by Leela Ash
“Okay!. Arizona, Kal, come meet my dad,” she shouted across the room.
A little girl in pigtails with white ribbons at both tips and a pink Spiderman t-shirt turned around, a smile spreading across her face as she raced across the room and skid to a halt beside him and Carla. He thought he had seen her around as he grinned at her, helpless in the face of her infectious smile; she was dressed in pink from head to toe, apart from her dark blue jeans.
“Hello. I’m Arizona,” she said with that openness only kids had.
“Hi, Arizona. What a beautiful name that is. I haven’t seen you here before? You must be new here,” he said.
“We got here the day before yesterday, I think,” she confirmed happily, grinning at him. “There’s Kal,” she said pointing. “He’s my brother,” she supplied.
He followed her gaze to where a rather crestfallen-looking nine-year-old boy was in a corner by himself, trying to get his airplane to work.
“I think Kal broke his plane again. When Mom sees, he’s gonna get it,” Arizona confided in a hushed reverent tone as though her mother were already standing over them, ready to reprimand Kal.
Theodore quirked an eyebrow, wondering why a mere broken toy would earn the boy a scolding. He thought he almost recognized the kids but wasn’t sure from where. Obviously, a few of the exchange personnel had come in with their kids; which was pretty much expected. Plus, there were some kids already in residence. He had probably seen them scurrying about the lobby.
Unbidden, his thoughts drifted to one exchange personnel in particular: Jessica Harris. He hadn’t seen her since the day she first arrived at the meeting, wearing a suit, and in the two days since then, it had been blissfully quiet as far as he was concerned. Something about her bothered him immensely…
He let the thought trail off as he refocused his gaze on Kal. Heedless of their scrutiny, Kal lifted the plane and jiggled it roughly, his bottom lip jutting out in a pout as he pressed the power button to no avail. Frustration warred with anger on his face, and he seemed as though he were fighting tears.
Uh-oh, Theodore thought. He knew that look. He had seen it often enough on Carla’s face to know a full-fledged tantrum was in the making. He didn’t need his shifter powers to sense the storm brewing beneath little Kal’s already disturbed exterior.
He rose to his feet at once, smiling down at both girls, “Let’s go see if Kal needs some help with his plane.”
Kal looked up as they approached, his eyes stormy and unwelcoming. He ignored them, even when Theodore dropped to his haunches in front of him.
“Hey, Kal. Need some help with your plane?” Theodore said, in a voice modulated for speaking with the boy.
Kal glared back, “It’s broken. Don’t bother.”
“Just let him take a look,” Carla assured him. “Maybe he can fix it. My dad’s really smart.”
Kal didn’t look impressed. He looked at them doubtfully. “Do you really think you can fix it?” he asked dolefully.
“Well, I will try my best.” Theodore took the little airplane in his hands and tried to decipher the problem. He quickly spotted a loose wire in the battery chamber and reconnected it. Experimentally, he pressed the start button, and it whirred to life. He grinned as he handed it to a suddenly joyful Kal.
He looked at the little boy. Kal’s eyes were shining like twin bulbs in his face as he excitedly reached for the toy plane.
“You fixed it!” he exclaimed, as a wide smile spread across his little face. Before Theodore could respond, Kal flung himself against his legs and hugged him tight. “Thank you!”
Theodore stroked a hand through the boy’s hair. “That’s all right, mate. Now, come on, Hyper,” he added, motioning at Carla. His daughter wrinkled her nose at him at the familiar nickname, and he laughed.
Ever since she was two years old, he’d taken to calling her ‘Hyper’, short for hyperactive.
Kal’s little sister, Arizona, offered him a disappointed look, “If you stay just a little longer, you can meet our mom!
He chucked her underneath her chin, marveling at how kids could be such bundles of cuteness. “I’m sure I’ll meet her soon enough, Pinky. But we have to go. Maybe next time, okay?” he added, ruffling her hair.
“Thanks again! Bye,” Kal and Arizona chorused as he strode out the door, herding Carla ahead of him.
