by Leela Ash
“Can I help?” Estelle asked.
Somehow, the question made the strained silence between them even more unbearable.
“No, I’ve got it,” he said, refusing to look up from his task at her. Last thing he needed was to feel guilty for doing the right thing. It was hard enough, damn it.
“All right.”
They didn’t speak again until the smell of food was wafting through the kitchen and Blaine sat the plates down on the table. Estelle mumbled a quiet, nearly imperceptible “thank you,” and then let out a little gasp of surprise.
“What’s all this?” she asked, staring down at her plate.
“A little something special,” Blaine said, raising his brow. “Is that a problem?”
“No, not at all!” Estelle looked up and beamed at him, and once again, his heart hammered against his chest. God, she was beautiful. The man she ended up with would be one lucky son of a bitch.
“Well try it,” Blaine said gruffly, grabbing his fork. “It’s got a bear’s touch.”
“If I don’t like it, will you fire me?” Estelle asked, laughing softly as she brought the first bite to her lips.
“Yes,” Blaine grumbled.
She studied him, as if not quite sure whether he was serious, and then let out a beautiful laugh.
“This is amazing,” Estelle breathed, her baby-blue eyes lighting up.
Blaine couldn’t help but feel the surge of deep pride that heartened him, and he grinned at her.
“Special family recipe.”
“I believe that it is pretty special,” Estelle said, bringing another bite eagerly to her full lips. “I never would have thought to put seeds and berries in a plate of pancakes.”
“Well, we know how to utilize our resources,” Blaine said.
Estelle smiled brightly and they held each other’s gaze, probably a lot longer than they should have. That was enough. He couldn’t let this go on any longer.
“You know that can’t happen again between us, right? What happened last night…”
Estelle stopped chewing for a moment and looked at him, her eyebrow raised. Her expression implied that he was the stupidest son of a bitch who ever lived, but somehow, he still found himself on the edge of his seat waiting for her response.
“You’re the boss,” she said with a noncommittal shrug.
Blaine peered at her, shocked by her indifference. Surely no woman was going to take it that well! But when he tried to tune in with his inner bear, hoping that his heightened animal senses would be able to tell what she was really feeling, he was hurt and surprised to find that she seemed to feel legitimately relieved. She didn’t want anything else to happen between them. She was perfectly fine.
“All right,” Blaine said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He wanted to test her, to push her until he heard for himself what she really felt about it, but he didn’t want to find himself being vulnerable to a woman again. no matter what kind of woman she thought she was. no matter how strong the bear’s claim on her might be.
“Thanks for breakfast,” Estelle said, standing abruptly once she finished eating. Blaine had lost his appetite in trying to deconstruct Estelle’s response to him, and stood too.
“It’s no problem. We burned a lot of energy last night.”
Estelle quirked her brow at him, and he could almost read her thoughts. “Classy.”
“Anyway,” Blaine said, clearing his throat quickly. It wasn’t like him to be so damn blustering, but this damn girl brought out the worst in him. “I’m going to take you back up the mountain. Ain’t going to let anything crazy happen to you this time.”
Estelle looked like she was going to refuse his help at first, but then nodded slowly.
“All right,” she said quietly. “Let’s get going then.”
Blaine was surprised that she surrendered so quickly. This wasn’t the kind of woman who submitted to a fight. He had learned that much for himself in the time they had known each other. And it was part of the reason why it had been so damned impossible for the bear to resist her. but he wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
“Right,” Blaine said gruffly.
They headed out of the cabin and shut themselves into his little car. The air around him was suddenly thick with her voluptuous scent and Blaine had to do everything in his power to keep his eyes forward. No matter how much the bear wanted it, he wasn’t going to give in. not again. he wasn’t going to be that big of an asshole. She was just a kid, and they both deserved better than this. It was a stupid, careless affair that would just hurt them both in the end.
The drive was quiet, and Blaine sighed deeply to himself as he surveyed the damage.
“There was something weird about that storm last night, wasn’t there?” Estelle asked suddenly, after passing by one of the fallen trees that the wind had whipped right out of the ground.
“Seems like these days all I can do is make enemies,” Blaine answered, doing his best to keep his eyes forward, his thoughts on the road.
“Dragon shifters?” Estelle asked quietly.
“You heard of them?”
“Yeah…in one of my classes on shifter history, they said there was a myth that they could control the weather. But that had never been proven…”
“That’s something the humans say to make themselves feel better. Safer against the shifter people. But truth is that we’re all very powerful in our own rights, and there are ancient magics that have been passed down through the ages. Only a really powerful shifter warlock can change the weather, but it’s not impossible. You just have to manage to piss them off just right…”
Estelle let out a deep breath, but before she could speak again, Blaine pulled into the driveway and turned to her.
