Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Raven
Alpha Damien’s withering gaze panned from the file he held to me and then back again. My breath hitched, a feeling of foreboding settling between my shoulders even before he spoke.
“Where is the data, Miss Caine?”
“The data?” I repeated blankly, keenly aware of the gazes of all the staff in the boardroom focused on me. The undercurrent tension in the room was so thick that a butter knife could have cut through it.
The last meeting that had been held in this boardroom had seen half of the staff fired and replaced, and it was just the second week of Alpha Damien handling the company. He reclined in his seat, his golden gaze dark and unpredictable, the file in front of him falling shut as he retracted his hand.
“How long have you worked in the real estate business, Miss Caine?” He asked suddenly in a voice so bereft of any emotion that I stiffened, my hackles raised.
My voice came out small and uncertain.
“Two months, Mr Blackwell.”
I didn’t realise Alpha Damien could look even more unimpressed.
“That is no excuse,” He snapped, his acerbic tone sharp enough to draw blood. “Even a common intern knows the backbone of any solid pitch is data that guarantees the buyer’s satisfaction.”
I frowned, confused.
“Mr Blackwell, you instructed me to take out the data to make the pitch less mechanical and more relatable,” I reminded him curtly.
Just the day before, he’d made that call after scrapping my third pitch attempt.
Some days, it felt like Alpha Damien was purposely punishing me, as though he’d somehow sniffed out the lie I’d told him in that meeting room over a week ago.
And I might have even believed it if he hadn’t rendered a heartfelt apology for confronting me in the meeting room.
“Yesterday, I had you confused with someone else. It will never happen again.” Alpha Damien was beyond embarrassed, his voice tight, his expression contrite. “However, I understand if you feel too uncomfortable working around here. Whatever compensation you require will be granted.”
His words had caused an unwelcome pang of guilt in my chest, even though I’d technically not lied to him. That day, he’d asked me if he knew me, and in that moment, as I realized that the man I’d spent weeks fantasizing about couldn’t even remember what I looked like, I’d never felt more stupid.
That night hadn’t been special for him. How could it? Alpha Damien was wealthy, powerful, and sinfully handsome. Women probably threw themselves at him all the time. To him, I’d just been one of his many conquests.
I knew then that there was no way I was going to tell him about the pregnancy. However, I still needed to make rent, and I wasn’t about to throw away a perfectly good job because of him.
“I understand, Mr Blackwell,” I met his gaze unflinchingly. “But I intend to keep working here. So long as it doesn’t repeat itself, this matter is already forgotten.”
And so we both went on pretending as though that moment had never happened. Alpha Damien had bought my lie. He wasn’t punishing me.
No, the truth was far less complicated. My new boss was a perfectionist who was dissatisfied with everything and everyone and thought of his entire staff as expendable cogs in his multi-million-dollar, sorry, billion-dollar empire.
Alpha Damien’s jaw clenched, obviously unused to being challenged.
“I asked you to cut down on the data, not to eliminate it completely,” he ground out, giving me an incredulous once-over that made me feel about an inch tall. “Do you know what I detest, Miss Caine? Ignorant mediocrity.”
He tossed the file in my general direction, at least half of the papers within the file spilling to the ground in the process.
“Create something compelling for me, Miss Caine, or you’ll need to get another job.”
Seated next to me, Wendy made a small, almost inaudible, amused sound, eyes twinkling with barely restrained delight, and I struggled to keep my cool.
The rest of the staff looked on with varying expressions from sympathy and pity to unconcerned apathy, but the entire room stayed silent. No one was stupid enough to interfere and risk Alpha Damien’s ire.
My cheeks burned with the sting of Alpha Damien’s insult, and I trembled with the urge to give him a piece of my mind, but I bit my tongue, swallowing the outrage I felt.
I need this job. I need this job. I need—
I picked my discarded papers off the desk and floor before inclining my head slightly in his direction.
“I apologise, Mr Blackwell. I’ll redo the pitch.”
“You can’t kill your boss, Raven,” Misha responded dryly, a tiny smile tugging at her lips, her curly hair pulled up in what could only be described as a rat’s nest.
“I can certainly try,” I refuted, glaring at my best friend through my laptop’s screen. “It would be self-defense. The man is trying to end my life.”
Misha’s smile morphed into a full-blown grin.
“Come on, he can’t be that bad.”
