Claimed Twice

Chapter four

Chapter Four: The Floor Comes Up to Meet Me

Something happened inside my chest. It felt like the key turning in the lock again, except this time it hurt, like the lock had rusted shut for five years and someone was forcing it open too fast.

The room started to spin. Voices got far away, like I was hearing them underwater.

"Nora?" Priya's voice, worried.

"Is she okay?" Someone else.

I tried to say I was fine. I tried to hold the folder. My hands would not work right. My legs would not work right either.

The last thing I remember clearly is the floor rushing up toward me, and then two strong arms catching me before I hit it.

His arms.

I remember his voice close to my ear, low and scared. "I've got you. I've got you, I'm here."

Five years, and the first thing he said to me again was the same thing he should have said the first time, and did not.

I woke up on a couch in a side office. Priya was kneeling next to me, holding my hand tight. My boss was on the phone with someone, probably a doctor. And Alpha Alexander was standing by the window, arms crossed, staring at me like he had seen a car crash and could not look away.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice small.

"You fainted," Priya said. "Scared the life out of all of us."

I looked past her, at him. He was watching me with an expression I could not read. Guilt, maybe. Or fear. Or something older than both of those things.

"Can everyone give us a minute?" he said quietly.

"Absolutely not," Priya snapped, still holding my hand.

"It's okay," I said, even though nothing about this felt okay. "Give us a minute."

Priya looked at me hard, like she was trying to read my mind. Then she stood up, gave Alpha Alexander a look that could cut glass, and walked out with my boss.

The door clicked shut. It was just me and him, five years and one broken heart between us.

He sat down slowly across from me, like he was afraid I might break just from him moving too fast.

"You work here," he said. Not a question. Just him saying it out loud to believe it.

"I didn't know Voss Group was you," I said. "I would have called in sick."

His jaw tightened. "That's fair."

We sat in silence for a moment. My heart was still beating too fast, and it was not just from fainting.

"I need to tell you something," he said finally. "Something I should have told you five years ago."

I felt my whole body go still.

"What?" I asked.

He opened his mouth to answer.

And that is when the door burst open, and a woman I had never seen before walked in like she owned the room, her eyes sharp and cold as she looked between us.

"Alexander," she said. "We have a problem. The merger just got a lot more complicated."

His eyes never left mine.

"So did everything else," he said quietly.