~ISSA
My mind was heavily on how Yulia was doing as I entered the premises of Calion Holdings.
There was so much work to be done, new updates to be installed on the company archives and new codes to write in order to strengthen the online security of the company assets. Hackers were already devising newer and slicker codes ways of getting access to hidden information and I needed to be ten steps ahead.
I was deep into working when my office door opened abruptly. The interim chief executive officer of Calion Holdings stood with her legs apart and her arms crossed. She was in a maroon power suit with a knee length skirt and matching stiletto heels.
Iris Craven.
As I glanced at her, I instantly realized that she came with a problem.
“I am guessing your presence here has nothing to do with work,” I said and closed my laptop.
Unlike Andrea and Leia, Iris was not someone to be dismissed. She was a very important part of Calion Holdings and the one closest to Deucalion. She was the first-born daughter of the Alpha of Craven Grove.
She walked to my drinking cabinet like she owned the place, chose the most expensive bottle of Bourbon and poured herself some. She took a long gulp and closed her eyes to savor the taste before she walked to the arranged sofa at the far end of the office and sat down with her legs crossed.
Like her sisters, she was also not mated yet and I had a feeling she did not want to be. She knew that being Mated to another meant an everlasting bond and a shared destiny. Iris was not the kind of werewolf that loved to share anything with anyone, unless she got something in return.
“What are you and my father up to?” She asked, swirling the remainder of her drink in an absent-minded fashion.
“In regards to what?” I corked my brows at her.
“He is no longer telling me things, Issa.” Iris looked at me, as if she was searching for some answers and they were in my eyes.
I narrowed my eyes at her for a while as if to assess how long she was willing to pester me to get what she wanted.
“A man has a right to his privacy,” I shrugged. “Look, Iris,” I continued. “I have a lot of work to do, so if this is not about work, I do not know what else to tell you.”
“You have changed,” she said as if she finally got her answer.
I tried not to give too much away and remain unreadable. “In a good way, I hope?”
“In a way that my sister and I no longer catch your eyes anymore,” She replied with a small smile.
I closed my PC gently as I realized where she was going with this.
“You broke things off,” I reminded her as I leaned back on my work chair. “You said Callion Holdings was an important priority and I was no longer an option.” I added for emphasis.
I remembered that day when she had invited me over to her expensively converted loft one night.
The sex had been…intense. Then she dropped the bomb. Honestly, I had been relieved when she told me because I did not like mixing business with pleasure.
“Men refuse to let go when I call off the relationships I have with them. Yesterday, one of my exes bought an island in my name just so we could get back together, but I ignored him,” She chuckled as she recalled.
Then she stopped to glare at me quietly for a while as if her eyes would make me want her again.
“But you, Issa, you just moved on without a backward glance,” She finally added.
“I was no longer an option,” I replied as I observed her keenly. What was she driving at?
“And you did not even try to be one,” She replied. “Why is that?”
“You seemed to have made up your mind, besides, it would have been pointless to try and convince you to stay with me,” I told her.
“And what makes you so sure?”
“You are disgusted by men that beg,” I said.
She chuckled and shook her head in what I could deduct as amazement.
“You know me so well, and yet, it was not until I broke things off that I realized that I did not know you at all,” she said and took a small sip of her drink.
“That is not your fault, you were not interested in who I was,” I said.
“Please, Issa do not try to patronize me, you knew how to take the attention off yourself, it was one thing I always loved about you, it was how you always put my needs first and I had gotten so used to it, I forgot to…see you,” She said, giving me that same curious stare.
It was like she was seeing me for the first time.
“Why are you saying all these things now?” I asked her.
“Because for the first time in that conference room with Mike, I saw you,” She said. “I saw the way you reduced a powerful man to a whimpering idiot in a matter of seconds, it aroused me, and I realized that I made a mistake letting you go,” She finished her drink and set it down quietly on the table.
“You did not make a mistake, Iris, you chose a better option,” I told her as I realized that she did not know that I was Mated to Yulia. I guessed Andrea had not told her yet. I wondered if I should break the news to her. “You chose to take over your father’s legacy and make it even better.”
She smiled at me for a while before rising from her seat without a word. She headed for the door and stopped to look at me.
“I will not make that mistake again, Issa, I want to know you better, think about it.”
And she left me alone in the silence of the office.
I shook my head and smiled. There was nothing to think about, my heart was already taken and my destiny was already tied.
It was too late.