Chapter 15 - Work Wife

-Alice Forest

I melted into my office chair, exhausted from the early morning and then four solid hours of teaching juniors. Which is when she seamlessly slid into the doorway of my office, staring at me with her hands planted firmly on her hips. My work wife.

“I heard a rumour,” she stated, and I rolled my eyes.

“Anna, you throw gasoline on gossip,” I smirked and I rifled through the top draw of my desk for a protein bar.

“I heard a rumour that a tall, dark haired man dropped you at work this morning and gave you a very intimate kiss, and stared at you with such love and conviction in made some of my students uncomfortable.”

“Ah,” I said, pulling the bar out of my desk and leaning back in my chair.

“You told me you weren’t dating anyone, and now you apparently have some rich muscle god dropping you at work,” she said her hands flying around dramatically as if I’d murdered someone.

“It’s my ex,” I stated, and I started to eat, her reaction was amusing.

“Your ex?” She nearly screamed, making a few of our co-workers look up, from the surrounding offices and library. “Your ex?” she repeated, as more of a loud whisper, and she closed my office door marching toward me.

“The person who dragged you to the other side of the continent and then betrayed your trust to such a level that I’ve never seen you so much as bat an eyelid at another man? That ex?” she panted.

I nodded, tossing the wrapper in the bin as I devoured the last of the bar, “that ex.”

“Why?” she hissed, “you barely talk about him, apart from one night where we had a little bit too much to drink and you described him as the perfect example of toxic masculinity.”

“I’m giving him a second chance,” I sighed, I apricated her concern.

“Okay, well I want to vet him,” she said, “I can’t have you running away from him and leaving me here alone, I’d go crazy without you.”

“You want to vet him?”

“Yes,” she said, and I could tell she wasn’t going to drop this issue easily. “What’s his name? I want to stalk him on social media.”

“He dosen’t have social media,” I chuckled, “he’s too busy for that sorta stuff.”

“He dosen’t have – Facebook?”

“Nope.”

“Instagram?”

“No,” I sighed, and I flicked through the mountain of paperwork that had somehow appeared on my desk over the weekend.

“Twitter? Tumblr? Tiktok? Nothing?”

“Nope, as I said, no social media.”

“Like a dam psychopath, okay, I still want to know his name,” she huffed.

“Nate.”

“Full name honey, where dose he live? What is his job? I want to know everything.”

I looked up at her, she wasn’t going to let it go, she’d dug her foot in and I knew that she’d stand there in front of my desk, all day, until I told her something. “Nathaniel Black,” I stated blankly and I smirked, as I looked at her face.

I saw her thoughts ticking, the name sounded familiar and she racked her thoughts to try and remember where, but she couldn’t quite place her finger on in.

“He’s the CEO of Black Industries,” I said, and the light globe turned on above her head.

“What? No, what?” she said, her blissful smile still plastered on her face.

“We met in Portland, about two years ago – of course I didn’t realise who he was and I took him home for the night,” nothing I said was exactly a lie, but I’d planned on keeping the whole shapeshifting supernatural werewolf thing to myself. Humans didn’t exactly have the best track record processing that type of information.

She blinked a couple times, what I’d said clearly still hadn’t sunk in, so I looked back at the pile of paper work and pulled the first folder off the top. “Let me know when you catch up, I’ll just be over here filling out a proposal.

A good five minutes passed, and she’d started mumbling, before pulling her phone out and typing frantically, her nails clacking quicky against the screen as she typed. Her eyes scanning the screen and she looked up at me, “Nathaniel Black? The multi-billionaire from decades of family money?” she said. “What did he do that made you break off potentially being an heiress?” she said.

I looked back down at my desk, “It’s a long story,” I sighed and she let out a groan of displeasure, “why are you giving him a second chance then? If what he did was so despicable?” she hissed.

I shrugged, I wasn’t even sure her myself, “I guess when you find your person, you give them a second chance,” I sighed, twisting my hair in my hands and avoiding her intimidating gaze.

“Your person?” she scoffed.

* * * * * * * * * *

Anna jogged up towards me, and latched onto my arm. I’d been in some meetings with some consultants all afternoon and was exhausted. Her face beamed and I groaned as she giggled childishly, “hello sweet, sweet friend,” she cooed.

“What do you want?” I sighed as I headed towards the elevator.

“I don’t want anything,” she smirked.

“You want something.”

“You have a guest waiting in your office,” she hummed, rocking back and forwards on her heels.

“No,” I denied shaking me head and looking at my watch, it was only four in the afternoon, I was meant to work for another two more hours before I could wrap things up for the day. I didn’t have time to entertain him.

The elevator doors opened, and I immediately noticed that there were more people in the library than normal, specifically girls. My office was on the other side of the library, but it was a straight line between the elevator and where he stood in my office, back to me.

“You really weren’t lying then, where you,” Anna sighed, leaning her head on my shoulder, “he has a nice arse.”

He did have a nice arse, actually, everything about him was nice. But the black suit pants and white shirt made him look like the business man the world thought he was, the fabric perfectly tailored to his chiseled body and his arms flexed as he pulled a book off my bookcase and he flicked through the pages.

His scent lingered in the hallway and between the shelves of books, he’d clearly been waiting for a while, as his suit coat was folded carefully over the back of my chair and his phone and car keys planted on my desk. Knowing my luck he would have adjusted all the settings of my chair.

“I didn’t take you for an abstract art person,” I said, referring to the book he was flicking through. The book slammed closed, in his hand and he inhaled deeply closing his eyes and his muscles relaxing.

I could feel Anna grinning shamelessly at my side.

“You’re not wrong, the most abstract I can do is Van Gough,” he chuckled, and he slipped the book back into place on the bookcase, turning to look at me, his eyes gluing to me, an unfamiliar smirk plastered on his face.

“What are you doing here? You’re riling up all of the students.”

“My meetings finished early, who’s your friend?”

“I’m Anna,” Anna interjected, stepping forward and holding her hand out to shake Nate’s.

Reluctantly tearing his eyes from me, he turned and shook Anna’s hand, smiling, “It’s nice to meet you Anna.”

Long Author’s Note:

Hello assorted readers, hopefully people who have continued reading from book one: Alpha Black.

I’ve noticed recently a couple of reviews for the other book pointing out the grammar and spelling mistakes, one in particular phrasing it in the way that insinuates that I don’t go back and re-read my work. And they’re totally right!

I’m a full-time university student and am currently in my final year of my masters, along with doing casual work and internships during my breaks and weekends. So yeah, I write a lot of these chapters after 1am, and I’m not a huge fan of re-reading my work, but it is something I would like to do so I can fix any of the list of mistakes I’ve made. At the moment, Alpha Black sits just shy of 70,000 words while His White Luna is currently sitting at 20,000. Which I think is a pretty good job since I started Alpha Black on the 16th of March 2021.

Shout out to Mazlyn who's been existing in my comments section for some time now, and everyone else who comments and likes my book. I really love waking up and seeing all the comment you guys have left!