Chapter 14 You’re dead
RORY POV
“I heard an interesting fact from my son two days ago,” Alexander said in that clipped, bored tone while his eyes raked me from head to toe like I was merchandise he hadn’t decided whether to buy or burn.
He’d demanded I come to his study the second I finished with Liam for the day. The room smelled like leather, expensive wood, and the faint burn of scotch. He stood behind his desk like it was a throne.
“Apparently you want me to be your fake boyfriend for your little party.”
He said it so calmly while he shrugged off his jacket, rolling the sleeves of his crisp white shirt up to his forearms. The ink on his left arm flexed as the fabric moved...dark, sharp lines that looked like they’d been carved with a knife. He’d clearly just gotten back from somewhere important, the tie was already loosened, top button undone. He wasn’t here this morning when I arrived.
My eyes followed the movement. I couldn’t stop them. He was too fucking good-looking. Too tall, too broad, too sharp everywhere I was soft. The sleeves rolled higher and I caught the edge of another tattoo disappearing under the fabric. My stomach flipped.
He looked less like a CEO and more like the man people whispered about in the dark. A man who knew exactly how to use those hands to ruin someone.
"Is that so?" he prompted, voice low and mocking.
Shit.
I had been staring at him so much that I didn't even process what he said.
"It-think you misunderstood the si-situation, sir."
“I misunderstood nothing,” he said flatly. He tilted his head slightly. “Is that why you dyed your hair? You thought looking more presentable might help your case?”
I almost laughed at the audacity of that.
“No sir,” I said. “I dyed it because you threatened my employment.”
I don’t know where that came from. It just came out.
Something shifted in his expression. Not anger... amusement. The dark quiet kind that didn’t reach his eyes properly.
"Mmm... Feisty." He hummed the word. It wasn't a compliment, it was the sound a cat makes before it toyed with a mouse. He pushed off the desk, his eyes raking over me like he was peeling me off layer by layer. "How old are you, Aurora?"
Every time he said my name something happened at the base of my spine that I had no intention of examining. The way it rolled off his tongue ....unhurried, deliberate, like he owned the syllables...was doing something entirely unfair to my nervous system.
“Twenty seven sir,” I said.
“Twenty seven,” he repeated. “But mentally three.”
I blinked.
“I’m sorry?”
The insult hit like a physical slap. My nostrils flared, my jaw tightening as I glared at him. I wanted to scream, to tell him he was a narcissistic prick, but the stakes were too high.
I couldn't lose this job. Not now.
“You heard me,” he said. "You want a millionaire boyfriend to make your ex jealous."
He looked at me slowly.
"That's humiliating."
“Thank you for the compliment sir,”
I retorted, my voice dripping with as much sarcasm as I dared.
I saw his jaw tick. A tiny flash of genuine anger sparked in his blue eyes, and for a second, the air in the room felt electric.
"It's not a compliment. You're a toddler," he said calmly, like it's the truth. "If you weren't, you wouldn't be so desperate to invent a millionaire to make some gutter-trash ex jealous. What level of pathetic desperation is that, Aurora? Do you lack that much self-worth?"
The words hit harder than I expected.
I looked down for a moment, forcing myself not to react.
He looked at me for a long moment with those cold blue eyes. Then he stood up from behind his desk and walked toward me.
Slowly. Deliberately. Taking his time the way he always did, like the distance between us was something he was choosing to close at exactly the pace he decided and not a moment faster.
I held my ground.
I told myself I was holding my ground.
"Tell me something, Aurora."
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
"Does male attention turn you on?"
The air left my lungs.
"I think I should go, sir," | said, my voice trembling as I backed toward the door. "It's p-ast my working hours."
He didn't let me go. He moved with a sudden, terrifying speed, crossing the distance between us until he was a wall of heat and expensive cologne.
"You're not leaving yet," he murmured.
I backed up until the wood of the door hit my spine. I was trapped. Alexander loomed over me, his shadow swallowing me whole.
My stomach tightened.
I hated how aware I suddenly was of him standing this close.
This was my boss.
My very married boss.
He raised one hand and placed it against the door beside my head. Not touching me. Just there. His arm forming a wall beside my face, his body close enough that I could smell him. Something dark and expensive that was not helping my situation at all.
His eyes dropped to my lips.
Then came back up.
“If I agreed to be your fake boyfriend,” he said, his voice dropping lower, “what do I get in return?”
He leaned in slightly. His head dipping toward my neck. I felt him inhale, slow, deliberate, like he was cataloguing something and every rational thought I had evaporated completely.
He’s married.
He is wearing a wedding ring and there is a wife somewhere in this city or this world and I have absolutely no business standing here with my back against his study door while my pulse does whatever it is currently doing.
Wait! Is he actually considering it?
"You don't have to," I choked out, trying to find my spine. "I won't be g—oing."
He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye, shaking his head slowly. "I may not know you, but I see you, Aurora. You're the type who always needs to prove something. You're a masochist. You'll go."
He was reading my soul like it was written in bold print. It was terrifying.
"Now answer me. What do I get in return?"
I swallowed hard, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"I would be... ind—ebted to you, sir."
Alexander pushed off the door, stepping back just an inch, his eyes glinting with a dark, satisfied light.
"Indebted," he repeated, the word sounding like a sentence. "Meaning you would owe me. I like people owing me, Aurora. Because I always, always come to collect."
Something in his tone made my stomach flip.
I opened my mouth to respond—
But his phone rang.
Alexander cursed under his breath and stepped away to grab it from his desk.
I took a quiet breath, trying to steady myself.
From this angle I could see his back clearly.
Broad shoulders. Lean waist. The muscles in his back shifted beneath his shirt as he picked up the phone.
Ridiculously attractive.
He glanced at the screen before answering, his expression turning cold almost instantly.
"Yes."
A pause.
"I made myself clear. You won't be seeing him."
He listened for a moment, his jaw tightening.
"No."
Another pause.
"You're dead, remember?"
His voice was calm, almost bored.
"Let's keep it that way."
He ended the call before the person could respond and tossed the phone back onto the desk.
For a moment he stood there, staring at nothing.
Then he dragged a hand through his hair and turned back to me, his expression harder than before.
"Looks like I won't be attending your party after all," he said calmly.
His gaze held mine.
"I have a ghost to deal with."