by Jade White
Nick started as his phone vibrated in his pocket. He hadn’t even realized how close he had come to dozing off until the buzz jolted him out of his drowsy reverie.
Nick slid one hand into his pocket and withdrew the phone, glancing at the screen; it showed his mother’s contact details. “Hey Mom,” Nick said as soon as the call connected.
“How are you holding up, Nicky? I know it’s been a tough day for you.” Nick grinned to himself.
“For me? I’d think it was harder on you than it was on me,” he said, yawning silently.
“I don’t have to deal with the business end of things,” his mother pointed out. “I can actually take some alone time if I need it.”
“I was actually doing that when you called,” Nick said. “I’ve got an appointment with my lawyer in about an hour, but other than that I’m free for the day.”
“What’s the appointment about?” Nick could hear the anxiety in his mother’s voice.
“Different things,” Nick said with a shrug. “I felt like I should have my affairs in order, now that everything’s being finalized on the estate.”
“You’re writing a will?”
Nick’s lips twitched in a rueful smile. “Yes,” he admitted, admiring his mother’s insight. “Dad died so suddenly.”
There was a silence on the other end of the phone line; for a fraction of a second, Nick thought he might have re-opened the wound of his mother’s grief. But then some quality of his mother’s silence told him that her hesitation was for some other reason.
“I got a call from a detective,” she said finally.
“A detective? What reason would a detective have to talk to you?”
“They did a routine autopsy on your father,” Nick’s mother said. “And what they found… Nicky, they think your father might have been murdered.”
“Why do they think that?” Nick frowned at the screen of his phone; the possibility of his father being murdered was an almost complete shock. He certainly hadn’t expected the Trocaire patriarch to die, but Nick hadn’t even known that it was a question. “Who’s investigating?”
“The detective is a wolf,” Daphne Trocaire told Nick. “He didn’t know your father very well, but they were on terms of mutual respect.”
“So why does he think Dad was murdered?”
“When he reached the scene of the accident, he thought it smelled wrong—too many scents, even for something like that. In addition, things in the initial reports didn’t add up. So he’s investigating it.”
“Does he have any ideas who might have been behind it?” Nick felt his heart beating faster. Someone who had manufactured a car accident to kill his father had to have one of only a few reasons for doing it: the Trocaire business empire, some kind of personal grudge, or something to do with their status in the shifter world.
“Not yet,” Daphne admitted. “But I want you to be careful, Nick. If someone was after your father, they’d be after you too—especially now that the will is going forward and you’ll inherit the businesses.”
“Jesus, Mom,” Nick said, bringing one hand up to his head. He tousled his own hair and rubbed at one of his temples for a moment. “Yeah, I’ll be careful. For sure. Even if there wasn’t this… situation.”
“Uneasy is the head that wears the crown,” his mother said wryly. “Your father didn’t have many enemies—at least not that I ever knew of—but he had a lot of rivals. I know you’re not the partier you used to be, but you should probably keep a little more to yourself than usual.”
“That won’t be hard to cover,” Nick said, nodding. “No one will even question me staying mostly at home or at work with dad dying and me taking things over.”
“Just please be careful, Nicky. I can’t stand to lose you, too.” Nick felt his heart stutter inside of his chest at the pain in his mother’s words.
“I’m not going to put you through that, Mom,” he assured her. “I don’t plan on letting anyone kill me anytime soon. I’m just making sure everything is in order legally and financially—that’s all.”
“You should consider having an heir,” his mother said, her voice a little stronger. “I don’t want to lose you—but we both know that nothing is promised to us. You don’t have the pressure on you that you would if you were a lion or someone like that—no pack to make you settle down. But it would be a good idea. Give it a think for your mom, will you?” For just a moment, Nick was almost stunned. His mother wanted him to have a child?
“You want a grandkid,” he said after a moment, smiling slightly.
“There’s that part of it too,” his mother admitted. Nick could her the smile in her voice. “It’d be nice to have someone to care for and fuss over, now that your father’s not with me anymore.”
“I could always move back in with you,” Nick joked.
“No thank you,” his mother said tartly. “You just stay where you are and give me a baby to spoil.” Nick heard the muffled sound of her taking a deep breath. “I want you to be safe, and I want there to be someone left after you.”
Nick nodded. “I’ll think about it,” he promised her. “I’ll think about it really hard. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, Nicky-boy,” his mother said. “With all my heart.”
Nick ended the call and put his phone aside for a moment, considering the suggestion his mother had made. He had just turned thirty the year before. He could still remember the decadent dinner that he’d shared with his parents on the landmark occasion.
While his mother had been in the ladies’ room, Nick’s father had taken the opportunity to talk to his son about life in general. “I know it’s harder than average for us to find mates, but I’d love to see you settle down, son.”
“You and Mom didn’t have me until you were both thirty-five,” Nick pointed out.
“But we’d been mates for almost seven years by that point,” his father had countered. “Your mother had a difficult time conceiving—which is why you are an only child.”
