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CHAPTER 16
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2026-08-01 16:02:17
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THE ALPHA’S REGRET CHAPTER 34
Victoria found him in the east corridor just as a meeting with the family’s financial administrator was ending. She had timed it without appearing to time it, which was a skill she had developed over six years of moving through this house and understanding its rhythms.Tony saw her and his expression made the small adjustment it always made when she appeared somewhere he had not expected her. Not unwelcoming. Just recalibrating.“Do you have a few minutes?” she said.He glanced back toward the meeting room briefly. “A few.”They moved to the smaller sitting room at the end of the corridor. Victoria had always preferred it to the more formal rooms in the house. It felt less arranged. Less like a performance of what the Blackwells wanted visitors to see. Tony settled into the chair across from her without the restlessness he usually carried when a conversation was about to cost him something, which she took as a reasonable sign.“You’ve been elsewhere all morning,” she said.“I’ve had t
THE ALPHA’S REGRET CHAPTER 33
Tony had not been told about the phone call.He understood this the way he understood most things Catherine kept from him, not through being told but through the quality of silence that surrounded a subject when she considered it closed. She had mentioned, briefly, that Leslie had experienced some difficulty during the errand the previous night. She had said it in the tone she used for things she had already categorized and filed and did not intend to reopen for discussion.He had not pushed.He had learned, over a significant number of years, that pushing Catherine directly was the least effective method of learning what she actually knew.He stood now at the window of his study and looked at the grounds below and thought about the timing of it.Leslie had been sent out alone. At night. To a store across town that closed at nine, with no driver and no car and no backup arrangement if something went wrong. He had not been consulted on this and he had not known about it until afterward
THE ALPHA’S REGRET CHAPTER 32
Leslie came through the doorway, saw Catherine, and stopped for just a fraction of a second before continuing toward the far counter where she had apparently intended to leave something she was carrying.Just a fraction.Brief enough that a person not paying attention would not have registered it.Catherine registered it.She watched Leslie set down the item she was carrying and turn back toward the door with the careful ease of someone who was trying very hard to move normally. She watched the line of Leslie’s shoulders and the way her hands fell at her sides and the speed with which she chose to walk rather than linger.“Leslie,” Catherine said.Leslie stopped. Turned. “Yes?”Catherine looked at her. “How are you feeling this morning?”A pause that was not long but was present. “Better, thank you.”“No lasting effects from last night?”“I’m tired,” Leslie said. “But I’m all right.”Catherine nodded slowly. “Good. If you need anything, tell Maria.” She held Leslie’s gaze for a moment
THE ALPHA’S REGRET CHAPTER 31
Catherine had not slept well.She did not consider this a weakness. She had not slept well on numerous occasions over the years when situations required thought rather than rest, and she had learned long ago that the hours between two and five in the morning were frequently more productive than the hours between nine and five in the afternoon, because they were quiet and uninterrupted and required her to rely entirely on her own reasoning rather than on the performance of reasoning that occupied so much of her waking day.She had spent them thinking about the phone call.By morning she had reached several conclusions and several more questions, and she carried both with her as she moved through the house in her usual manner, which was to say completely and without drawing attention to the fact that she was paying attention to anything in particular.The man on the phone had been controlled.That was what stayed with her most. Not the words, which were deliberately vague in the specifi
THE ALPHA’S REGRET CHAPTER 30
Victoria arrived the way she always arrived, with purpose and with people behind her.Two assistants from the design house she had been working with followed her through the front entrance carrying garment bags over both arms, and a third woman brought up the rear with a collection of flat boxes stacked carefully against her chest. Victoria had spent the morning pulling together pieces she thought Tony should see, things she had specifically chosen with him in mind, and she had decided that arriving with them was better than calling ahead because calling ahead gave people the option of saying not today.She walked in without that option being available to anyone.The house felt different the moment she was inside it.She noticed it before she could name it. The entrance hall looked exactly as it always did, everything in its correct place, nothing visibly changed, but the atmosphere was off. A member of the household staff passed through the corridor ahead of her and moved too quickly
THE ALPHA’S REGRET CHAPTER 29
Leslie sat on the edge of her bed with her hands in her lap and the lamp off and the room lit only by what came through the curtains from the grounds below.She was thinking about Catherine’s face.Not the Catherine who appeared at galas or board meetings or in the doorway of Leslie’s bedroom with cruelty arranged precisely for maximum effect. The Catherine who had stood in the kitchen doorway an hour ago and looked at her returning from a supposed kidnapping and said go upstairs, rest, as though Leslie were a variable in an equation that needed to be kept stable rather than a person who had just told her she had been taken off the street.No anger. No questions pushed past the point of usefulness. No performance of concern or coldness.Just calculation behind the eyes and a decision to wait.That was what bothered Leslie most. Catherine had decided to wait. And Catherine did not wait for things unless she was planning something larger than the immediate moment.She heard it before sh
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