesthetic, whatever the hell that means."

"How much?" Phei asked.

Emily counted zeros. Her lips moved silently.

"Seven hundred thousand," she said. "But I know—I know—with negotiation we can push them to eight. Their initial offer is always fifteen to twenty percent below their ceiling. That’s standard for Zata."

Phei looked at Melissa.

She sat on his right. Composed. Still—seeing not just what was there, but what was hiding underneath.

"How much are they offering?" Melissa asked, though she’d heard Emily perfectly. She was buying herself a moment to think.

"Seven hundred thousand. Pushable to eight with negotiation."

Melissa nodded slowly. "

Zata Fashion

is the fifth biggest fashion house in the world. They didn’t reach out during the first wave."

"No," Emily confirmed. "They waited."

"On purpose." Melissa’s eyes narrowed slightly—not displeasure, but recognition. "They let the smaller brands rush in first. Let the feeding frenzy establish Phei’s market value. Then came in late, when the dust settled, with an offer that looks reasonable against the inflated bids but is actually positioned perfectly for a long-term partnership."

She paused.

"Smart. And the

sneaker

and sports attire angle is better than a general fashion campaign. It ties directly to the challenge. The

basketball.

The

athleticism.

It’s not just selling clothes—it’s selling the moment everyone already watched."

Emily nodded, fingers hovering over her phone.

"

This is the seventh offer from a

world-leading

company,

" she said. "

Cococala and Petsi

are still in my inbox. Both have sent follow-up messages. Cococala increased their offer twice. Petsi is requesting a team shoot—

Phei, Landon, and Brian

together for a campaign."

The table absorbed this.

Melissa didn’t say no this time.

She was quiet for a moment.

Then: "Now is the time."

Emily straightened.

"

Tell Zata yes

," Melissa said. "We accept in principle. Inform them we’ll be in touch to schedule the shoot around Phei’s availability."

She paused.

"Schedule a meeting with Cococala.

Face to face

. Let’s see their proposal in full before we commit."

Emily was already typing.

"

And Petsi

—tell them you’ll be checking with Phei to see when he’s free and whether the team shoot is possible. Don’t say yes. Don’t say no. Let them sit with it."

Emily nodded.

Then reached down beside her chair and pulled a laptop from the bag at her feet.

Opened it.

Fingers moving across the keyboard before the screen had finished loading—pulling up pre-written email drafts, adjusting names, swapping figures, customising responses she’d clearly prepared in advance for exactly this moment.

Maddie leaned forward. Stared at the bag. Stared at the laptop. Stared at Emily.

"Wait,"

she said. "That’s what was in the bag? A laptop?"

Delilah’s eyebrows rose. "You brought a laptop to dinner?"

Emily didn’t look up from the screen. "I expected this. I had to be ready."

Sierra shook her head slowly. "Sometimes your efficiency genuinely terrifies me, Emily. I mean—who brings a bag and a laptop to dinner?"

"Someone who’s been fielding

seven-hundred-thousand-dollar

offers for a week," Emily said, still typing. "Forgive me for not trusting the moment to wait until morning."

They chuckled—the whole table, a low ripple of laughter that loosened the air.

Maya leaned in. "No, but she’s right though. Like—I always bring my bag everywhere too? Because you never know when you’re going to need something and then you’re standing there without it and everyone’s looking at you like why didn’t you bring it and honestly I think preparation is just a form of respect for the future version of yourself who’s going to be grateful you—"

The girls looked at each other.

Maya was still going.

"—and it’s not even about the laptop specifically, it’s about the principle, you know? Like Emily understands that opportunity doesn’t wait for you to be comfortable, it just shows up and you either have your laptop or you don’t and—"

Phei laughed. Warm. Easy. The sound of a man surrounded by people he loved and finding their chaos genuinely, endlessly entertaining.

He reached over and ran his fingers through Maya’s hair—still silver from the awakening, still catching light in ways that made her look like something from another world.

She trailed off mid-sentence, leaning into his touch, eyes fluttering half-shut.

"—and that’s why Emily is... mmm... that’s why she’s..."

