Chapter 9 - Andrea
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Andrea
I didn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes I felt his mouth on mine and my body went warm and my stomach flipped and I had to open my eyes again because apparently my nervous system had not received the memo that I was furious.
My alarm went off at 5:30 and I dragged myself into the shower and stood under the water for too long, letting it burn the back of my neck while my brain ran circles.
When I finally got out, I stood in front of my closet dripping onto the carpet and pulled out the charcoal blazer.
The one I saved for client meetings and days when I needed to feel like I could survive a nuclear blast. I paired it with my sharpest heels, buttoned my blouse all the way to the collar, and then sat at my vanity and did my makeup like I was going to war.
Full coverage because my eyes were puffy.
Sharp liner that took three tries because my hands still wouldn’t cooperate.
By the time I was done I looked put together and professional and absolutely nothing like a woman who’d been kissed senseless on her back porch by a wolf.
I got to the office before seven. His office was dark. I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, started working. Fingers sure on the keys, face neutral, heart trying to claw its way out of my ribcage, but that was between me and my cardiovascular system.
The coffee machine on the floor was broken again, which meant I had to go down to the fifth floor to get mine, which meant riding the elevator and standing in a breakroom and making small talk with people who didn’t know that my boss was a literal wolf and my world had caved in twelve hours ago.
A woman from accounting asked if I was okay because apparently my resting face was alarming this morning.
I told her I was fine. She didn’t look convinced.
Finneas arrived at 7:30. I heard the elevator, heard that heavy deliberate stride I could identify with my eyes closed. He stopped near my desk. I could feel him there, feel the air shift, feel the pull in my chest tighten like a fist, and I kept my eyes on my screen.
“Good morning, Andrea.”
“Good morning, Mr. Kingsley.”
Silence.
I didn’t look up but I felt it land. I’d called him Finneas since day one. He insisted on it, said the formal name made him feel like his father. I knew exactly what I was doing.
“Your 9 am is confirmed,” I said, eyes on my screen. “Quarterly data is on your desk. You’re out of the good coffee pods, replacements arrive at noon.”
He stood there another second. I could hear him breathing. Could feel him deciding whether to push. Then he walked into his office and closed the door. Quiet and controlled. Somehow worse than a slam.
The morning crawled. A contract came through that needed his signature, so I brought it in, set it on his desk, and left without making eye contact.
He said my name as I was turning and I said “was there anything else?” in a voice so polite it could have come out of a customer service recording.
He didn’t answer. I closed the door behind me.
Client calls came in and I transferred them with none of the usual commentary. No “he’s in a mood.” No “good luck.” Just the transfer and the click, and every time I hung up the phone the silence on our floor pressed back in.
At noon he came out and stopped at my desk. I could feel him standing there, feel his eyes on me, and I typed an email I’d already finished just to keep my hands busy.
“Andrea.”
“Yes, Mr. Kingsley?”
A beat. “Can we talk?”
“Your one o’clock is in forty-five minutes. I’d recommend eating before then.” I picked up my phone and dialed a number I didn’t need to dial. He stood there for three more seconds, then went back to his office.
That prickling heat on the back of my neck was constant now. I understood it with painful clarity. I didn’t look back. Not once. Even when the pull in my chest got so tight I had to press my palm against my sternum under the desk.
Around two, I was at the printer near his door and the pull hit so hard I actually turned my head.
Caught myself with my chin halfway to my shoulder, his office right there in my peripheral, and I snapped forward so fast my neck cracked.
My face went hot. I grabbed the papers and walked back to my desk all while holding my breath.
I sighed as soon as my butt hit the cushion.
He noticed. Of course he noticed. I could feel his attention sharpen through the glass, could practically hear him leaning forward. I typed an email to nobody about nothing and kept my eyes locked on the screen.
At three, his afternoon clients stopped by my desk on the way out. One complimented my efficiency. I smiled, thanked them, felt Finneas watching from his doorway. Didn’t turn around. My jaw ached from clenching it.
The last hour was the worst. Just me and him and the hum of the building, the floor emptied out, every sound he made traveling across the quiet. His chair creaking. Pages turning. A pen tapping on wood, then stopping. I could hear him existing and it was driving me insane.