“I have plenty of time,” Nick had told his father. Now that his father was dead, Nick wasn’t so sure, especially since there was a possibility that the Trocaire patriarch had been murdered.
Nick had gotten his partying phase out of his system in his early twenties; his parents had only ever told him that if he got himself arrested, he would have to deal with the consequences himself. By the time he had turned twenty-five, the pain of going into the office with a hangover outweighed the fun of going out until dawn and getting so drunk he could barely function. He had dated a few women, and had sex with far more than a few—but he had carefully kept his status as a were-tiger concealed from them all. While he had never completely discounted the possibility of mating with a woman who was single-natured, Nick had always doubted that he could find one with the ability to understand what it truly meant to be a shape-shifter.
The alarm on his phone went off, notifying Nick that his meeting with the lawyer was only twenty minutes away. He stood and went into the guest bathroom of his spacious townhome, giving himself a quick appraisal. Nicholas Trocaire wouldn’t have wanted for companionship even if he hadn’t been wealthy; no false modesty was required for him to know that he was good looking. He had inherited his father’s muscular, lean build and green-hazel eyes, and his mother’s sharp features and full lips, along with her medium-brown hair, which Nick kept just long enough to barely brush his collar. Nick combed his fingers through his hair, straightening it, and turned on the faucet at the sink. He splashed some water on his face, washed his hands, and decided that the dress shirt and tailored trousers he had worn to meet with the executor of his father’s estate were good enough for his own attorney.
The idea of having a child—of having an heir to inherit after him if he died suddenly—nagged at the back of Nick’s mind as he drove across the city to his lawyer’s office. He was happy with his life; he never lacked for a date whenever he wanted or needed one, and working just underneath his father had filled enoug
h of his hours that he’d never really considered a lack.
The drive felt shorter than usual. Nick found himself walking into his lawyer’s office in record time, not even entirely aware of how he had arrived. The receptionist at the front desk knew him well. “Good to see you, Mr. Trocaire,” she said, giving him a pleasant smile.
She was cute: long, dark hair, and big blue eyes, slim with the body of a twenty-something yoga enthusiast; but she wore too much perfume, something that smelled cloying and too fruity for Nick’s tastes. He suspected that she was more than a little interested in him—and he gave her the benefit of the doubt that her interest was in more than just his money—but he had never really wanted anything to do with her other than being polite and pleasant. Nick had learned early on that being respectful of employees got a person much farther than acting like they owned whatever place they were in; more than once he’d managed to score the premium table at a restaurant, or a convenient upgrade, simply because he’d been pleasant and charming.
“I’m not late for my meeting, am I?” Nick raised one eyebrow in query.
“Not at all. You’re about five minutes early, actually. I’ll let Albert know you’ve arrived.”
Nick nodded, and stepped aside. He knew he wouldn’t be waiting long enough to justify sitting down; instead he looked into the big fish tank that Albert maintained in the lobby of his office and watched the inhabitants for a few moments, listening to the soothing gurgle of the pump.
“Nick! Come on back, my man.” Nick tore his attention away from the tank and turned to give his lawyer a smile.
Albert, a sharply-dressed forty-year-old man whose hair was just starting to thin, had been Nick’s attorney for six years; he had always given Nick good, reasoned advice—and more to the point, the lawyer was not just a metaphorical wolf in the courtroom, but an actual wolf, a member of a local pack who worked mostly with supernatural clients like Nick.
“How’s Rhonda?” Nick let the attorney lead him from the lobby into the office and sat down in the comfortable leather-upholstered chair on the opposite side of the desk as he had dozens of times before.
“She’s doing good. She’s over the worst of the pregnancy stuff,” Albert said, shrugging as he sat down. Rhonda, Albert’s mate, was carrying her third child and they hoped—though they couldn’t be entirely sure—that like the first two, it would be a wolf.
“How are the pups taking it?” Albert grinned.
“They’re excited that there’s someone in the pack who’ll be under them. Apart from that they’re the same as always: getting into trouble and trying to pin the blame on the other.” Albert straightened his blazer. “So, Nick, what brings you here?”
“My father’s estate is wrapping up,” Nick explained, “and now that I’m going to be in full ownership of the business, I wanted to update everything.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “I also wanted to get your opinion on something—both as my lawyer, and as someone I consider a friend.”
“Sounds deep,” Albert said, sitting back in his desk chair. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m thinking about having an heir,” Nick said. “My mom suggested it, and with my dad dead...” He shrugged. “According to my mom, Dad might have been murdered.”
“That’s some heavy shit.” Albert pressed his lips together. “If he was murdered, then yeah—the same person or people might be after you too. Protecting your assets with an heir is a good idea.” Albert’s lips twitched in a faint grin. “On top of that, you know I’ll always advocate for starting a family.”
“I don’t know about starting a family, exactly,” Nick said cautiously. “But Mom wants a grandkid, and it seems to make sense.”
“So you’re not going to look for a mate? I know a few different matchmakers and other people who could help you.”
“I don’t know if I want to go quite that far,” Nick said. He bit his bottom lip as he considered. Albert shrugged.
