Page 20 of Rejected by My Stepbrother Alpha (Billionaire Shifter Club #1)

U nfinished Business

Asher

The view from my office window held no interest to me anymore. Not when the only thing I could see was Ivy's face.

I sighed and turned away from the bustling city below me.

It had been two days since the wolf attacked Ivy, and I was worried sick about her.

I had no idea how she was mentally or physically after being attacked by the wolf.

I tried to get in contact with her at the hotel she was staying at or through her company, but each time I’d get connected to Damian Blackwood who would say that Ivy was fine and she didn't want to see me.

When I asked Healer Emery, he told me that Ivy was all right, but he couldn't say anything else because of patient confidentiality.

But I didn't want to hear that Ivy was okay from someone else.

I wanted to hear it from her. I wanted to see her with my own eyes or at least hear her voice through the phone.

And why the hell was Damian speaking for her?

Why did he seem so protective over her? My hands clenched into tight fists as I paced my office.

He was technically her boss. They had to be business colleagues, nothing more .

Or at least that was what I was telling myself so that I didn't go crazy.

After Damian had carried Ivy away from me that night, I'd called my guards stationed around the border and asked if there had been a breach in security.

They said there hadn't been, so that meant that the wolf who had attacked Ivy either got past all of my guards and cameras, or the asshole had been given clearance to enter my territory.

I wasn't fond of either of those possibilities.

Either way, I've doubled my security and have stationed warriors all throughout the woods.

My wolf was going just as crazy as me inside my head.

The last two nights I've spent running in my wolf form through the woods past the hotel Ivy was staying in.

I was afraid that the wolf would come back and try to finish Ivy off.

Along with my guards, I'd been searching for the wolf, but we hadn't found anything yet.

As I ran, images of Ivy from the past and present haunted me.

I thought of her white dress from her mating ceremony and the one from my father’s gala.

The way she looked was one of the only details I could still remember from the night.

I also remembered her smile when she rejected me and the look of betrayal when I had rejected her.

All of these images blurred together in my mind until it was impossible to think straight.

If I looked on the slightly bright side of things, we had somewhat cleared the air between us. I was glad that she had been given the opportunity to say what she needed to. Her words from that night were branded in my head.

I'm happy that you rejected me. You rejecting me made me into the strong, confident woman I am today. Sorry to break it to you, but I haven’t spent the last seven years crying and pining over you. I actually went out and made something of myself.

I was proud of the confident businesswoman that Ivy had turned out to be. I was impressed as hell that she was the vice president of Blackwood Inc. and that she obviously demanded respect in every room she walked into. Her newfound confidence was one of the things I found most attractive about her.

After I’d bandaged her wound, we had been connecting before Damian had interrupted us, hadn't we? I apologized for rejecting her, and my sentiment truly seemed to mean something to her. And we had almost kissed. Our lips had been centimeters apart before Ivy had pulled away. I’d been close enough to feel the heat coming off her body and to inhale that honeysuckle scent.

Ivy’s eyes had roamed over my naked body like she had the same fantasies about me like I did about her. Just from her body language that night, I could tell that she felt the insistent pull between us, too. It was going to be nearly impossible to stay away from each other.

My feelings for Ivy were still complicated.

Dealing with them was like trying to pick a beautiful rose off of a vine full of thorns.

There was this overwhelming desire to protect and have Ivy all to myself.

This intense need was mixed with regret for hurting her and our unresolved issues from the past. I still didn't know if Ivy had been working with her mom to steal all of my father's assets, but seeing her being attacked and injured changed something in me.

But I was still at a loss about how I felt about her.

I wanted to talk to her more about everything. I wanted to hear her side of the story—something I should have done before I rejected her.

Something that I couldn't stop thinking about was that it seemed like I'd been led by a powerful force to her the night of her attack. That night when we’d been talking, I’d glanced down at the scar on my left palm—the same one that Ivy had on her hand.

At the time, my stomach twisted in surprise.

Over the years, the scar had grown faint until I could barely see it anymore.

But now that Ivy and I were together again, my scar was coming in, growing more red and bold.

And I'd gotten a glimpse of Ivy's scar. Hers was growing more prominent, too.

Did that mean that our Fated Mates bond was trying to repair itself?

I couldn't know for sure. There weren't many past examples to go by since the rejection of a Fated Mate was rare.

But our mating bond being intact could explain why I still felt an intense desire for her.

Why it felt like half of my soul was missing.

Maybe these past seven years our bond had been holding on by a thread, waiting for us to find our way back to each other.

But maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

Ivy and I still had unfinished business, and talking about everything would be good for both of us.

Why wouldn't she talk to me? Why was she allowing Damian to speak for her?

I just wanted—needed—to hear her voice to know that she was all right.

I couldn't get the image of her bleeding wound out of my head.

I'd barely slept since that night because I couldn’t shut my mind off.

A knock on my door interrupted my restless thoughts.

“Can I come in?” Cooper asked, standing in the open doorway outside my office.

“Of course.” I waved him in, buttoned my navy suit, and sat behind my tempered glass desk.

My vice president walked in, sank down in one of the black chairs in front of my desk, and brushed a piece of his wavy dark hair away from his eyes.

“I need to talk to you about the project for the Alpha king,” he said, getting straight to the point.

