Page 15 of Her Possessive Dominant Fake Husband

The silence that followed was thick, almost suffocating. My pulse thrummed in my ears, loud and insistent. He didn’t move, didn’t say a word, and I braced myself for the dismissal, for the icy rebuttal I knew was coming. But it never did.

“Hold on,” Alexander said abruptly, and I startled at the sudden shift in his focus. He turned away, back to his call, as if I’d vanished, but the look in his eyes said otherwise. “I’ll tell you when to send them.”

He ended the call so abruptly I jolted. I watched him, frozen in the middle of a breath, as he stood and closed the space between us. Each step was deliberate, controlled, and the scrutiny in his gaze made the air grow heavy. He stopped just short of touching distance, just close enough to make my skin tingle with awareness.

“That might work,” he said slowly, as if he were speaking to himself as much as to me. The admission was foreign on his tongue, but I could feel it sinking into the room, altering its shape. The weight of his approval was disarming, dangerous. I should have been relieved, should have been glad to help. But all I felt was the wild flutter of uncertainty.

I managed a nod, finding my voice just as it threatened to slip away. “I hope it does.” I wanted to sound confident, sure of myself. Instead, the words wavered like a paper in the wind, nearly tearing apart in the tension that filled the space between us.

Alexander studied me for a long moment, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that made my stomach tighten. He looked at me not as the complication I’d been since the beginning of this charade, but as something else entirely. Something I hadn’t expected and wasn’t sure I wanted to be.

A faint smile flickered at the edge of his lips, a crack in the coldness that both startled and unsettled me. “Let’s hope you’re right, Claire,” he said, and there was a note in his voice I’d never heard before—a strange mix of challenge and acknowledgment that wrapped around me like a rope, tugging me closer than I meant to be.

I should have been happy that he listened, that he saw me as someone who could contribute. Instead, something between us hummed with a new tension, vibrating just under thesurface, and a fluttering in the places I tried to ignore had me uncomfortable and jittery. I had crossed a line into his world, and it had shifted to make room for me. The realization made my heart race, fast and reckless, drowning out all reason. Maybe there was a place for me here after all.

As he returned to his desk, I fought the impulse to step back, to retreat before I lost more of myself in the enormity of his presence. But my feet refused to move. He had pulled me in without even trying, and I knew that this—the way my pulse quickened when he spoke, the way I wanted to linger despite the danger—was far more threatening than any boardroom full of angry executives.

I watched him as his gaze flickered across the screen in front of him, the motion as precise and efficient as the rest of him. “Have you considered where you’d like to go look at baby items?” he asked, his voice casual, but his eyes were anything but. They pinned me in place, daring me to retreat, to advance, to stay in a battle I didn’t know how to fight.

“I’d have to look things up,” I heard myself say, my voice smaller than the boldness of my suggestion. I shouldn’t let this happen, shouldn’t let him drag me into this mess. But there was a reckless part of me, one that I barely recognized, that liked the way he listened, the way he watched.

Alexander nodded, and it was all the encouragement I needed, and far more than I should have wanted. “Of course. It may also help our case if I reach out to my network and ask for recommendations.”

I nodded, the certainty in the gesture at odds with the turmoil inside me. “That’s smart, more organic.”

“Good.” His approval slipped under my skin, leaving a trail of heat and confusion. “Let me know when you’re ready to do this.”

My head spun with the newness of it all—the shift in his attention, the weight of being part of his strategy. It thrilled and terrified me in equal measure. But mostly, it made me wonder how long I could walk this line before losing my footing.

I turned to leave, needing space to think, to breathe. But as I reached the door, his voice caught me again, firm and impossible to ignore.

“Claire?”

I hesitated, the sound of my name tickling up my neck like a physical touch. “Yes?”

“Thanks.” The word was so simple, so out of place on his lips, that it made me stop. Had he ever said thank you to me before? Heck, had he ever thanked anyone before? I couldn’t hold back a smile.

“You’re welcome,” I said softly, knowing it meant more than either of us was ready to admit. And with that, I slipped out of his office, carrying the weight of new possibilities with me and the thought that the whole world was going to think we were starting a family. Who knew this arrangement could sting so much?

The café buzzed with warm laughter, and I let myself settle into the comforting background noise. This place was a welcome escape from the tension that seemed to echo through the rest of my life.

A barista called my name, her voice syrupy and sweet, but before I could claim the foaming comfort of my vanilla lavenderlatte, Jen’s voice made my spine stiffen. My grip on the paper cup almost squeezed tight enough to pop the lid and spill boiling hot liquid all over my hand. “Claire, there you are.” It wasn’t relief in her tone; it was demand, and it wrapped around my throat like a leash. “Just who I wanted to see.”

She wove through the tables, every step tearing down more of my relaxation. The dread in my stomach wound up tighter with each confident click of her heels. I wasn’t ready for this. For her. I’d come here for a moment of peace, but Jen’s presence tore through it like a storm.

“Is Alexander around?” she asked, eyes sweeping the café like he’d materialize at her beck and call.

“No, it’s just me,” I said, wishing the words felt more like freedom and less like a confession.

Jen’s gaze sharpened, zeroing in on me like a hawk. “Good. We need to talk.”

The familiar weight of her demands settled over me. More connections, more favors, more money, more, more, more. My defenses crumbled at the edges. But before I could fold, before the sweet cup of latte cooled against my palm, the door swung open and brought a draft of fresh air—and Alexander’s commanding presence—into the room.

I felt him before I saw him. Felt the shift in atmosphere as heads turned and whispers flickered through the crowd. Alexander strode toward us with a certainty that set my heart pounding. I hadn’t expected him. I hadn’t prepared for this. But suddenly, he was there, casting a long shadow over Jen’s relentless need.

Jen’s confidence wavered. I saw it in the way her lips parted, her surprise a momentary crack in her entitled brat attitude. “I thought—” she said, then snapped her mouth shut.

“Claire.” Alexander’s voice was calm, a gentle rumble that belied the intensity of his gaze. It warmed my name in a way I hadn’t realized I’d longed for. He turned to Jen, the air around him cooling by several degrees. “Is there a problem?”

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