Owned By The Possessive Alpha, Bounded To My Mate novel Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

DENISE

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The silence had a quality to it. The quality of people trying to become architecturally part of the elevator.

Kieran looked at me. Then, very briefly and with great control, he looked at the three women behind me. Then he looked at me again.

He extended his hand.

I took it.

He stepped forward, and his free hand came to my cheek, pressing his lips against it, giving me a chaste kiss on the side of my face.

“You came with it,” he said, looking at his jacket on my arm.

“You made it easy,” I said. My voice sounded remarkably normal given the circumstances of what I just heard minutes ago.

He drew me slightly forward, away from the elevator, his hand moving to the small of my back in the easy, like he had done it multiple times which he had not, but felt that way. The elevator doors began to close behind us.

“Don’t look back,” he said quietly, near my ear, as we moved down the corridor.

“Why not?”

“They’re actively plotting your murder.” His voice was perfectly level. “I can tell from the sound of the silence.”

I kept my eyes forward. “I can feel it.”

“You’re handling it well.”

“I spent forty-five seconds in an elevator hearing a forensic description of your ” I stopped. The heat in my face intensified.

“My?” he prompted, with the specific innocence of someone who was not innocent.

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Chapter 24

“Dormant situation,” I said.

There was a pause of exactly three seconds.

“Ah,” said Kieran.

“Claudia has strong opinions.”

“Claudia has strong everything.” He said it with the resignation of a man who had been managing this particular situation for longer than was reasonable.

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“HR has spoken to her twice. She submits amended reports and somehow the amendments

are worse.”

We turned a corner into a corridor that was quieter than the main floor, with glass-walled offices on one side and a view of the city on the other. He opened the door to his office as I walked in, already at ease, here his scent was heavily saturated, as it immediately told me the difference between them both, Dante always kept his scent hidden, not even in private places but Kieran seemed to dominate his space, marking whatever he clearly saw as his.

I held out his jacket.

He took it and draped it over the back of his chair, and then he looked at me with the expression I was beginning to recognize as his particular form of amusement, playing on his lips, with a certain kind of smirk that told me exactly what he thought of the situation.

“Red suits you,” he said.

“I’m not-” I pressed my fingers briefly to my cheek. Still warm. “That was an ambush.”

“In my own elevator, yes.”

“You could’ve called ahead. Warned me.”

“I didn’t know you’d be in the elevator with the three of them.” He moved to a small credenza and picked up a coffee cup. “Would you like something? Coffee, tea? I can have anything brought up.”

“Coffee,” I said. “Please.”

He picked up his phone and said something brief to someone, then set it down and looked at

“How are you this morning?” he asked. “Genuinely.”

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Chapter 24

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I thought about the question. And everything that I had accomplished this morning before coming here.

“Clearer than yesterday,” I said. “Which was clearer than the day before.”

He nodded like this made sense to him. “The legal team will have a first draft to you by Thursday. Take your time with it.”

“You said that last night.”

“I’ll keep saying it until you’ve actually read it.”

“I’m a fast reader.”

“Then read it thoroughly twice.” Something in his expression shifted slightly-not to something heavier, but to something more direct.

“This is the part where most people rush because they’re trying to get out of somewhere. Don’t rush because of me. I’ll be here Thursday and I’ll be here in three weeks. The terms don’t change because you take longer.”

He was, I thought, either exactly what he appeared to be, or the most sophisticated thing I’d ever encountered. And I had spent four years in the orbit of a man who was very sophisticated indeed.

“I’m going to find out who you’re in love with,” I said.

He looked at me without blinking. “I beg your pardon?”

“Every powerful man has someone he wanted and couldn’t have. I need to know who

yours

is.”

I held his gaze. “Not to use it against you. To understand you. There’s a difference.”

The silence that followed was thoughtful rather than defensive.

“You’re going to be exhausting,” he said finally. “In the best possible way.”

“Is that a deflection?”

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