My head tilted slightly to the side. Not even an hour ago, Cooper and I attended a meeting with our project team and three of our engineers to expand upon the tech we wanted to develop for the Alpha King. I thought the meeting had gone well, and I was curious what he wanted to discuss.

Cooper leaned back slightly in his chair.

“I wanted to talk about scheduling another meeting with Blackwood Inc. We need them on this project.” Cooper hadn’t been in our pack when I rejected Ivy.

He had no idea of our history. “I was talking to Brian and Gina and they said that if our prototype is picked by the Alpha king we might not have enough resources or space in our warehouses to develop our product.” Brian and Gina were our top engineers.

“I was looking at old projects that your father worked on with Mason Blackwood, and our companies have worked well together in the past.”

Cooper paused and looked up to the right, something he always did when he was thinking.

“I have a good feeling about working with them,” he continued. “The Alpha king wanted us to, and I think it will help land us the biggest account our company has ever seen.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said as a new sense of purpose fueled me.

“I’m pretty sure they're working out of the hotel they're staying at. I’ll go and speak with Ivinia and Damian right now and see if they will reconsider.” I had to actively remember to call Ivy by the name she had chosen to go by.

I stood from my desk and strode over to my cabinet, grabbing my black briefcase.

“We have that progress meeting with Anya tomorrow and if we pull a late night, we could plan a way to merge our two ideas together. I’ll go there and try to persuade them. ”

My stomach swooped at the anticipation of seeing Ivy so soon. Not only did I want to work with Ivy’s company because it would help us get the Alpha king account, but it would mean we could spend more time together and give us a chance to untangle our complicated feelings for each other.

“Great.” He seemed stunned for a moment that I’d agreed so fast, but recovered quickly. “I'll go with you.”

I paused. I tried to keep my work and personal life separate. This was ironic since I was about to go convince Ivy to team up on a work project with me. But I didn't want to drag Cooper into our complicated history.

“You should stay here and continue to work with the team to perfect our project proposal for tomorrow. Just in case I can't convince Damian and Ivy to work with us,” I said.

He got to his feet. “Wait, who’s Ivy? Do you mean Ivinia?”

Damn it.

“Yes, my bad,” I said as we walked out of my office.

“Good luck. Don’t call her by the wrong name in the meeting,” he joked and put a friendly hand on my shoulder. “That won’t help our case in convincing them to work with us.”

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It gave me the motivation to do what I needed to do.”

Cooper nodded and wished me good luck again.

When I pressed the button to call the elevator, my heart lifted at the thought of seeing Ivy soon.

My wolf purred in approval as I stepped onto the elevator.

The unrelenting tugging in my chest was how I knew that Ivy was at the hotel. Somehow, our connection hadn’t been broken despite everything.

I walked quickly down the busy sidewalk, nodding hello to a few familiar faces that I passed by, but I didn’t want to stop to talk like I usually would. There was a wild need pulsing through my body to get to Ivy. I had to see her. I needed to make sure that she was all right for myself.

But as I turned the corner, the first person I spotted wasn’t Ivy.

It was Damian.

He was crossing the street, holding the hand of a boy I’d never seen before. They were both grasping ice cream cones and laughing. Did Damian have a son? I didn’t know anything about his personal life. I’d never met him before the meeting a few days ago.

My heart lurched as a burst of red caught my attention. Ivy had stepped out of the hotel doors to greet Damian and the boy. Her auburn hair was dancing in the wind, and she looked stunning in a crisp white blouse and black pants.

Instinct told me not to approach her just yet. I had the perfect vantage point to watch her, but she couldn’t see me since I was half obscured by a large shrub.

I watched as Ivy greeted Damian and the boy with a smile. She hugged the boy close as Damian handed her a white styrofoam cup that had been tucked underneath his arm. Ivy’s face broke into a smile, and she said something to Damian that made him laugh.

I staggered a few steps back in shock. My back hit another shrub, but I barely registered it. It felt like I was falling down a deep, dark hole.

Were Ivy and Damian…together? Did they have a child? I couldn’t see the boy very well, but he looked to be around five or six. Had Ivy moved to the ColdCrest Pack, fallen in love with Damian, and then married him and had a kid?

My mind automatically rejected the idea. No, it wasn’t possible. Ivy would have told me.

No, she wouldn’t have. Why the hell would she have told me? She didn’t owe me a thing .

But she had leaned in to kiss me the night she got injured…hadn’t she?

Or had that been wishful thinking on my part?

My vision swam as my anger rose. The strong urge to rip out Damian’s throat came over me, and I even took a step in their direction.

Stop.

I couldn’t do that to Ivy. I couldn’t hurt someone she might love. I couldn’t harm a father in front of his child.

My anger turned to agony as I watched the three of them walk into the hotel, all smiles and laughter.

It felt like I’d just watched my entire future crumble before my eyes. But how could I blame Ivy for moving on after I rejected her the way I did? She had told me she hadn’t spent the last seven years crying over me. Maybe this was what she meant.

My heart shattered into a million tiny pieces, and I was surprised that I could still stand up straight. Could someone live without a heart and soul? Because Ivy had just taken mine when she had walked through those doors.

I rubbed my chest, trying to breathe with seemingly no heartbeat. Had Ivy felt like this when I rejected her?

If so, I deserved to feel this pain.