Free Web NovelChapter 102: Chapter 102 The Blonde Seductress
_Rowena’s POV_
The Ebonmoon Pack’s company building sat in the financial district along with others. There were two companies owned by Ebonmoon Pack. This one was the biggest. And it was my first time coming here.
There were clean lines, dark glass, the kind of architecture that communicated authority without trying too hard and although I haven’t been inside, I’d driven past it many times. Walking into it was different.
The receptionist at the front desk looked up when I came through the doors and her expression shifted immediately as she recognized me. I was everywhere at this point. My face and name.
On all news channel and magazines.
“Marchioness Ashthorne,” she bowed. “You’re expected.”
I nodded as she reached for the phone before I had finished nodding.
Reid appeared from the elevator bank within two minutes. He was exactly as I remembered him from the limited interactions we’d had, composed and efficient, the kind of man who had been in his role long enough that the role had become invisible and what remained was just the function of it.
“Marchioness,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”
He took me to the elevator and we went up towards Alaric’s office. Judging from how classy this one looked, it had to be Alaric’s personal elevator ride.
He’s let me use it. Because Reid would definitely not use it without permission.
The upper floor opened into a lobby area that had the same architectural language as the building’s exterior. Clean, considered and nothing excessive.
And just then, I saw a woman before Reid had finished crossing the lobby.
She was coming out of the office at the far end of the corridor. She had blonde hair, a bold red dress that had been selected with complete awareness of what it was supposed to communicate, and heels that were precise about their own height. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
She moved with the fluency of a woman who had spent a significant amount of time in spaces like this and had decided that moving through them like she owned them was the only acceptable approach. She was definitely a seductress.
Interesting. Why was she here?
Was Alaric into seductresses now?
The seductress saw me.
She didn’t slow down when she did. She held my gaze for a moment with the cool assessment of someone who was very good at rapid evaluation and wanted me to know it. Then she reached into her bag, produced a small mirror, and adjusted her red lipstick with an unhurried attention. Was she showing off?
For me? A fellow woman?
She eventually put the mirror away and walked past me.
I watched her go.
Reid had the professional expression of someone pretending he hadn’t seen anything but I knew he saw every single one of that drama.
I turned back toward the office at the end of the corridor.
Reid knocked once and opened the door and I walked in.
The first thing I processed was that Alaric was facing the window with his back to the room. The second thing I processed was that he was not wearing a shirt.
I stopped walking.
The shirt in question was in his hand and he was holding it away from himself with two fingers and an expression of disgust that I could see in his profile. His back was to me and his attention was on the shirt and the window and whatever he was thinking, and neither he nor his considerable amount of visible shoulder and back muscle appeared to be aware that I had come in.
“Dispose of it,” he said, apparently to Reid. “I don’t want it in this building.”
I looked at the shirt. His white pristine shirt except for a very obvious red smudge along the collar that was exactly the shape and color of the lipstick I had just watched being adjusted in the corridor.
I looked at his back and sighed, then I looked at the ceiling briefly.
“Is there a reason you’re half naked in your office?”
He slowly turned around.
The turning around produced more information in the same category as his back, which was that Alaric without a shirt was something that had clearly been thought about by whoever had been responsible for the general arrangement of things, because no one looked like that accidentally. He was hot. And did I mention tattoos crawling up his stomach?
The geometry of his chest and the line from his shoulders down and the complete unbothered ease with which he stood there being entirely too much to look at directly.
His expression when he saw me went through several things quickly. Surprise, something warmer than surprise, and then the composed version of both of those things that arrived about a second later.
“You came,” he sighed.
“You sent for me,” I reminded, keeping my voice even. “The shirt?”
“That woman,” he said, with a quality of disgust in his voice that managed to communicate an entire situation in two words. “She walked into my office without an appointment and apparently decided that my shirt was an acceptable surface for her mouth.” He looked at the shirt like it had personally offended him. “I can still smell it. I’m not wearing it.”
He dropped it on the floor.
I looked at it on the floor. Then at him. Then at the small waste basket near the desk.
I walked over to the shirt and before I could process my thoughts, I used two fingers, carefully, and picked it up, carried it to the waste basket and dropped it in. Then I straightened up and turned around.
He was watching me with a smile that had arrived slowly and settled in fully and had no intention of moving.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I nodded.
We just stared at each other. For some reasons I refused to admit, I wasn’t happy that the seductress had put her mouth on him.
I became aware that my eyes had conducted a review of their own in the past several seconds that had not been entirely authorized by the part of me that made decisions about these things.
I cleared my throat and adjusted my gaze to a point at his collarbone, which was not an improvement but was an improvement.
“You asked me to come,” I said again. “I assume there was a reason beyond the shirt situation. Did you want to discuss the travel arrangements, because I wanted to talk about the timing of—”
“Come here,” he suddenly cut me short, his gaze remaining fixed on my small frame.
I stopped talking in an instant, finding that utterly hot.
“His voice is so deep.” Kyra purred.
He was still smiling, just slightly, the edge of it, and he was looking at me with that attention of his that had a type of patience in it that I found more difficult to manage than urgency would have been. Urgency could be redirected. Patience just waited.
“Alaric,” I tried to make him focus. What the hell was he up to now?
“You’re standing by the waste basket,” he replied instead. “Come here, Rowena.”
“I’m standing here because I just disposed of your shirt,” I said.
“I’m aware of that.” He nodded. “Now come to me.”