By five I was done. Not from the work. From pretending my chest wasn’t aching, pretending I was fine, pretending I didn’t want to walk into his office and either scream at him or kiss him. I genuinely could not tell which one I wanted more, which pissed me off on a whole different level.
The building emptied. Our floor went quiet. I reached for my bag.
Didn’t pick it up.
I’d been sitting at this desk for ten hours with questions stacking up in my head, one after another after another, and ignoring them wasn’t making them go away.
The professional distance wasn’t working, the armor wasn’t working.
I was still thinking about him, still feeling the pull, still hearing his voice say he liked me so much it was ruining his life.
Ten hours of ice queen bullshit and I was no closer to figuring out what the hell I wanted than I was at 5:30 this morning staring at my ceiling.
I could go home. Sit on my empty porch. Stare at the wall. Think the same thoughts in a different location. Drink wine alone and feel sorry for myself and wake up tomorrow with the same questions and the same ache in my chest and nothing resolved.
Or I could walk into his office and get some damn answers. Pin him down, make him explain, force him to look me in the eye and tell me the truth about all of it. The bond, the wolf, the two years, everything.
Fuck it.
I stood up. Walked to his office. Stopped in the doorway.
He looked up, and honestly, he looked terrible. Dark circles, jaw tight, hair wrecked. Tie loosened, sleeves rolled, looking like a man who hadn’t slept either and was doing a worse job hiding it.
“I have more questions.”
“Ask me anything.”
I came in. Closed the door. Sat across from him, crossed my legs, folded my hands. Same chair I’d sat in a thousand times. Different conversation.
I sat there for a second, working up the nerve to ask the thing that had been eating at me since last night. The thing I didn’t want to ask because it meant admitting out loud that I’d been wanting him to, and my pride was already in critical condition after the whole porch confession situation.
Screw it. Pride was a luxury I couldn’t afford right now.
“You knew how I felt about you.” My face was already getting warm. “You heard me say it. Over and over. To Fin. To you. You knew I had a crush on you for two years.” I forced myself to look at him. “Why didn’t you ever do anything about it?”
His jaw tightened. “Because you’re human. Because you didn’t know what I was, what the bond was, any of it. If I made a move, you’d be making a choice based on incomplete information. That’s not a choice, that’s manipulation.”
“So you just sat there. Listening to me talk about you every night, knowing how I felt, and did nothing.”
“I sat there and it killed me, Andrea. Every night. Hearing you say my name, hearing you describe what I made you feel, and not being able to say a single word back.” His voice dropped lower.
“You think it was easy? Sitting on that porch while you told a dog you wanted me to smile at you, knowing I could give you that and a hundred other things if I just opened my damn mouth?”
My chest ached. I wasn’t expecting the rawness in his voice. The frustration that matched mine beat for beat.
“So what do you want now?” I asked. “From me. From this. What are you actually asking for here, Finneas?”
He was quiet for a long moment. His eyes dropped to the desk, then back to me. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know I’m tired of pretending.” He leaned back in his chair, ran a hand over his face, and when he dropped it he looked more exhausted than I’d ever seen him.
“I’m tired of pretending you’re just my assistant.
I’m tired of pretending I don’t think about you every second I’m awake.
I’m tired of sitting three feet away from you behind a glass wall for eight hours a day acting like you don’t take up every corner of my head.
” He looked at me. “I don’t know what I’m asking for. But I know I can’t keep doing this.”
I didn’t have a response to that. Not a good one, not a snarky one, not any of the deflections I’d been lobbing at him since this morning. He just sat there looking wrecked and honest and I sat there looking at him and the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, it was just full.
“The bond,” I finally said. “You said it doesn’t create feelings.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Explain that to me. Because from where I’m sitting it sounds like you’re telling me I’ve been biologically rigged to be attracted to you, and that’s a pretty convenient thing for a guy who’s been lying to me for two years to say.”
His jaw tightened. “The bond identifies compatibility. It doesn’t manufacture attraction, doesn’t override free will. If you’d met me without the bond, you’d still feel a pull. The bond just makes it stronger.”
“How do you know that?”