Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
VIDAR
The elevator doors slid shut with a quiet, final click. I moved before the mechanism fully engaged. My hand closed around Addie’s arm. I backed her into the corner, caging her in. The mirrored walls caught us from every angle—her pinned, me not giving her an inch to escape again.
Her scent hit me hard in the confined space. Fire, sharpened by heat that was barely leashed. I dragged in a breath before I could stop myself.
Her nostrils flared. She noticed.
Good.
"You stole my idea, " Addie hissed, her voice low and furious.
"What? "
"The Ironwood offshore accounts, " she snapped, pushing against me. The movement only brought her closer; her pulse a visible beat at her throat. "You implemented the exact bypass I suggested. You gutted them using my strategy and didn’t say a word. "
“I didn’t steal your idea. I executed it.” My eyes dropped back to her mouth before I forced them up again.
"Without giving me credit."
"Do you have any concept of the target on your back? The Ironwood remnants. Your father. You were walking the streets of Manhattan alone —anyone could've snatched you off the street."
"I was fine until you showed up, " she shot back, her breath brushing my jaw now, "and started pissing on the furniture. "
My grip tightened just slightly before I released her arm, deliberately, as if I was choosing restraint instead of needing it. It was a lie. The elevator doors dinged open to the ground floor. Neither of us moved.
"Mr. Blackwood? What an unexpected honor." A man who looked like he had more Botox than sense dared to step too close to my wife. "I’m James Sterling Jr. We were hoping for a follow-up on the infrastructure proposal. If you have five minutes—"
"I don't have five seconds. My wife and I have an appointment to get to."
"Shopping trip for the missus. I hear that." Junior did a double take at Addie. "Wife? I... I had no idea you were married, Adelaide."
I went perfectly still. The ambient noise of the lobby died as this imbecile misnamed my wife. "What did you just call my wife?"
The man laughed, a high-pitched, nervous sound that set my teeth on edge. "Oh, sorry! I meant Addison, of course."
I stepped in front of Addie, tucking her firmly behind the shield of my body. I squared my shoulders, looming over Junior until he was forced to crane his neck back. I let a sliver of the wolf peek out.
"My wife worked for you for all these years; she kept this company afloat with her mind, and you don't even know her name."
Junior sensed the shift in the atmosphere; the sudden, violent proximity of a predator. He balked, his hands coming up in a placating gesture. "Mr. Blackwood, I didn't mean any disrespect. Add—"
He stopped because he clearly had no idea what her name was.
"There is no infrastructure proposal. I'm taking over this company. I'm doing you a favor. With my wife no longer employed here, the company wouldn't last the end of the month."
I turned my back on him with a finality that was its own kind of violence. I tucked Addie into me, my hand clasping hers with a possessiveness that left no room for argument, and led her toward the exit.
As the silver doors began to slide shut, I caught a glimpse of Nell standing in the open elevator door.
She wasn't cowering like the others. She was appraising me anew, her eyes narrowed with a sharp, dangerous intelligence.
She didn't look impressed by my protection; she looked like she was measuring the height of the walls I was building around Addie.
The suspicion in those eyes told me everything I needed to know.
Petronella Odhiambo was a tether to a world I was trying to burn down. If I wanted Addie to be entirely mine, I couldn't just own the company. I would have to deal with the woman who actually knew my wife's name and value.
I handed Addie into the back of the town car with more force than was strictly necessary. The velvet interior of the vehicle felt like a pressurized cabin as I slid into the seat beside her. My movements were jagged with a fury I was struggling to keep beneath the surface.
"Home," I barked at the driver.
The privacy window slid up with a hiss, sealing us in a tomb of leather and expensive silence. I turned to her, my shadow swallowing the small space.
"How?" I demanded, the word vibrating with Alpha resonance. "The locks on that penthouse are grade-four industrial. There isn't a key in the world that should have moved that bolt."
Addie leaned back against the seat, looking at me with a tired, clinical sort of detachment that grated on my nerves. "My father used to lock me in rooms all the time when I was a kid. I learned to pick a tumbler before I learned to drive."
"Bastard."
She let out a short, humorless laugh that cut deeper than any snarl. "You think you’re different from him? You’re everything I’ve spent my life trying to escape. You’ve just given my cage a better view."
The accusation lodged under my skin. I’d used the offshore idea because it was the most efficient path. I'd used it because it was brilliant. I hadn't considered that to Addie it was another theft of her identity.
"I can't promise I won't try to escape again. Old habits die hard. But you don't have to worry about the business. I won't do anything to jeopardize either of our families."
We reached the penthouse in a silence so thick it felt like drowning.
I didn't take her to her bedroom. I led her into my study.
I sat at my desk and flipped my laptop around, sliding it across the polished wood until it was inches from her hands.
The screen was covered in the raw, jagged data of the Ironwood accounts.
"Get to work."
Addie blinked, looking at the screen and then back at me, her eyes wide with a mix of defiance and bewilderment.
"The Ironwood assets are a rat’s nest of hidden liabilities." I pointed at a flickering column of red. "The old Alpha buried three shell companies in the Northern accounts, and the encryption is—"
I didn't even finish the sentence. Addie’s fingers were already moving.
She didn't use the mouse; she used hot keys, which I'm not ashamed to say turned me on. The rhythmic click-clack of the mechanical keys filled the room, steady and aggressive. I stood there for a few moments, paralyzed by the sight of her. I’d seen her beautiful before, draped in silk or flushed with anger, but this was different.
This was the real predator in her coming out to play.
Her fingers glided over the board with an elegance that made my own throat tight.
She bit her lower lip as she concentrated.
The small movement drew my eye to the soft curve of her mouth.
She rolled her head around her neck, stretching the tired muscles, and the sudden, sharp sound of her tendons popping in the quiet room sent a jolt of heat straight to my cock.
It was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen.
I forced myself to move away before I did something that would break the fragile truce. I went to the small table by the window. Opening my own tablet, I tried to tackle the security reports from the New York estate, but I couldn't focus. My eyes kept drifting back to her.
I wanted to know what she was seeing. I wanted to see which knots she was untying and how she was rewriting the future of our two families with a few keystrokes. Every time she hummed in thought or shifted in my chair, I felt it in my balls. Which were so fucking tight.
For the next three hours, we didn't speak. We tore through the logistics, challenging each other's projections, her mind meeting mine at a speed that made my blood sing. It wasn't sex, but it was an intimacy so sharp it left us both breathless.
Finally, I closed the laptop. The city lights were beginning to dim as the sun threatened the horizon.
"Go to bed, Addie."
She stood, her legs unsteady, and headed for the door. I watched the sway of her hips, the way the silk of her dress—now wrinkled from the day's rebellion—clung to her skin. She stopped as she reached the threshold.
"Alone?" she asked.
"Do you want to fuck?" I asked the question blunt. It wasn't a command; it was a genuine inquiry in the wreckage of the night.
The pulse in the hollow of her throat jumped. For a second, I thought she might say yes; that the intellectual fire we’d just shared might bridge the gap.
"I'm not in heat," she said softly, her eyes searching mine.
I wanted her, but I wanted her to want me more. "All right, then."
She hesitated a moment longer. Then she disappeared into the hallway, leaving me alone in the silent office. I looked at the laptop, still warm from her touch. I had her in the cage, and I had her in my employ. But as I smelled the lingering jasmine in the air, I realized I wanted more.