by Lisa Oliver
“I haven’t known the Fates to make a mistake yet,” Asaph said, glad that Ronan seemed to be fine with the claiming aspect. Asaph didn’t want to come across as a wuss asking for any form of reassurance. “How about you hop in the shower, I’ll ring the restaurant we went to last time and see if we can have a first date do-over. How does that sound?”
Ronan nodded. “I’m pretty hungry. This sex stuff takes more energy than dancing and I thought I put a lot into that.” He didn’t move though, and Asaph wondered what was wrong. Ronan tilted his head slightly. “You’re going to think this is weird, but I’d rather not get out of bed without us kissing first. It’s something I always dreamed of doing once I was mated. In my head I thought it would make the things you have to face once you got out of bed just that little bit easier to handle. A way of making sure you always left the bedroom with a smile on your face.” He peered up at Asaph. “I guess you think that’s pretty silly.”
Asaph laughed. “I actually think it’s an excellent idea. Of course,” he added as he gently tugged Ronan so the man was fully on top of him, “I can’t always promise we’ll get out of bed when we’re meant to. Kissing you seems to have a way of making certain parts of my body wake up that would make leaving you a bit of a problem.”
“We’ll work it out,” Ronan said with a warm smile. “I’m sure we can come to some compromise.” He reached down and as lush lips caressed his, it flittered through Asaph’s mind that he may have to start doing a spot more delegating with his work commitments. Ronan’s lips were an addiction he had no intention of quitting.
/~/~/~/~/
Ronan was quietly impressed. Oh, the restaurant was still the same pleasant, classy and discreet place it had been on his and Asaph’s first date, but it was Asaph who’d changed. He surprised Ronan in the shower with a blow job that blew Ronan’s mind, before taking him against the cool glass walls. He’d been complimentary about Ronan’s clothing, thank the Fates he’d remembered to pack a decent shirt and pants in his bag, and when they’d arrived at the restaurant, Asaph not only had his arm firmly across Ronan’s shoulders, he’d also introduced him as his fiancé to the receptionist who knew him by name. The woman looked a little puzzled and Ronan guessed it was because of the grand exit he’d made last time the two had eaten there, but of course she was too polite to say anything.
The meal was excellent, Penny the waitress blushing when she saw the pair of them again. Asaph was friendly, charming and so sweet when Ronan explained haltingly over the meal about the car accident that took his mother’s life. His big hand covered Ronan’s right there on the table, and it was still there as they were enjoying dessert. Asaph had been right; the chocolate gateau was mouthwateringly good.
“I guess we should be making plans about when to move you into your new home,” Asaph said as he licked the last of his dessert off his spoon. Ronan was so transfixed by the erotic sight of that thick muscle working the smears of chocolate free that it took him a moment for Asaph’s words to register. When they did, he laughed.
“Not planning to slum it with me in my little sublet then?” In fairness, Ronan didn’t mind moving in with Asaph. The man owned a house big enough to be called a mansion, so space was never going to be a problem. Unfortunately, Asaph didn’t know him well enough to know he was teasing.
“F…fiddlesticks,” he said, and Ronan hid a grin. He’d explained to Asaph over their starters that his mother didn’t approve of swearing, and over the years Ronan had come up with different terms to get a similar meaning across. “I was being presumptuous again, wasn’t I? I haven’t even seen your flat, and yet I blithely assumed that you’d move in with me. This is one of those things we should be talking about, isn’t it?” Bless him. Asaph looked like a kicked puppy and it wasn’t easy for any Alpha to pull off a look like that. Ronan twisted his hand and tangled his fingers with Asaph’s, wanting nothing more than to put his mind at ease. But a shadow crossed their table and he looked up.
“What the hell is this, Bosch? Playing faggot now?” At least the man wasn’t yelling, and Asaph didn’t pull his hand away. But the daggers he sent the balding, overweight businessman who was standing by their table were lethal. Ronan shifted in his seat. He’d been insulted before because of his preference for men, but this had to be a first for Asaph.
“Corsairs; I’d say it’s a pleasure, but as you can see I am having a private dinner date with my fiancé. I suggest you leave.”
“Fiancé?” Corsairs spat the word out like a curse. “Does Leticia know about this?”
Oh farting rainbows and unicorn horns. This was not going to be good. Ronan remembered a picture of Asaph with a woman named Leticia in the Google search he’d done. The woman was blond, beautiful and everything he wasn’t. Asaph’s thumb stroked along his; but his mate’s attention on the older man never wavered.
“I don’t see what this has to do with Leticia,” Asaph said with an icy calm Ronan hadn’t heard before. “I’m sure she told you we parted ways a while ago, and what I do in my personal life is nobody’s business but my own.”