“I could give you a few different contacts in the shifter world for surrogates,” he suggested. “That would give you some options to get someone to carry a child for you without the commitment that a mate would bring with it.”
Nick nodded slowly.
“I’d have to screen them for someone I could trust,” he said, pondering. “I’ll definitely give it some thought.”
“Yeah,” Albert agreed. “Think it over. In the meantime, let’s talk about your legal standing and all the other details. Congrats on getting the family empire, by the way.” Nick grinned.
“You get lots more billings this way; of course you’re happy for me.” Albert laughed.
“There is that aspect of things,” he said. “It’ll be good to have a bit of cushion when baby number three comes along.”
Nick turned his thoughts away from the issue of his having a child, and focused on the complicated web of legal issues that surrounded his status as the new head of the Trocaire business empire. Most of the legwork for Nick’s rise to the top of his father’s business had already been done—but there were details to work out, and contracts to examine, all of the things that had spurred Nick to find a personal attorney that he could trust years before. Albert had never led him astray or made a bad call on anything; Nick was more than happy to give the dedicated and effective lawyer more of his business as a result.
As he left the office, Nick felt better about his situation. Two people so far had agreed on the expediency of him securing an heir to his own estate; assuming that his financial consultant agreed on the solution as well, Nick was prepared to do as Albert suggested and find a surrogate.
Although Nick’s situation—wanting a child without a mate—was rare in the shifter world, it wasn’t entirely unheard of. He’d known a few wealthy shifters, mostly bears and wolves, who had worked with surrogates; there were plenty of unaffiliated women, and women who hadn’t yet found mates or were uninterested in finding a mate, who were willing to provide the service of carrying another shifter’s child. If Albert knew a few surrogates that Nick could contact, that would make it easier for him; he wouldn’t have the issue of having to explain why he needed the woman to conceive his child naturally—IVF and artificial insemination were not an option.
For were-tigers in particular, the genetics that tied to shifting seemed to be inconsistent. Nick’s parents had had to try for years for his mother to conceive him; infertility among female tigers was common. Part of the reason that his kind was so rare in comparison to other kinds of shape-shifters was that female infertility. Nick could work with another type of shifter—a wolf, maybe, or a lion—and have a fairly good chance of a child who inherited shifter characteristics, though it would be a fairly even gamble whether the child would be a tiger or whatever type of shifter its mother was.
As Nick drove home, he pushed the thought out of his mind for the time being. He could work with surrogates if he decided, finally, to have a child. Even if he was more anxious than he had been even two months before to get it over with, Nick had never been the kind to rush into a decision like that. He had a lot on his plate, even without having to worry about whoever might have murdered his father coming after him next, Nick’s plate was full with all of the chores associated with taking over the business. He would focus on that—and make sure that he stayed close to home and work—for a few weeks, and put the question of just how he would come up with an heir on the back burner.
“God knows it wouldn’t make sense to have a kid if I can’t even make sure they’ll be provided for,” Nick said to himself as he came to a stop at an intersection. He would get all of his ducks in a row, and then he’d talk to whoever he needed to talk to about finding someone to carry his child. Then, after that, he’d worry about finding a mate; having an heir to bequeath his fortune to was the biggest concern at the moment.
Chapter 2
Cynthia wondered, as she hurried to her desk, if it was possible for her day to get any worse. She had been without her car for three days; that morning, he
r mechanic had called almost as soon as Cynthia had arrived at work to inform her that there was next to nothing that could be done to resurrect her car.
“I wish I could give you better news,” he had said, and Cynthia had heard the genuine regret in the older man’s voice. “But at this point, there’s so much that would have to be replaced to get the car going again that you’d be better off just buying a new car.”
Cynthia had suspected that that would be the case; but to hear it from an expert had knocked down the tiny bit of hope she’d let herself feel when he hadn’t called her the same day to let her know the extent of the damage.
“I get it, Lenny,” she had said, sinking into her desk chair. “Can you get anything for it at all from the junk yard?”
“It’s not going to be more than pocket change,” Lenny had told her. “Really at this point you’d just be getting the bottom-tier value for the chassis. It’s practically scrap metal at this point.”
“Yeah,” Cynthia had agreed. “But I’m not so well off right now that I can turn down pocket change.”
“I hear you. If you can get into the shop before seven and sign the title over, I can give you the stuff out of the car and the license plate.” Cynthia had agreed to that; she didn’t think she had very much choice—though the prospect of getting to her mechanic’s shop on the bus, and navigating the routes from there to her apartment, was daunting.
From there the day had steadily gotten worse; she had scalded her tongue on the coffee she’d gotten from the break area, and her boss was out for the day, meaning that the entire brunt of the workload was on Cynthia. And now—just when she thought that another mishap would reduce her to frustrated, helpless tears—she heard that the new company owner would be visiting that afternoon for an inspection of the office. Cynthia would have to prepare her section’s report completely alone, and deliver it by herself. There was no calling her boss for help, when she knew that the woman was home sick as a dog.
