All Chapters of Taming the Alpha CEO: Mine to Ruin: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The next morning there was an entire wardrobe waiting in my room like someone had gone shopping with an unlimited credit card which I rejected of course because I had my own clothes and I didn’t need Rhys buying me things like I was some kind of kept woman. Kade showed up twenty minutes later looking way too amused for someone who’d helped me escape yesterday. “Rhys says you need the clothes.” “I have my own clothes.” “About that.” He pulled out his phone and showed me a photo that made my stomach drop because it was my apartment or what was left of it and everything was destroyed, furniture overturned, clothes ripped, everything I owned scattered and broken. “We think they were looking for you.” I stared at the photo because that was my entire life in that apartment and now it was just gone and I didn’t even have my mother’s jewelry anymore because Patricia had sold it which meant I literally had nothing left from before all this started. “So I guess I don’t have a choice th

Kade set up his laptop in one of the empty conference rooms on the executive floor where we had a clear view of the server access logs.Seven AM. Nothing.Eight AM. Nothing.Nine AM. I saw Rhys walk past the conference room windows and he glanced in and our eyes met for half a second before he kept walking and something in my chest twisted because we’d barely spoken since the fight in his office.“He always asks about you,” Kade said without looking up from his laptop.“What?”“He’s worried about you even if he’s too stubborn to say it to your face.”I didn’t know what to say to that so I just looked back at the laptop screen.Ten AM. Still nothing.Eleven AM. Kade ordered food from somewhere and we ate lunch in the conference room because neither of us wanted to risk missing the moment Vera made her move.Twelve fifteen. My phone buzzed and it was a text from Lena asking where I was and I typed back a quick response because I didn’t want her to worry.One PM. The conference room acro

Jake was in a rental tux looking like he’d stepped out of the set of some rom-com and I felt Rhys go completely still beside me which was never a good sign.“What is he doing here?” I could feel the vibration of his voice through my back because somehow in the last thirty seconds he’d moved close enough that I could feel his body heat through the stupid expensive dress.“I have no idea,” I said and I really didn’t because Jake showing up at a five-thousand-dollar-a-plate charity gala made absolutely zero sense.He started walking toward us and people were already turning to watch.“Ast, I need to talk to you.” Jake stopped a few feet away and he had the audacity to smile at me like we were old friends catching up.Rhys moved before I could and suddenly he was between us and I could see his shoulders blocking my entire view of Jake. “You need to leave. Now.”I grabbed Rhys’s arm. “We’re in public. You can’t make a scene.”He didn’t look at me but I felt him processing it and hating eve

I woke up slowly, awareness creeping in piece by piece until I realized I was warm and comfortable and the bed beneath me was way too soft to be the guest room mattress.My eyes opened.I was still wearing the dress from the gala except now there was a duvet pulled over me. My shoes were lined up neatly on the floor beside the bed and I noticed immediately that he hadn’t taken anything else off, hadn’t undressed me while I was unconscious, and something about that made my chest ache.I turned my head and he was there.Sitting in the armchair by the window with a glass of bourbon in his hand, still wearing the tux pants and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was staring out at the city but I could that he knew I was awake.“What time is it?” My voice came out rough from sleep.“Almost two. You fell asleep in the car.”I sat up slowly and the dress was completely wrinkled and my hair had come loose from whatever thing Monica had done to it. “I remember.” I pushed

The coffee station was set up on the sidebar and I walked over there trying to keep my hands shaking from anger more than anything else. I hated that they were shaking because it meant he was getting to me and I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let him get to me anymore. I’m going to pour this coffee directly on his head and then I’m going to quit and move to a different city and change my name. I walked back to the table and leaned in to set the cup in front of him, keeping my face carefully blank, and that’s when I felt it. His hand. Under the table where no one could see, his fingers brushed along my inner thigh and I froze mid-motion, the coffee pot still in my hand, because what the actual hell was he doing. His face remained completely neutral, still nodding along to whatever bullshit Dante was saying about fourth quarter earnings, like his hand wasn’t currently sliding higher up my leg, teasing the edge of my skirt. I couldn’t breathe. His fingers found the edge of my skirt