I'm grabbing coffee in the Fenris building lobby—overpriced espresso that tastes vaguely of corporate desperation—when the air shifts. That particular tension that means trouble just walked through the door.
Lia Turner sweeps through the revolving doors in designer everything. Chanel suit, Louboutin heels, enough diamonds to fund a small country's GDP.
She makes a beeline straight for me.
I have exactly three seconds to brace before her voice cuts through the morning crowd, pitched to carry. "There you are. The runaway finally crawled back."
Every head in the lobby turns. At least thirty people, most of them Fenris employees who definitely don't need front-row seats to my family drama.
Lia's playing to an audience and she knows it.
"Eight years and you come slinking back to what—work for my fiancé?" She flashes the massive ruby engagement ring, makes sure everyone within a ten-foot radius gets a good look. "Kieran is MINE. Has been for eight years while you were off playing house with some random man's bastards."
The words are surgical. Designed to humiliate, to remind everyone listening that I'm the family shame who got knocked up and disappeared.
I keep my expression neutral, voice professional. "Lia. Didn't realize you frequented corporate offices."
"Oh, I don't usually." She moves closer, that predatory smile I know too well. "But when I heard you were here, working so closely with Kieran..."
She laughs, sharp and cruel. "Just wanted to remind you how this ends. You ran away like a coward once. You'll do it again. It's what you do."
I should walk away. Should grab my coffee and take the high road, be the bigger person.
But eight years of survival have sharpened my edges into weapons.
"Tell me, sister—what kind of man keeps you engaged for eight years without actually marrying you?"
The question lands. I watch her perfect mask crack for just a second before fury floods in.
"We're waiting for the right time." Her voice climbs, defensive. "His father insists on traditional pack customs, timing with the moon cycles—"
"Or maybe," I cut her off, voice still professional but edged with steel, "he doesn't actually want to marry you."
The lobby has gone completely silent. Everyone pretending to check their phones, get their coffee, do literally anything except openly stare at the Turner sisters having it out in public.
They're absolutely listening though.
"You know nothing about our relationship." Lia's scrambling now, justifications tumbling out faster than she can organize them. "Kieran wants everything perfect for me—the venue, the ceremony, building the business first so we can—"
She's grasping. "Pack politics are complicated. His father has requirements. We're doing this the RIGHT way, not rushing like some desperate—"
"Eight years isn't rushing, Lia." My words are quiet but they cut deep. "A man who actually wanted to marry you would have done it by now."
Her face goes red with rage, that ugly flush that starts at her chest and climbs to her hairline. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
Her voice shakes with barely controlled fury. "When you do run again—and you will—I'll still be here. Wearing his ring. Planning our wedding. Being everything you could never be."
The elevator dings.
Kieran steps out, sees both of us, and his expression goes ice cold. Not angry-cold. Something worse—the temperature drop that happens before an Alpha loses his temper completely.
"What are you doing here?"
Lia's mask shifts instantly. All soft devotion and doe eyes, the performance she's perfected over eight years. "I wanted to bring you lunch, darling."
She gestures to a bag I hadn't noticed before. "But I see you're busy with your new... employee."
The way she says 'employee' drips with implication. Suggesting I'm something else entirely, something inappropriate happening in his corner office.
Kieran's jaw clenches. "I'm in the middle of something. You should have called first."
The dismissal is clear—cold, professional, leaving no room for negotiation. But Lia either doesn't notice or refuses to acknowledge it.
"Call me later." She sweeps toward the exit, pausing just long enough to deliver her parting shot. "We still have the venue walkthrough on Saturday."
Then she's gone, leaving a cloud of expensive perfume and barely contained desperation hanging in her wake.
The lobby slowly returns to normal activity. People remember they have places to be, coffee to drink, work to pretend they're doing.
I'm left standing there with my overpriced espresso, wondering if the venue walkthrough is real. Wondering if Kieran's cold response was genuine or just performance for the office audience.
Maybe he actually is planning a wedding. Maybe Lia's right and they're just waiting for the perfect moment, the right pack politics to align.
Maybe I'm the office distraction while he figures out his actual life with his actual fiancée.
Kieran's still standing by the elevator, watching me with an expression I can't read. He opens his mouth to say something—
"Ms. Turner?" His assistant appears at my elbow. "You have a client call in five minutes."
Right. Work. The thing I'm actually here to do.
I head for the elevator, forced to walk past Kieran. He doesn't move, doesn't give me space, so I have to brush past him in the narrow corridor.
Close enough to smell cedar and smoke. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off him.
"Thalia—" His voice is low, meant only for me.
"I have a call." I don't look at him, don't let myself get pulled into whatever explanation or justification he's about to offer.
Because the truth is simple: Lia just announced to an entire lobby of people that she's planning a wedding with him. And he didn't correct her.
Didn't tell her they were done. Didn't mention that he'd ended things, that the engagement was off.
Just dismissed her politely and let her leave talking about venue walkthroughs.
The elevator doors close between us before he can respond.
I watch his face disappear as the car rises, that unreadable expression that could mean anything or nothing.
And I realize with sinking certainty that maybe I've been playing myself this whole time.
Maybe Kieran Fenris is exactly what Lia said he is: hers.
And I'm just the fool stupid enough to believe otherwise.