Chapter 16
Alexander
The Moment she left my office, the air changed. Not metaphorically. Literally. The temperature felt different. The silence sharpened. The room became too small for a man like me—too charged, too tight, too full of the echo of her voice saying things she didn’t mean.
“This will NEVER happen again.”
“I don’t want this position.”
“It was a mistake.”
Lies. All of it.
She said them with her chin raised and her breath trembling, like a warrior standing on a battlefield she had no armor for. She stared me down even when I caged her against my desk, even when she knew damn well her body was betraying her with every second she breathed in my presence.
She wanted to run. She wanted to stay. That contradiction tasted sweeter than sin. I moved behind my desk, fingers drumming once, sharply, against polished wood. My control—usually flawless, clinical, absolute—felt stretched thin.
She has no idea what she does to me. I’d have torn the world apart to get her alone again. Instead, I stood there, jaw locked, breathing her name into the empty room like a man praying to a god he doesn’t believe in.
I should let this go. I should let her go.
But my body hasn’t forgotten her. My mouth hasn’t forgotten her taste. My hands haven’t forgotten the way she trembled when I touched her. And I sure as hell haven’t forgotten how she looked walking away from my bed, wearing my marks and pretending they didn’t mean anything.
She thinks I’m doing this because of one night. One mistake. One moment of surrender she’s desperate to rewrite. She doesn’t understand. I chose her long before that night.
I noticed her months ago, quiet, diligent, too small for a world that never deserved her, too stubborn to break even when life tried. Every time she walked past my office, something in me tilted.
She doesn’t understand that Saturday wasn’t the beginning. It was the breaking point. The moment the tension between us snapped and neither of us bothered pretending anymore.
My phone vibrated. Two missed calls. Sloppy emails. Reminders. Meetings. None of them mattered. Only she did.
I moved to the glass wall overlooking the office floor. My staff buzzed like bees, oblivious. But I searched for her—dark blouse, hair pulled tight, eyes avoiding mine not out of fear but rebellion. There. Walking fast. Box still on her desk. Shoulders stiff. Running again. My jaw ticked.
You don’t run from me, kitten.
Not after I’ve tasted you. Not after the way you moaned my name like a confession you didn’t mean to give.
I pressed a hand to the glass, fingers splayed, watching her move her small figure with enough defiance to ignite my entire bloodstream.
She thinks she can deny me. She thinks she can deny herself.
Wrong. This is no longer about sex. This isn’t even about the job.
This is about the fact that I do not let go of what I claim. And I’ve already claimed her.
I turn from the glass, decision slicing clean through the static in my chest. If she wants distance, she’ll have to earn it. If she wants to fight me, I’ll meet her blow for blow. If she wants to pretend—
I’ll break that lie gently, thoroughly, relentlessly. She’s mine. And I’m going to make damn sure she knows it.