“She said nothing of the sort,” Corsairs huffed. “She told me in strictest confidence that you and she are expecting and wanted to make an appointment for you to come and ask me for her hand in marriage. I sent the details to your personal assistant yesterday. Then I walk in here and see you with this…this…person as though my daughter and your new child are of no consequence. How dare you disrespect her.”
“I can assure you if Leticia is pregnant then the child is not mine.” Asaph threw his napkin on the table and reached for his wallet. “I suggest you think very carefully before you say anything that might be considered insulting to my fiancé.”
He stood up, and Ronan felt a tug on his hand and got to his feet as well. Not an easy thing to do with trembling knees. “As far as I’m concerned this conversation is over and don’t forget Corsairs,” Asaph’s voice dropped to a whisper, but Ronan could still hear him. “I own the lease on your company building. If you make trouble for me, you’ll wish you hadn’t. Now I suggest you go and make nice with your own companion. Niece is it this time, or are you rewarding your new secretary for the hours she spends on her knees?”
“Why, you; that’s none of your business,” Corsairs blustered, and Ronan noticed the man’s face was bright red.
“Then stay out of mine,” Asaph glared, and Ronan felt a strong arm over his shoulders. “While you’re at it, tell your daughter to stop bombarding my office with messages. It makes her look ridiculous and I’ve no intention of returning her calls, especially if she’s spreading any sort of lies about me.”
Ronan almost tripped as Asaph led him past Corsairs, but fortunately his wolf reflexes stopped him face planting on the floor. He managed to keep his head high as Asaph paid for the meal, and even smiled and gave a small wave to Penny who was watching them from across the room. Asaph stayed silent as they began the drive back to Asaph’s house, and Ronan wondered what he could say. But he needn’t have worried because Asaph spoke first.
“If Leticia is pregnant, I give you my word that child is not mine.”
“Okay.” Ronan said earlier he trusted Asaph and he did. But it was entirely possible for wolf shifters to impregnate humans, and Ronan already guessed that Asaph was definitely sexually experienced. It would be a bit far-fetched to assume Asaph hadn’t had Leticia in his bed. He wriggled in his seat as his wolf whined at the thought.
“I don’t know what game that wretched woman is playing,” Asaph continued. “I broke things off with her the day I came to see you dance that first time. I haven’t slept with her in at least three months because I’ve been too busy and my wolf didn’t like me going anywhere near her. I would have broken things off with her sooner, but I’d just been too busy to get around to it.”
Ronan had wondered about that. Alpha wolves were notoriously sexual creatures; at least that’s what his mother told him. But then Asaph had confided over dinner he had a reputation as a w
orkaholic and was planning to change that part of his life now he was mated. Asaph was being entirely truthful, but it didn’t help Ronan know what to say in response.
“Has she been in touch with you, since you two stopped seeing each other? You said something to her father about messages,” he asked hesitantly when it seemed Asaph had gone back to fuming. There might not be any deceit in the air, but the anger pouring off of Asaph was palpable.
Asaph jerked his shoulders. “Text messages and random phone calls at night, until I learned to block her number. I never responded to anything from her. I told my PA to simply tell her I was unavailable if she called, and I haven’t checked my emails lately because I’ve been busy working at your club. My PA would have mentioned anything important that came through my business line, so Corsairs must have sent his email to my private address. And no,” he added, flicking Ronan a quick glance, “I haven’t checked that lately either.”
“You would have scented it though, wouldn’t you? The pregnancy I mean? You should have been able to smell a change in her scent the last time you were with her if she was carrying a child.” Wolf shifters never needed to use pregnancy tests when their noses were far more effective.
“F…frigid unicorns, you’re right, why didn’t I think of that?” Asaph beamed at him as he swung his car into the large sweeping driveway that ran across the front of his house. Ronan didn’t want to burst his bubble, but he had to ask.
“Saying she’s pregnant, and telling her father is still a pretty serious thing, though. Any idea why she’s trying to trap you into marriage?”
Chapter Sixteen
Asaph was trying to keep his fuming to a minimum, but he knew he couldn’t hide his mood from his mate. Fuck Corsairs and the bloody bull he rode in on. He and Ronan had been having a perfectly lovely evening and then Leticia’s fucking father had to come along and ruin everything. He strode into his study, tugging Ronan beside him, and immediately switched on his computer. Seconds later he was looking at three emails from Leticia and one from her father. He dismissed the one from the older Corsairs. He already knew what that one was going to say. With Ronan settled on his lap so his mate could see the screen, he opened the first one from Leticia dated four days earlier.
Asaph darling, amazing news. We’re going to be parents. Pick me up at Daddy’s tonight and we can discuss the wedding plans over dinner.
Ronan snorted, and Asaph looked at him. “She’s pretty sure of herself, isn’t she?” His little mate said. “The days of shotgun weddings are long gone and she seems to think you’d welcome the idea of having children with her.”