That was the thing. He was that bad, and his attitude went beyond having a strict work ethic. The man was the very epitome of everything that was wrong with alpha-owned mega corporations.
Alpha Damien was a hard-headed, micromanaging, overly dominating asshole who seemed to have never conceived the thought that he could be wrong, even for a damn minute.
The thought of being bound to such a man for the rest of my life as co-parents was enough to give me nightmares even without factoring in the fact that he was Elias’s uncle. My lips thinned as I repressed a shudder.
“Oh, Misha, I think you’d be surprised.”
Misha’s amusement dimmed a little at my dark tone.
“Are you alright?”
I let out a resigned sigh, suddenly feeling drained.
“Yes,” I said finally. “Although I’d feel a lot better if you were here and I’d finally heard back from the packs I had messages sent out to.”
Shortly after Alpha Damien took over at Cityscape, I caved and reached out to the packs that could help in retaking my pack. It was all encrypted, and Misha, the tech genius that she was, had run some software that ensured my location stayed secret. But I still hadn’t heard back from any of them.
Misha was sympathetic. “You’ll hear back from them soon,” she assured me. “Don’t worry too much about it.”
Despite my dismal mood, my lips tipped into a small smile.
“And how on earth did I land such a good, supportive friend like you?”
“I ask myself that every day,” Misha said with a dramatic sigh, feigning deep regret. “Clearly, I have a weakness for lost causes.”
Misha’s lips twitched, and then we were both laughing, and for the first time in days, I felt like I could really breathe. Once all of this was sorted out, I’d spend so much time with Misha in person that she’d be sick of me.
Misha’s playful demeanor slowly faded, her words coming with a bit of hesitancy.
“So…have you decided on what you’re going to do?”
My smile disappeared. There was only one elephant in the room. My pregnancy.
“No.” My throat tightened around the word. I couldn’t afford to keep the pregnancy. But whenever I cradled my barely noticeable bump, it was hard to remember that.
“I understand that it’s difficult,” Misha said gently. “But you need to make a decision this week.”
She was right. The four weeks the doctor gave me were almost up. At this point, not deciding would become my decision. I wiped away the tear at the corner of my eye.
“I know,” my voice shook as I spoke. “I just…I already feel so protective, even though I know I’m not ready to be a mother. I don’t have a pack or a stable home. What kind of life can I give a child when I can’t even help myself?”
“Raven,” Misha’s eyes glimmered with understanding. “You know, whatever decision you make, I’ll be right here to support you.”
“I know,” I nodded gratefully, fighting the urge to cry again. Damn hormones. “Thank you.”
“You know…” Misha started, a glint of mischief in her gaze. “There’s always the option of making Alpha Damien take responsibility. It’s his child after all. Plus, the man is loaded and hot as hell.”
I blinked at the screen, at my best friend. No way in hell. Even though Alpha Damien was admittedly hot and his wealth rivalled that of several countries, I wanted nothing to do with the man and never would.
“Even if he weren’t an arrogant, domineering, demeaning asshole whom I can’t stand, Damien Blackwell is my boss and Elias’s uncle,” I deadpanned flatly. “One mistake and I’ll wind up right back in the Ivory Moon Pack without any chance of escaping.”
But it didn’t change the fact that I was carrying his child—a child he knew nothing about and that I wasn’t sure I could keep, no matter how much I wanted to. I rubbed my temple, suddenly feeling a migraine coming on.
“The last thing I need right now is for my life to get any messier. Besides, I want nothing more to do with that family.”
Misha eyed me suspiciously as though she wasn’t entirely convinced by my words.
“You sure about that, Raven?”
An image of Alpha Damien popped up unsolicitedly into my mind, and I found that I couldn’t answer Misha. Not truthfully, at least.
I didn’t feel good. And it wasn’t just because I’d been up all night revising my damn pitch. I’d been throwing up all morning, even though I could have sworn I was over the morning sickness phase.
Shaking off my lethargy, I made my way into Alpha Damien’s personal office to turn in my work. I’d barely taken two steps in when my vision blurred at the edges. I tried to steady myself, but my body was unbalanced and off-kilter.
“Miss Caine—” I heard Alpha Damien’s gruff voice, but my world had already shifted. My knees buckled beneath me, and before I could hit the ground, a pair of strong, muscular arms wrapped around my waist, firm and unyielding.
“Raven?”