Chapter 14
Alexander
My office is already alive—emails stacking, phones shrilling, junior executives circling like anxious birds.
Deals are moving, markets are shifting, someone is probably panicking over a decimal place three floors down.
I don’t hear any of it. All I hear is the click of her heels the moment she steps into the building.
It’s ridiculous that I know that sound. That out of hundreds of employees and visitors, I can separate her from the noise. But I do. I always do.
She’s wearing black today. High collar. Sleeves to the wrist. Hair pulled back in a sleek knot like she’s trying to strangle herself into invisibility. Like she’s mourning something. Maybe that night.
Too late, kitten.
You’re already under my skin.
Under my hands. Under my fucking teeth.
I stand behind the glass wall of my office, arms folded, watching her from above like the predator everyone whispers that I am.
The city stretches out behind me in cold steel and glass, but all my focus is fixed on one woman clutching a cardboard box to her chest like a shield.
HR did their part. Efficient. Discreet. “Promotion.” “Opportunity.” All the words that sound generous when you don’t know you’re being cornered.
You reach your old desk. The confusion in your expression is almost endearing. Your coworkers glance at you with a mix of curiosity and pity—they know what a PA to Alexander Hunt is: exhaustion, chaos, prestige, pressure. None of them knows what you really are to me. Not yet.
You lift your gaze. And there it is—that exact second when your eyes find me through the glass. You freeze. For a heartbeat, the whole floor stills with you. Your fingers tighten around the box.
Your lips part. I see it all: panic, memory, shame you don’t deserve—and that spark of defiance you pretend you don’t have. There she is. The woman who thought she could slip out of my bed before dawn and erase me with a cab ride.
I raise one brow, slow and deliberate. A silent challenge. You think I’ll ignore what happened? Pretend I didn’t have you spread out beneath me, shaking, begging, taking everything, I gave you and still asking for more?
Pretend I didn’t taste you. Own you. Ruin you for anyone else.
No.
This is war now. And you started it when you whispered this was a mistake and walked away like you hadn’t just rewritten something in me I thought was long dead.
My hand moves to the intercom, finger hovering for a beat. I watch you swallow. You know it’s coming. You can feel it.
I press the button. My voice cuts through the office speakers, smooth and absolute. “Send Miss Hart to my office. Now.” A pause. The receptionist stammers a quiet, “Y–Yes, Mr. Hunt,” over the line.
I release the button, straighten my cuffs, and let the faintest hint of a smile ghost over my mouth. Run, if you want to, kitten. It’ll only make dragging you back that much sweeter.