"You lost your point," Sierra said.

"I never had one,"

Maya admitted happily.

More laughter.

Warmer this time.

Everyone was here today.

Phei looked down the length of the table and let the reality of it settle over him—the weight and warmth and sheer improbability of what he’d built.

Melissa

on his right. Composed. Watchful. The anchor. Her eyes missed nothing—

Sierra, Maddie

across from him. Bright. Present.

Stealing food off Emily’s plate when she wasn’t looking and grinning when she noticed.

Ms. Bloom—Patricia

—two seats down, still adjusting to the scale of this. A woman who’d entered through a date and woken up inside a dynasty.

Delilah

beside

Emily,

leaning over to watch her type with the fascination of someone who’d never seen efficiency weaponised in real time.

Maya

on his left, still slightly dazed from the head pats,

Victoria,

quiet, present, rebuilding herself one dinner at a time.

Her smiles were smaller now but more real.

Sienna

ate her food like the entire table didn’t exist.

Phone in one hand.

Fork in the other.

Completely, aggressively, almost impressively unbothered by the chaos around her.

The only indication she was even aware of other human beings was the occasional glance at her screen followed by a faint snort of amusement at something none of them would ever be shown.

Valentina

watched.

Still getting used to this.

Still calibrating the distance between her world and theirs.

These rich people and their rich-people energy—the casual millions, the group chats, the laptops at dinner, the fairy-tale absurdity of a seventeen-year-old boy with a harem and a growing empire and casual reality that treated the laws of nature as suggestions.

She ate quietly and watched and filed it all away behind eyes that missed nothing.

Landon

and

Brian

had practically become family now. They sat at the far end, comfortable, easy, part of the furniture in the best possible way.

But still—still—they couldn’t get used to it. The magnitude. The absurdity. The fact that their friend, their teammate, had a harem.

An actual, functioning,

multi-woman

harem that included his aunt and his cousin and a teacher apparently and none of it made sense but all of it was real and they’d simply stopped trying to understand it and started trying to survive it.

David wasn’t here.

Still recovering.

Then then front door opened.

Nobody had buzzed anyone up. Nobody had announced a guest.

The penthouse security was supposed to be absolute—ninety-eight floors of Paradise’s most exclusive residential tower, accessible only by private elevator, keyed only to residents and their approved list.

But the door opened anyway.

Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.

The sound of expensive shoes on polished floor, each step placed with the confidence of someone who had never once been somewhere they weren’t supposed to be.

The whole table went still.

The particular, sudden stillness of prey animals registering a predator before the conscious mind catches up.

Forks paused mid-air.

Conversations died mid-syllable. Phones lowered.

Melissa

froze

first.

Every muscle in her body locking at once, her composure—cracking in a single instant. Her fingers went white around her glass.

Victoria froze

beside her. Same reaction. Same totality.

The colour draining from her face so fast it looked like someone had pulled a plug.

Delilah’s fork

clattered

to her plate.

The three of them—Melissa, Victoria, Delilah—stared at the figure entering the room with expressions that shared one common element beneath their individual terror:

Recognition of danger.

Sienna

looked up from her phone. Slowly. Her chewing didn’t stop, but her eyes—

those careful, calculating, deliberately detached eyes

—locked onto the newcomer with an intensity that contradicted every ounce of indifference she’d been performing all evening.

She wasn’t frozen.

But she wasn’t relaxed either.

Phei watched.

He didn’t freeze.

Didn’t flinch.

But something in his chest tightened—a cold, precise awareness that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the instinct that had kept him alive this long.

The instinct that said:

this one is danger.

He and Sienna

shared a glance.

Brief.

The two of them had that in common—

they didn’t panic

.

They assessed.

But the look that passed between them acknowledged something neither would say aloud:

This wasn’t nothing

.

Eira materialised on his shoulder. He felt her before he saw her—the faint bite of void-frost against his neck, the weightless pressure of crystalline hand on his collarbone.

Her voice was immediate.

Urgent.

Stripped of every ounce of playfulness and ancient flirtation.

"Master. This is

trouble.

You’re going to—"