He planned this, she realized with a mix of horror and reluctant admiration. Every move. The trade with Akari turns ago. The hotel placement. All of it was designed to manufacture this exact moment.
A wave of fury crashed through her, followed immediately by a dizzying surge of arousal. The bastard. The magnificent, manipulative, utterly infuriating bastard.
"Your decision window is closing, Kuzmina-san," Isabelle observed, her long fingernails tapping an elegant rhythm against the table. "What say you? Will you join our civilized coalition, or..." the pause was exquisite, "submit to their terms?"
"The mathematics favor Nakano's proposal," Jacob whispered, his glasses catching the light. "Combined resource pools would create an approximate 83.7% probability of victory, while Okoye's offer yields only a 47.3% chance of—"
"Nobody asked you, calculator," Raphael sneered from his position on the couch, still radiating bitterness over his earlier elimination from the game.