“See you in the office at 8:00 tomorrow. And not a word about any of this to anyone, it’s not really their business. Don’t want to make either of us look bad.”
“I understand.”
Estelle got out of the car and headed toward the door and Blaine sighed, even more furious now than he was before. Because when she said she understood, she was the kind of girl who actually meant it. And for some reason, that scared the hell out of him.
10.
Estelle took a deep breath once she stepped inside the cabin and hid out of sight so she could privately watch Blaine before he left. He lingered in front of the cabin for a moment, his face pensive and dark, and then finally threw his car into drive and sped off down the mountain; a little bit faster than she was used to seeing him move.
Estelle let out a heavy sigh and slumped down into the small loveseat that had come furnished with the cabin. She was never going to be able to forgive herself for all the bullshit she put herself through. Hadn’t she known better than to succumb to the physical attraction? It was going to put her in hell, and she was already halfway there. In fact, it had been such a relief that Blaine had told her that it couldn’t happen again that she’d almost laughed out loud. She couldn’t imagine how torturous it would be to carry on an affair with an older man. Not only that, but he was her boss. And a shifter.
She knew from rumor that having relationships with men of the shifter species could be tricky for human women. The courtship rituals could be very different, and the cultures were always hard to adopt and get used to.
But there she was, thinking as if the night they had shared together might somehow mean more than it did; as if they would ever be compatible enough to actually form a meaningful relationship together. That was a laughable idea. They were just too different. Why get ahead of herself?
All that had happened, and all that would ever happen, was that he had caught her during a vulnerable time and they had somehow just given in to something animalistic and short-lived. It didn’t have any meanings, no strings attached. It had just been a horribly ill-advised way to let off steam after an adrenaline-inducing near-death experience. He had saved her life, and in some sick and twisted way, she had repaid him.
They were ev
en now. And she would never have to deal with another issue like this for as long as she lived. That was perfectly fine by her.
Estelle cried out in fear and surprise when a shrill ringing filled the cabin.
“Estelle!”
“How did you get this number, ma?” Estelle growled into the phone as soon as she heard her mother’s voice. She had guarded her privacy with her life. Her family was toxic, and it was difficult for her to let them into her life in any capacity. Let alone casual phone conversations.
“That doesn’t matter, you know I have my ways. You know you’re my youngest child. My daughter. It’s a mother’s business to keep track of these things.”
“What do you want?” Estelle mumbled. Her mother had probably called around and harassed her friends until someone gave her the information she wanted. She had a way of being very persuasive.
“You need to come home. Your father is in the hospital.”
Estelle’s stomach dropped.
“I can’t, Ma. I’ve got an internship,” she said weakly. She didn’t want to know anything about her family. Her father was infamous for being a hypochondriac. He was probably just faking for attention again. still, something about the tone of her mother’s voice gave her a pause.
“He’s really sick. He might not make it. You need to come home now and see him before it gets any worse.”
“I don’t know. I have to talk to my boss about it,” Estelle sighed. Somehow, the idea of coming to Blaine with the information almost made her laugh out loud. He was so much different than her parents. He would probably find it difficult to understand.
“You do that then come home. It’s important. I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t you know.”
“Sure. Bye.”
“Is that any way to talk to your mother? I raised you and -”
Estelle hung up the phone and sighed heavily. Somehow the day had gone from bad to worse. Leave it to her family. And now she had to think about whether she was willing to risk the final credit she needed to go see a man who had made her doubt her self-worth for her entire life. What a way to spend her only day off for the next two weeks.
***
“Blaine, can I talk to you?”
Blaine’s sharp eyes peered into hers and she hesitated at the threshold of the office.
“The hell do you want? We have work for you to do right now, and I know you can do it just fine.”
“It’s not about work,” Estelle said, nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
“Then I don’t want to hear about it right now, kid,” Blaine said, his face darkening. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
For some reason, irritation coursed through Estelle and she shut the office door behind her.
“Don’t be an asshole. I have to talk to you about something.”
“Shit, kid. Give me a break! I’m busy!”
“Well I need your input!”
They stared each other down until finally Blaine let out a deep, heavy sigh.
“Take a seat and make it quick for God’s sake.”
“I need to see my family,” Estelle said, sitting down in the chair across from Blaine’s desk.
“You don’t sound too sure about that,” Blaine said.
Why was it that it felt like that man could see right through her? It was unsettling, really. But at the same time, it was almost comforting to think that somebody was paying attention to her in a way that nobody else ever had.
“Well, I’m not really.”
“What have they done to you?” Blaine asked, looking squarely at her. “You don’t want to see them, and you look frickin’ miserable.”
“I don’t really feel like this is the place to talk about something like that,” Estelle said quietly, avoiding Blaine’s eye. The pensiveness of his stare made her extremely uncomfortable. She usually didn’t talk to anybody about what she had gone through with her home life.
