Everyone was waiting for Alexei to speak. A man stood at the front of the room. He wore a neat suit and shiny glasses, and his clothes couldn't hide the nervousness on his face. He cleared his throat before he talked.
"The marketing team made a plan to help us launch the new medicine for PCOS," he said slowly. "I already talked with the people who make the medicine. They want to try the plan."
He pushed his glasses up on his nose. "If we follow the plan and give people free medicine to test, it will save us time and money."
Alexei looked at him with sharp eyes. "You want to use people like lab rats?" he asked.
"Y-yes," the man stuttered. He looked down. He couldn't look into Alexei's eyes. But he had thought about this idea for a long time. He wanted Alexei to like the idea. He knew that if Alexei liked him, he could get a promotion.
Alexei tilted his head. "What happened to using rats?"
"We already used rats," the man answered quickly.
"And?"
"It didn't work…" He saw that Alexei didn't look happy, so he tried harder. "The scientists think people will have a different reaction than rats."
Alexei laughed.
The man froze.
All the other people in the room looked at each other. They were scared. Everyone knew that when Alexei laughed like that, someone was going to lose their job.
The nervous man gave a shaky laugh too. He didn't want to look weak.
So the rest of the board started laughing too. They didn't know why. They just didn't want to be the next one fired.
Alexei stopped laughing. His face was calm, but cold. "You want to bring another scandal to this company?" he asked. "Those news reporters are always watching us and waiting for something they can tag as illegal."
He spun his pen around his fingers.
The man quickly said, "But we won't make it public. We'll be careful. We can ask the people to sign NDA so they can't tell anyone. We'll even pay them."
Buzz.
Alexei's phone vibrated on the table. He looked down and picked it up.
That made the man go quiet.
Alexei typed something quickly, then looked up. "What were you saying?"
The man swallowed. "Uhm… If no one knows, we can just pick a few people. Let them try the medicine, and keep it private. They sign something, we pay them…"
Buzz.
The phone lit up again. Alexei frowned and typed another reply.
The man at the front froze. His hands were shaking. 'Mr. Alexei never uses his phone in meetings. Never.' he thought.
Alexei looked bored. "Go on," he said with a sigh.
"Oh... Oh!" the man said quickly, though he was even more nervous now.
He kept talking, but Alexei wasn't listening anymore. He had already made up his mind.
He slowly closed his system. "Meeting over," he said as he stood up.
Everyone stood up quickly even their chairs scraped the floor. They all left the room in a hurry.
"Mr. Alexei checked his phone twice in the meeting. That has never happened." one woman whispered to another.
The other nodded while smiling. "That's right. And he texted back."
The first one gasped and put her hand over her mouth. "Is he…?"
The second woman giggled. "Is Mr. Alexei in love?"
They both giggled like schoolgirls as they walked away.
...
Alexei stood by the big glass window with his phone to his ear.
"Why did that woman faint in the subway?" he asked.
"Miss Park left the hotel and got into a cab. But she got out before we moved. She looked confused. She asked people for directions. Then she walked into the subway. She fainted before getting on the train." The driver said on the other end.
"How is she now?"
"Miss Park is still unconscious. And the preliminary examination results showed that it was caused by stress and fever."
Alexei was quiet.
"The doctor took her blood sample and sent it for a blood test. The results of which will come out later." The driver continued.
"Okay." Alexei nodded. "What about the thing I asked you to check?"
The driver was silent for a while. "I'm sorry, Mr. Alexei. I haven't found anything about Miss Park yet."
'Just as expected. That woman was fully prepared to climb into my bed. It would be strange if it were that easy to find her details.' he thought.
"Alright." He took a sit. "Let me know when you have any updates."
"Sure, Mr. Alexei."
He ended the call and put his phone on the table. His fingers spun the pen again and his eyes looked out the window.
What does she really want?
"I think the better question is, who is she? And why can't we hear her thoughts?" Roman, his wolf, said.
"She's clearly an omega," Alexei replied in his mind. "But she acts oblivious to what's around her."
"Since when do omegas block their thoughts from us?" Roman asked with a little sarcasm.
"She might be a mixed breed. Or maybe she's just a human with strange fantasies about werewolves."
"If she's a danger to us, I'll take care of it myself," Roman growled.
"Relax. She's not... dangerous."
"She called us a Beta." Roman's voice was cold. "That made me angry. If I wasn't already horny, I would've broken her neck."
"You're always horny."
Knock~ Knock~
Alexei turned his attention to his assistant standing by the door.
"Mr. Alexei, the car is waiting downstairs. It's time to pick up Noel and go to the household registry office."
Alexei nodded.
It was time to take Noel to meet his grandfather.