Chapter 2
two
. . .
Alexander
The numbers blur on my screen as I try to focus on the quarterly projections. Forty-eight hours since I saw her, and her face has burned itself into my mind like a brand. I've built an empire on concentration and ruthless focus, yet here I am, undone by a waitress with trembling hands and eyes that couldn't meet mine.
I push back from my desk, the leather chair whispering against the marble floor. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse office, Manhattan sprawls beneath me like a concrete playground. Mine to command. Mine to control. Sixty-five stories up, and I still can't escape her.
The skyline glitters with afternoon sunlight, buildings jutting like teeth from the city's jaw. From up here, people are specks, insignificant. But she wasn't insignificant. She was...everything.
I loosen my tie, feeling constricted despite the vast space around me. My fingers drum against the polished surface of my desk, Italian oak imported at a cost that could feed a family for years. The thought makes me pause. Her family. I wonder what they're like. If they're struggling. The way her uniform had been meticulously mended at the cuff suggested as much.
"For fuck's sake," I mutter to the empty room. I'm Alexander Grant. I don't wonder about waitresses.
But I do. I have been. For two days straight.
The coffee she'd served me sits bitter on my tongue even now, a memory so sharp it might as well be happening all over again. I'd stopped at the café on a whim—no, not a whim. Nothing I do is without purpose. I'd been avoiding the construction on Fifth, took a detour, and there it was. A cramped little place with foggy windows and a sign promising "The Best Coffee in the City." A lie, surely, but I'd had fifteen minutes to kill before my next meeting.
The bell had jingled as I entered, and she'd looked up. Just a brief glance, but it stole my breath like I was some green boy and not a thirty-seven-year-old man who'd faced down boardrooms of sharks. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, wisps escaping to frame her face. Not beautiful in the conventional sense that adorns the women I usually take to my bed. No, she was something else. Something real.
When she spilled the coffee on me…the way she'd startled at her name, like no one ever used it, like it was a gift I'd given her rather than pinned to her chest for all to see—that was when I knew I was in trouble.
I shake myself back to the present, to the empire I've built that suddenly feels hollow. The coffee at that café had been terrible, but I'd drained the cup anyway, left a hundred-dollar bill on the table, and walked out without looking back. A test for myself. A failure.
Because here I am, thinking about Alice. Alice with her soft curves and gentle features. Alice with exhaustion shadowing her eyes. Alice, who'd looked at me like I was something to be afraid of.
She wasn't wrong.
I press the intercom button on my desk. "Rachel, come in here."
My assistant appears within seconds, tablet in hand, expression professionally neutral despite the late hour and the fact that I've kept her well past when she should have gone home. Her tailored suit and sharp bob are as immaculate as they were at seven this morning.
"Sir?"
"I need information on someone." I don't bother with pleasantries. Rachel doesn't expect them.
"Of course. Details?"
"Her name is Alice. She works at a café on 28th and Lexington. Waitress. Nineteen or early twenties, I'd guess." I recite the facts clinically, as if she's a potential acquisition and not a woman who's crawled under my skin.
Rachel nods, makes a note. Doesn't question why her billionaire boss is interested in a waitress. That's why I pay her obscenely well.
"I want everything. Where she lives. Family situation. Financial status. Relationship status." I pause, tapping my finger against the desk. "Debts. I especially want to know about any debts."
"How quickly do you need this?"
"Yesterday." I turn my chair to face the darkening skyline, dismissing her. "And Rachel? Be discreet."
"Always, Mr. Grant."
The door closes with a soft click. I watch the city lights flicker on, one by one, like stars being born. Somewhere out there, Alice is existing. Working. Living. Does she have someone waiting for her at home? The thought makes my jaw clench.
I've never been a patient man. I take what I want, when I want it. But this— her —requires finesse. A different approach. I don't just want her body in my bed, though God knows I ache for that. I want...more. All of her. Every smile, every blush, every trembling exhale.
My phone buzzes with an email. The Miller deal, needing my attention. The world continues to spin, money continues to flow, and I should care. Instead, I find myself wondering what Alice is doing right now. If she's still at that café, serving coffee to men who don't deserve to breathe the same air as her. If she's thinking of me at all.
Probably not. I was just another customer to her. But not for long.
I turn back to my computer, force myself to read the email. The words register distantly, my brain processing them even as part of me remains fixated on Alice. It's this dual focus that's made me successful—the ability to multitask at a level that leaves others in the dust. Now I'll use it to plan my acquisition of a waitress while simultaneously closing a multi-million-dollar deal.
By the time Rachel returns, night has fully descended, and the city below is a sea of artificial light. She places a folder on my desk—actual paper, because some things shouldn't exist in digital form—and stands back, waiting.
I flip it open, and there she is. Alice Clark. Twenty-four years old. Lives in a run-down apartment in Queens with her mother and younger brother. Mother chronically ill—expensive medications. Brother still in high school. Father deceased. Three jobs—the café, weekend shifts at a grocery store, and online transcription work at night. Crushing medical debt from her mother's condition. No boyfriend, no significant other of any kind.
Something dark and possessive unfurls inside me. She's perfect. Vulnerable. In need.
"The background checks were clean," Rachel says. "No criminal history, good credit despite the debt. She's..." She hesitates, choosing her words carefully. "She seems like a good person, sir."
I close the folder, meet Rachel's eyes. There's a question there, maybe even a hint of concern. I've never shown interest in someone like Alice before.
"Thank you, Rachel. You can go home now."
She nods, turns to leave, then pauses. "Will there be anything else regarding Ms. Clark?"
"Not tonight." I tap the folder. "But clear my morning tomorrow. I'll be out of the office."
"The Henderson meeting?—"
"Reschedule it."
Another nod, and she's gone. Professional to the core. I make a mental note to give her a bonus.
Alone again, I return to the window, but now I'm facing east, towards Queens. Towards Alice. In her tiny apartment, probably exhausted from her shift, maybe caring for her sick mother or helping her brother with homework. The weight of the world on her slender shoulders.
Not for much longer.
I feel a smile curve my lips, anticipation humming in my veins. Tomorrow, I'll see her again. Tomorrow, I'll begin the process of making her mine.
This time, when I leave that café, she'll be coming with me.