“There’s nothing wrong with it in here,” Blaine argued. “You’re the one who wanted me to listen to your sob story so you could weasel your way out of the ridiculous workload we have now what with the shit storm the dragon shifters laid on us this week.”
Estelle stared at him blankly for a moment, but the no-nonsense look on Blaine’s face melted the walls she was holding up to protect herself from judgment about her family. He wouldn’t judge her any more than she would judge herself. Somehow, she just sensed that about him.
“Well, they aren’t the kindest bunch,” Estelle said with a heavy sigh. “My mom and dad are awful, and so are all my siblings. They needed a scapegoat to look down on and everything I do is just subject to ridicule. Or they use what they think of as faults as a way to draw attention to my weight.”
“What’s wrong with your weight?” Blaine asked, his face contorted in genuine confusion.
“Well…” Estelle was caught off-guard by his reaction. He himself wasn’t a little man. In fact, he had managed to make her feel just like she had always been afraid she would never feel with a man; small, delicate, and beautiful. He was powerful, a force to truly be reckoned with. and she had to force herself not to let her mind wander too much back to the night they had shared together. It had been magical, sure, but it was something that could never happen again under any circumstances. He was her boss. He was a shifter. But worse than any of that, he was an ass!
“So, you’re basically just telling me that they make you feel like shit about yourself. But you feel like you’re supposed to be going out of your way for them when they tell you to?”
“It’s complicated,” Estelle said, sighing miserably and putting her head in her hands. “If he’s dying, he’s still my father…I don’t want to just abandon them even though they like to use me as a scapegoat.”
“I don’t want you to go. You’re needed here.”
Blaine’s gaze was steel, and even if he was just saying it to protect her, a deep defiant anger surged through Estelle’s body and prompted her to rise.
“I don’t really care what you want,” she said, horrified by herself as the words began to spill from her lips. She had spent too much time in her life taking crap from other people though, and now that she was an adult, she defended herself automatically. “I’m going to tend to my father.”
“You’ll lose the internship. You won’t graduate.”
The calm and reasonable tone of his voice made Estelle hesitate as she considered the source of her anger. She was defending her right to go see the people who had stopped at nothing to make her life a living hell. Maybe she just wanted to go back to show her father just how useless his insults had been. She had still managed to make something of herself. She was still confident and fabulous in her own right, and soon she would succeed in her chosen field. But not if she gave up her internship to go see him about it.
“Look,” Estelle said, taking a deep breath and steadying the angry wavering of her voice. “I don’t want to fight with you about this. I have the right to see my family. If I’m not back in a few days, then feel free to fire me. Tell everyone in the state that I’m a worthless employee for all I care. But I need to do this.”
For some reason, the conversation was starting to make her feel as if she and Blaine were an old married couple. She was fighting for something more than just the right to see her father. She was fighting for her independence.
“All right,” Blaine said, sighing heavily. “I’ll give you two days.”
“Two?!” Estelle exclaimed. “Come on, Blaine. That’s – “
“That’s more than fair,” Blaine interrupted, standing up to stare Estelle in the eye. “You don’t need to stay stuck in that shit for any longer than you have to be. You say what you must say and then get back home. You have a lot to lose.”
Estelle gaped at Blaine, unsure of how to respond.
“All right.”
“I wasn’t kidding. We need all the help we can get right now. Things are getting pretty extreme. I’m counting on you.”
11.
“What the hell has been your problem the past few days, man?” Jack growled as Blaine pushed past him and into his office. “You haven’t acted this badly since -”
“Don’t you dare even say it,” Blaine growled, throwing open his filing cabinet and digging through it to find the folder that contained a copy of his grandfather’s will and the outline of the estate he had been promised.
“Well you know it’s true. What’s going on with you?”
Blaine glared at Jack, a man about a decade older than he was, who had been there and seen him through some of the most difficult transitions of his life. He was really the only man Blaine had ever trusted outside his own family, and if Jack was telling him he was being an asshole, he knew he was just saying that for Blaine’s own good. It wouldn’t help anybody if he was going to let his feelings get out of control.
“You have any fuckin’ idea how obnoxious it is to be debating these boundaries with the dragon shifters? They don’t have any respect for my authority. And those lawyers move slower than burned molasses.”
“That’s bureaucracy for you, man. You run a business. You know all about that.”
“Doesn’t make it any less infuriating,” Blaine grumbled, slamming the file open onto his desk and pulling the papers out. “I have half a mind to shove this damn will right in Geron’s face.”
“You don’t want to deal with the results of putting Geron in any tighter of a position.”
“You think his position is tight?!” Blaine exclaimed. “If we don’t find these portals by the next equinox, it may be too late.”
“We don’t know exactly how the magic works, Blaine. You can’t let yourself get discouraged. There will always be another chance.”