Theodore’s thoughts were in a whirl as he urgently walked Carla toward the parking lot.
“Are you all done with work, Dad?” she asked.
“Why? What do you wanna do?”
She hooted as she began to jump in place, “The lake. The lake. The lake.”
With a sigh, he acquiesced, “Then the lake it is, Hyper. But first, home and lunch. Then, the lake.”
She bounded ahead of him, racing for the parked car.
“Hey, don’t run,” he called, trying to pick up his pace.
A warm, soft body collided with him, and the owner of the body went sprawling with a yelp. He caught her just before she hit the pavement, hauling her up and against his body until she steadied. She had long blonde hair that hid her face, but her scent was so delicately feminine and tantalizing that his nostrils flared in appreciation as he inhaled deeply. Something masculine inside of him growled and stirred with interest.
Just then, she lifted the heavy fall of hair away from her face, her lips already forming her thanks as she looked up at him. They both froze; green eyes clashing with turbulent gray ones, which immediately hardened into distant, cool ice chips.
“You! I suppose, because you own the entire resort, including the pavement, you cannot be bothered to watch where you’re going?” she said, her lips curling in contempt.
He gave her a glare that far surpassed hers in iciness as he retorted, “Well, your eyes look fine to me. Why weren’t you watching where you were going?”
She started to respond that she had been rushing to pick up her kids when a niggling voice at the back of her mind made her pause. He was a cold-hearted jerk, so how could he possibly understand that slight anxiety one felt when one’s kids had been left just a little longer at the daycare than they should have been?
She shook her head, taking a step back, “Do forgive me, your high mightiness. I’ll try to be more careful in the future,” she drawled.
He grabbed her elbow against his better judgment, “Cut out the sarcasm, smarty-pants. And this isn’t some resort. I would hate to think you accepted this program thinking it was going to be a vacation,” he added before he walked around her and strode toward a waiting Rolls Royce with tinted windows, his jeans clinging to his muscular thighs as he went.
Of course, he drove a Rolls, Jessica thought, rolling her eyes. What else was new? He was rich, handsome and arrogant as all get out. The more things she learned about him, the more she disliked him. He was obviously the sort of man who thought he could get anything he wanted just because he had money to throw around. He hadn’t thought twice about trying to humiliate her, just because she had made a passing comment about the snobbery she sensed in the place.
“He’s arrogant, insufferable and despicable,” she declared as she stalked toward the daycare center. She just wanted to be with her kids for the rest of the evening and unwind. Exotic Rescue was proving to be a bit more challenging than she had expected. There was so much to do, see and learn. And at least one obnoxious man to avoid.
“Daddy, who was that lady?” Carla piped up, her face alive with curiosity.
“No one important, honey,” he said dismissively. “Just someone…lost.”
But even as he said the words, he felt his entire being constrict in denial. Something about Jessica Harris disturbed him every time he met her. She was far from lost; heck she looked as though she belonged. Even that first day, clad in an awkward suit, she should have stood out like a sore thumb. Instead, she had managed to look beautiful, sophisticated and chic, and she had effortlessly cast everyone else in a shade.
Feline, his daughter’s pet cat
, clambered onto her mistress’ lap as the Rolls Royce pulled away. Distractedly, Theodore leaned over to pet the sleek, spoiled cat, but it hissed and dodged his hand.
Carla chuckled, hugging her cat to her chest, “Feline doesn’t like you, Dad. She wants me all to herself. Besides, she is still upset you didn’t let her have extra treats this morning.”
He chuckled, “Lord save me from angry females.”
Chapter 6
“Tell me again why you had to come up with this foolhardy idea,” Jessica whispered furiously, glaring at Maria Henley.
The elderly woman adjusted her matronly frame on her seat as she returned a cool-eyed stare at Jessica. “We routinely reassign exchange professionals, Ms. Harris. It’s how we can ensure that you get the full benefit of the Exotic Rescue experience. Surely, you didn’t think you would be seated behind a desk every day, did ya?”
