Free Web NovelChapter 45: Chapter 45 Dinner with Alaric
_Rowena’s POV_
The next morning, Celeste sent me a message.
She didn’t ease into it as always. The message I saw left me dumbstruck.
“The Alpha King wants to see you. He wants to have dinner with you tonight. Don’t overthink it.”
I read it, put my phone down, pick it back up and read it again.
I wasn’t overthinking it. I was just reading it carefully. There was a difference.
I told myself I felt nothing about it. I was calm. Unbothered. Completely indifferent to the fact that Alaric had specifically asked to have dinner with me.
Then I ended up spending forty minutes deciding what to wear.
I settled on a deep burgundy dress, it was simple and fitted. The kind that didn’t try too hard but still made a point. I looked at myself in the mirror, decided I looked fine, and left before I could change my mind.
The restaurant was at the top of one of his buildings downtown. No big sign outside or crowds waiting. Just a quiet entrance and a man at the door who already knew my name before I said anything.
That alone told me everything about how Alaric operated.
Inside, the lighting was low and nice. Every table had enough space around it that you couldn’t hear anyone else’s conversation. Soft music played somewhere in the background, gentle enough that it didn’t interrupt your thoughts. Everything about the place said money, but quietly. The kind of wealth that didn’t need to announce itself.
I saw him before he saw me.
He was sitting near the window, the city spread out behind him like a painting. He wore a dark suit without a tie. That easy, relaxed posture he always had, the kind that somehow still managed to look powerful. Like even when he was sitting still, the room arranged itself around him.
The Alpha King’s power.
A woman walked past his table and slowed down just slightly. She probably didn’t even notice she did it. Most women didn’t notice when they did it around Alaric.
He didn’t look at her at all.
Then he looked up and saw me.
That blank, bored expression he always wore, the one I’d seen on him in boardrooms and at events and across crowded rooms, it didn’t disappear exactly. It just softened. Like something underneath it had quietly woken up.
He stood as I got closer. I didn’t expect that.
“You came,” he said.
“You asked,” I said, and gave a slight bow before I sat down.
We started with easy conversation. Nothing heavy. He mentioned a deal he’d been closing for a while. I told him about a gallery opening I’d attend soon in the week. We talked about the pack, about a new development going up near the west side.
It felt natural. That was the strange part. It shouldn’t have felt as easy as it did.
He ordered for the table without making a production of it. Just quietly told the waiter what to bring. And somewhere in the back of my mind I noticed that everything he ordered was something I actually liked. I didn’t say anything about it. But I noticed.
“You look well,” he said during a quiet moment.
I glanced at him. “You say that like you were worried.”
“I say it because it’s true,” he said simply. “And because I wanted to.”
I reached for my water glass and said nothing.
He watched me for a moment. Then, “How have you actually been, Rowena?”
The way he said actually changed the whole question. It wasn’t small talk anymore. He wasn’t asking to fill silence. He genuinely wanted to know.
I thought about giving him the easy answer. Fine. Busy. Good. The one I gave everyone else without thinking.
Instead I said, “Some days are harder than others. But I’m managing.”
He nodded slowly. “You’ve always been good at that.”
“At what?”
“Managing,” he said. “No matter what’s happening, you manage. Most people would have fallen apart by now.”
I looked at him. “Is that your version of a compliment?”
“It’s just the truth,” he said. “Strong is an ordinary word. It doesn’t cover what you are.”
I didn’t have a quick response for that. I looked down at my plate for a second.
Then he leaned back slightly, a small shift in his posture, and said in a lower voice, “You know, I used to think you were the most frustrating woman I had ever met.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Used to?”
“Now,” he said, looking straight at me, “I think you’re the most interesting one.”
Something warm moved through my chest before I could stop it and crawled right up to my face. frёeωebɳovel.com
I felt my cheeks heat up.
An actual blush. On my face. In public.
I hadn’t done that in years. I didn’t even know I still could.
I cleared my throat and sat up straighter.
“Let’s focus,” I said. “You didn’t bring me to a five star restaurant to tell me I’m interesting. What did you actually want to talk about?”
The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. But close.
He had seen the blush. I knew he had. And he chose not to say anything about it, which was somehow worse than if he had.
We talked my family after that. He also wanted to know about my distribution network, whether I’d considered expanding into the eastern regions. I listened, asked questions, pushed back on a couple of his points. He conceded one of them without argument, which I respected.
He asked about my team. My schedule. Then, almost casually, “Are you sleeping?”
I stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“You have shadows under your eyes.”
“I have concealer.”
“You have shadows under your concealer.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, then said, “I sleep fine.”
“Rowena.”
“Some nights are shorter than others,” I muttered.
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was calm and low. “You’re allowed to rest. You don’t have to be at war with everything all the time. Winning doesn’t mean you have to run yourself into the ground.”
I didn’t answer that.
Dessert arrived without either of us ordering it. Dark chocolate. My favorite. I didn’t ask how he knew this one too. I just picked up the spoon.
Later, when the restaurant had emptied out around us and the city outside had gone darker and quieter, we walked down to the lobby together.
We stood near the entrance. Neither of us moved toward the door right away.
He looked at me for a moment. Just looked. Unhurriedly like he had nowhere else to be and wasn’t pretending otherwise.
“I want to do this again,” he said.
His voice was quiet. Direct. No performance in it.
“Alpha Alar....”
“Just Alaric would be fine. But it doesn’t have to be complicated,” he said. “I just want to see you. That’s all it is.”
My stomach flipped. Slow and warm and completely inconvenient.
I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no either. I just nodded once, almost to myself, and walked out into the night air.
By the the following morning, my phone was full of notifications.
Photos. Headlines. Comments.
Alpha Alaric spotted at his private restaurant with an unknown woman. Intimate dinner. Who is she?
I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the screen.
Then I set the phone face down on the nightstand.
I needed coffee before I could deal with any of that.
