My Alpha Boss Gave Me Triplets – Episode 08
Evie knelt once more to collect the chips, refusing to let Leopold’s accusation chase her from the room. “These belong to you,” she said. “I was trying to get them back.”
Leopold reached down and pulled her to her feet. “Get off the ground. What are you doing?” He sounded more troubled by the sight of her kneeling than by the fortune scattered around them.
“You don’t have to be such a jerk.” Evie shook off his hand. “You can come down from your high horse now. I have work to do.”
She turned, but Leopold moved into her path. The pull between them had intensified since their night together, and every attempt to send her away ended with him finding another reason to keep her near. “Did I say I was done with you?”
“I am done with you.” The words gave Evie more strength than she felt. She was tired of being protected in one breath and insulted in the next, tired of allowing his rank to determine when she could leave.
Leopold’s expression hardened. “Was the full-time job I gave you not enough?” The question ignored the months Evie had worked before he noticed her, reducing her position to something bestowed after a single night. It also allowed him to avoid asking why she needed two jobs in the first place.
There it was again—the assumption that every interaction between them could be measured in money or favors. The job was not a luxury to Evie; it was the barrier between independence and a forced marriage. She had earned it through months of work even if Leopold believed it was merely his gift. Evie reached for her phone. “I’m sorry, Almighty Alpha, but I’m afraid you know nothing about me.”
“I know I gave you twenty thousand dollars.” Leopold regretted the words as soon as they left him. He had sent the money after seeing her injuries and realizing she still needed a second job. Yet when she challenged him, concern transformed into accusation.
Evie tapped the screen and turned it toward him. “And I just gave it back.” The completed transfer stared up at him, destroying the convenient story he had told himself about her.
For once, Leopold had no immediate answer. The returned transfer forced him to confront evidence he had repeatedly ignored. If Evie had slept with him for advancement, she would not have returned enough money to change her life. If she wanted his wealth, she would not be working two jobs with burned hands. The explanation he had used to protect his pride no longer survived contact with her choices.
“It’s obvious you don’t like me,” Evie said. The admission hurt, but she refused to hide from it. Each rescue had tempted her to believe there was more beneath Leopold’s hostility, only for his next accusation to prove otherwise. “That’s fine. You don’t have to.” If she accepted that truth now, perhaps she could stop hoping his rare concern meant something.
The distance between them suddenly felt larger than the crowded club. “We come from different worlds,” she continued. “You’re an Alpha, and I’m nobody. Just a human.” Around Leopold, status opened doors and made every command law. Around Evie, being human invited ridicule, stolen credit, and tests designed to prove she did not belong. She repeated the insult he had used against her, forcing him to hear what it sounded like in her voice.
Leopold’s jaw tightened. He wanted to deny that she was nobody, but doing so would require acknowledging the importance she had acquired in his life. Her words exposed the effect of every contemptuous reference to her humanity, and he could not pretend he had not created the distance she now demanded. He still did not understand the bond, and uncertainty was a weakness he had spent years concealing. Commanding her was easier than explaining why the thought of losing her attention unsettled him.
“We can forget what happened the other night,” Evie said. “You don’t have to concern yourself with me anymore.” It was the clean ending he had demanded the morning after they slept together. Now that she offered it, he found he could not accept it.
Leopold moved closer, and the noise of the club receded around them. He had tried to dismiss her as a greedy human, tried to keep his distance, and tried to treat the pain he shared with her as coincidence. He had met accomplished she-wolves without feeling a spark, yet this woman could unsettle him with a glance and wound him by asking to be forgotten. None of his efforts had loosened the invisible force pulling him back. If anything, resistance had made the need to understand her stronger.
“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “I am the Alpha.” Authority returned to his voice, but beneath it lay something far more personal than rank.
Evie lifted her chin, refusing to be intimidated. “Then act like one and leave me alone.”
Leopold’s gaze dropped briefly to her lips. “I don’t ever forget.” His hand settled beside her against the wall, trapping her without touching her. The statement was part warning and part admission: their night remained with him despite every effort to reduce it to a mistake. Evie’s pulse quickened, but she could not tell whether the reaction came from anger, attraction, or the mysterious bond neither had yet named. “Neither will you,” he said.