Framed like that, saying to the question would make her sound like some lazy Daisy and the look in Mrs. Henley’s eyes behind her glasses said she knew that. Jessica glared.
“I don’t have a problem with getting my hands dirty—”
Mrs. Henley chose that exact moment to sweep her from head to toe, giving her flowery sundress and flat sandals a speaking look.
“I am more than happy to work,” Jessica continued undeterred. “I would just prefer not to be assigned to Mr. Cooper.”
Maria’s eyebrow cocked up, “And why is that? Mr. Cooper knows everything there is to know about this here rescue and all the animals in it. If you are wanting to really learn and grow, you could do much worse than him.”
Jessica grumbled under her breath, “I prefer to do much worse than him.”
“What was that?” Maria demanded with a gimlet-eyed glare.
Jessica wisely shook her head, “Nothing. Just, um, humming to myself. Uh, where do I begin?”
Two seconds with the other woman had shown her that Mrs. Henley positively doted on Theodore with an almost maternal possessiveness. If she kept up her reluctance to work with him, it was sure to rub the other woman up the wrong way and that wouldn’t do at all.
Mrs. Henley was all smiles as she handed Jessica a small notebook and shooed her in the direction of Theodore’s office.
Jessica gave his secretary, Anita, a small nod of greeting and then she breezed past into his office. Theodore looked up, his face wiped clean of all expression but calm professional interest.
“How may I help you?”
“I have been assigned to work with you this week,” she told him. She gestured uncomfortably toward the door she had just come through. “Maria seems to think…” she trailed off, unable to add anything else.
Something like anger glinted in his eyes but it was there for a mere nanosecond before it was quickly masked.
“Of course, Ms. Harris. Please take a seat,” he said, indicating the three chairs arranged in front of his massive desk.
Jessica sank warily into it. She was fast learning that Theodore Cooper was a man of many sides. Today, he seemed to have adopted the persona of CEO, which fit him easily and blended with the opulence and authority stamped into the room around him. The room was large with a wide sprawling desk in the very center and a set of French windows behind the desk. His swivel chair was classic executive and the walls were wood-paneled in one section, leading off to what she had to assume was a library. A thick Aubusson rug lay on the floor in front of a cushion with luxurious white leather and a small glass tea table sat off to the side of the cushion. The office was done in deep brown and gold tones that emphasized class, elegance and masculinity.
The office suited him, she decided, transferring her gaze back to him. He was dressed casually in a white t-shirt over faded blue jeans; his black hair was in its usual artful disarray atop his head, with strands of it falling into his eyes as he looked from his laptop back to a large folder open on his desk; his clean musky scent drifted across the desk to her. She inhaled deeply as her senses were assailed with a smell that was distinctly clean and masculine… with an undertone of something wild and dangerous.
She shivered a little, folding her arms across her mid-riff as she glanced uncertainly toward the AC. Was she cold or was that his effect on her?
Without looking up from his work, Theodore pointed the remote lazily toward the AC and turned it off.
Jessica stared at his bent head in surprise. He hadn’t even looked at her; how had he known she had been cold just then? Was he as attuned to her as she was starting to be toward him?
He was truly very handsome, she thought, letting her eyes caress the top of his head and his strong profile. He seemed strong and capable; his wide shoulders invited one to rest their problems on them. He was quite a man, she thought, feeling some of her dislike ease against her better judgment. He had seemed hard and unyielding since she arrived, but it took a sensitive person to notice that she was cold and turn off the AC. That was an undeniable point in his favor, she conceded with an inward grumble.
With an audible snap, he shut the folder and climbed to his feet, “Let’s go.”
Jessica jumped to her feet too, “Where?”
He gave her an amused grin that, for the first time in a long while, wasn’t mocking, “Surely, you don’t think I spend my entire day behind a desk, do you?”
Her gaze slid away guiltily, and his expression hardened.
“But, of course, you do,” he grated. “You can always be depended upon to think the absolute worst of me.”
