Owned By The Possessive Alpha, Bounded To My Mate novel Chapter 60

Chapter 60

KIERAN

Denise’s text came in at nine fifty-three.

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I read it at my desk between two calls, noted it, and replied without overthinking the reply. She had a question she was ready to ask. I knew which question it was-we had been circling it since Seren, and I had told her twice that I would answer when she asked, and I had meant it both times.

Seven o’clock. I would be home by seven.

I put the phone down and returned to the document I’d been reviewing.

At nine fifty-eight, my assistant knocked.

“Your ten o’clock is here,” she said.

“Send them in.”

I closed the document, straightened the folder on my desk, and put on the expression I used for meetings that required neutrality -not warmth, not coldness, the particular blank professionalism of a man who intended to conduct business and nothing else.

The door opened.

Dante Blackwood walked in.

I had known, from the appointment request, that this was a possibility. The name on the booking had been a corporate entity rather than a personal one, which was a technique I recognized because I used it myself when I wanted the meeting to happen before the other party had time to construct a position against it. I had considered canceling when the connection became clear and had decided against it, because canceling would have communicated something I didn’t want to communicate.

He was accompanied by a second man-mid-fifties, grey suit, the slightly eager bearing of someone who needed two other parties more than either of them needed him. He introduced himself as Mr. Smith, with a firm handshake and the card of a development consultancy that I recognized without being particularly impressed by.

I gestured to the chairs.

We sat.

The land in question had been a stagnant issue for eleven years.

A parcel of territory on the eastern boundary between Nightshade and Blackwood-adjacent holdings, with historical ties to both families that predated the current generation’s involvement. Neither family had been able to develop it, lease it, or resolve the competing claims, and so it had sat-legally contested, practically useless, a monument to the particular stubbornness of two bloodlines that had never managed to agree on anything.

Smith wanted to lease it. He had a development proposal-residential, mid-scale, the kind of project that generated steady returns over a long period rather than a significant immediate payout. He had financing in place and a timeline prepared and the particular

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energy of a man who had done his homework and believed homework was sufficient.

I listened to the proposal with complete attention.

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The problem was Smith’s previous dealings, which I had reviewed before the meeting. Two transactions with Blackwood Enterprises in the past four years both legitimate, both completed, both structured in ways that had benefited the Blackwood side of the arrangement more substantially than the other parties involved. Not fraudulently. Just with the particular outcome distribution that happened when one party had more leverage and used it.

Leasing contested land to a party with existing Blackwood relationships was not a configuration I found attractive.

I said so, in the diplomatic language of someone identifying concerns rather than refusing outright.

Dante said nothing during this. He sat with the same neutrality I was performing, and the neutrality of two people who had decided to conduct business professionally in a room where the personal history was present but contained was its own kind of tension-low, structural, the kind you felt in your shoulders rather than heard in anyone’s voice.

Smith offered amendments to the proposed terms.

I noted them.

The meeting did not resolve. It adjourned-a scheduled follow-up proposed, documents to be exchanged, positions to be reviewed. Smith left with the slightly deflated energy of a man who had expected more progress and had gotten professional courtesy instead.

The door closed behind him.

Dante and I remained in the chairs.

The neutrality held for approximately ten seconds.

“Whatever game you think you’re playing,” Dante said. His voice was even, the same controlled register he’d used through the entire meeting. “Denise doesn’t love you.”

I looked at him.

I did not say anything.

“She’s using you,” he continued. “The same way you’re using her-for optics, for positioning, for whatever the political calculation is this season.” His eyes were steady on mine. “She’s still mine. That hasn’t changed because she signed a document or attended a party in an expensive dress.”

“Is that a threat?” I said.

“It’s a promise.” He stood, straightened his jacket with the single efficient movement of a man concluding a conversation rather than ending one. “When this arrangement of yours runs its course-and it will-you’ll understand what I mean.”

He walked to the door.

He opened it, and paused with his hand on the frame.

“She came back to me twice,” he said, without turning around. “She’ll come back again.”

He left.

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tsat in the chair and looked at the space he’d vacated.

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The office was quiet with the particular quiet of a room that had held something and was now processing its absence. I looked at the document folder on my desk, at the Smith proposal that hadn’t resolved, at the window behind my chair where the city was going about its morning with no awareness of having been relevant.

Dante Blackwood believed what he’d said.

That was the thing I sat with-not the content of it, the delivery. He had not been performing a threat. He had not been posturing for an audience. He had said it the way a man said something he had examined and arrived at and found solid. He believed she would come back. He believed the history between them was weight enough to pull against whatever she was building now.

I thought about the question she’d said she was ready to ask tonight.

I thought about Jayce’s voice on the phone: *maybe she’s using this as payback.

I thought about her getting out of a car at a red light.

I was still thinking when my phone buzzed.

Not a call. A message, from a number I hadn’t heard from in four months.

*You need to come to France now. Something is happening around A.*

I sat with that for a moment.

Then I read it again, because the first reading had produced a result I wanted to verify before I acted on it.

The result was the same.

I put the phone down on the desk and looked at the ceiling for approximately fifteen seconds, which was the amount of time! allowed myself before I moved to the next thing.

Then I picked the phone back up and opened Denise’s contact.

*Something has come up-I need to travel. France, leaving tonight. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” A pause, and then: “When I’m back, I’ll answer your question. I haven’t forgotten.*

I sent it.

Then I called my assistant.

“Arrange the private plane,” I said when she picked up. “Tonight, as early as possible. Destination Paris.” A pause. “And clear tomorrow’s morning schedule.”

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