Strained silence reigned as he strode with easy grace to the south part of the property. Jessica took in rows and rows of buildings and small barbed-wire areas.
“What are those?” she asked to break the silence more than for any other reason.
He followed her pointing finger toward where high barbed-wire fences marked off sections of the property.
“We keep some monkeys there. They like the open spaces and being able to run around and climb the occasional trees for their boundless mischief. We try to give the animals a sense of the wild as much as possible here.”
“So your rescue houses only wild animals?” she asked.
He shrugged, “Yeah, for the most part. I mean, we wouldn’t turn away a puppy with a broken tail, of course,” he said with a wink. “But yes, the vast majority of the animals are wild. I mean our name is Exotic Rescue.”
Was it her imagination or had there been a slight inflection in his voice just then, as though her question had made him just the slightest bit uncomfortable for some reason? And he had suddenly turned up the cutesy charm in a way that didn’t quite seem, well, natural.
With a frown, she thought over what she had asked. Could Exotic Rescue be up to anything illegal? She shook off the thought. Theodore Cooper was a billionaire and not some criminal; why would he break laws when he didn’t have to? Or maybe that he had been breaking laws all along?
He interrupted her train of thought with a flourish of his hands as he gestured toward the windows that looked out in the general direction of the grounds. “When we started, it was just a few tigers and some monkeys. Of course, we had the requisite gators, being that we are here in Florida. But over time, probably because my resources have allowed me to indulge to such a degree in this little ‘hobby’ of mine, more and more calls began to come in. “Hey, do you think you could take an eagle? It’s got a really bad wing” or “Hey, we raided another tiger cub farm. Do you think you could take ‘em?”
“Tiger cub farm?” she asked, intrigued in spite of herself.
Oh yeah, don’t you watch TV? Tiger cubs are where the money’s at – until they get too big, that is. We have tigers coming out our ears.”
He was certainly a charmer, she thought, though she wasn’t ready to let go of that little voice of woman’s intuition that was poking at her. Besides, the truth was, she was excited to get to work here.
“Anyhow, we have a huge range of animals here. Just about anything you would see in a zoo has been through here at one time or another. Right
through here is where we have some of our smaller wild cats as well as a few of the big ones…”
The moment he crossed the threshold of the wild cats’ keep, Jessica’s heart melted into a puddle in her chest. Her mouth fell open in a soft ‘oh’ of appreciation as several tiny balls of fur began to mewl and strain against their cages, obviously eager to be petted by him.
“It’s safe to pet them, right?” she asked, hand poised over one of the cages.
He grinned, “They’re used to human touch.”
He paused, staring around at all the little cubs and tigers as though he were confused, then he chuckled.
Jessica looked up from admiring a particularly beautiful but battle-scarred gold and white little tiger with its ears clipped backwards. “Something funny?”
He looked at her, the grin still on his face, “It’s just… Feline wouldn’t let me pet her but all these cats are actually clamoring for me to pet them. It’s kinda funny when you think about it.”
“Feline?” Jessica asked, as she reached through a relatively small enclosure in a corner to tickle a white and black streaked cub who seemed to have sidled up to the bars just for the occasion.
“Carla’s cat,” Theodore supplied nonchalantly as he strode off to grab what she assumed were the equivalent of cat treats. Big cat treats, she thought. “She spoils that cat rotten,” he added, but he sounded very proud of the fact.
Carla? Jessica wondered, her hand stilling on the baby tiger’s stomach. Who was Carla? Was she the woman in his life? He had definitely sounded like a man talking about someone he loved very much just now. Bile rose in her throat, and she fought it down with grim effort. Of course, there was a woman in his life. He was a billionaire, he was devastatingly handsome, and he was young and virile; it was a no-brainer. He probably had about a dozen women in his life. She jerked her hand away from the cub and climbed to her feet, suddenly feeling suffocated and angry for no discernible reason.
Why did it matter that he wasn’t single as she had originally thought? She didn’t even like him as a person, regardless if she were attracted to him, so why the hell was she so angry?