“I’d mentioned having kids, but I never said I wanted to have them with her,” Asaph said, thinking back to when he’d first met Leticia. It was the sort of thing a man of his age and station said when dating a well-connected woman, alluding to the future. But it wasn’t something he’d ever seriously considered. That was something that was shared with mates, and as Asaph never thought he’d find his, kids were a way in the future ideal.
“We’ll have that discussion another time. We’ve got to get to know each other first,” Ronan said with a twitch of his lips. “Next email?”
Asaph clicked on the next message. It was short and to the point simply telling Asaph to call her the moment he got back into town. “Looks like Beatrice has been doing her job. Beatrice is my PA,” he added when Ronan’s eyes asked the question. “I’ll take you into my office soon so you can meet her.” Ronan nodded and then looked back at the screen as Asaph opened the final email that was time-stamped about half an hour after Corsairs’ one had been sent.
Asaph, I am not raising this child on my own. Make sure you’re in Daddy’s office on time and with a ring in hand. I’ve ordered the one I want from Tiffany’s and told them you’ll pay for it when you pick it up.
I’m not stupid enough to think you love me, Asaph. But I do know you’re an honorable man and you’ll do the right thing by me and our child. Think of the scandal it will cause if I have to tell everyone how you’ve abandoned your own offspring – think what that sort of gossip will do to your precious business. Consider this a business merger if it makes you feel any better.
A wedding planner will be waiting for us after you’ve spoken to Daddy. I have already told him that the wedding will be a relatively small, private affair and will have to be conducted as quickly as possible. I have no intention of walking down any aisle with a baby bump.
Don’t let me down. You won’t like what will happen if you do.
“Determined little miss, isn’t she,” Ronan said, but when Asaph looked away from the screen he could see his mate’s face was white. He rubbed his hand up and down Ronan’s back, his mind reeling from the duplicity Leticia was capable of. He knew she was spoiled and used to getting her own way, but only a mad woman would order her own engagement ring and bring in a wedding planner before a proposal had even been suggested. That’s without the threats she was making.
“Is she right, about the scandal aspect at least?” Ronan asked. “Will it harm your business?”
“No, but she clearly thinks it will,” Asaph thought for a moment and then said, “Leticia doesn’t know anything about my business, she was only ever involved on the social side of things. If the rumor of her pregnancy was true, and I abandoned her, then socially I would be shunned for a bit. But I have ironclad contracts with everyone I work with and if I shut down my business tomorrow, I’d still be rich enough for both of us to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of our very long lives.”
“I’m not with you because of your money,” Ronan said, snuggling into Asaph’s chest. “I don’t run in the same social circles as you do, but is there anyone you could talk to, find out what she’s been saying and doing, just so you can do a spot of damage control? I don’t want to see you hurt by this.”
Right there was the reason Asaph was ten thousand times better off with Ronan than he would be with the likes of Leticia. Ronan genuinely didn’t care about money. All he was concerned about was making sure Asaph wasn’t impacted by Leticia’s lies. Asaph didn’t think anyone had ever cared about him as much as Ronan already did; it was a humbling thought, especially in light of his earlier behavior.
“I’ll give Bronson a call,” he said out loud, reaching for his phone. “If anyone knows what’s going on in our social circle, it will be him. I’m surprised he hasn’t mentioned it to me already.”
/~/~/~/~/
Ronan sat quietly, stroking Asaph’s chest as he made the call to his friend. Asaph mentioned over dinner that Bronson was the only other wolf shifter he associated with anymore since leaving his pack. Ronan hadn’t said anything at the time, but he was secretly glad. He didn’t want to be involved in pack politics, or being scorned because of his omega status. Despite mating Asaph, his mother’s warnings still rang loud and clear.
“Asaph, you’ve come up for air? I thought you’d be balls deep in your little one by now and I wouldn’t see you for a week. What’s up?”
“I’ve claimed my mate,” Asaph said. Ronan could hear the pride in his voice and snuggled in further. In fact, Ronan started undoing the buttons on Asaph’s shirt. Asaph looked down at him and winked, so he kept doing it.
“I’m calling about Leticia. Have you seen or heard anything that might mean she’s up to no-good?”
“No,” Bronson’s voice came over the phone. “She’s been out on the town but not as much as usual. That Rudy guy we didn’t like is always with her and I thought they’d hooked-up. Word is he’s scoring a few investment properties you were into and no one’s sure where he’s getting the money. That’s the only reason I noticed them at all.”
“He must be borrowing money hand over fist. He’s already gone through his father’s inheritance and I’m surprised anyone would loan him anything with his track record. See if you can find out who’s his backer; might be worth knowing, if the shit hits the fan.”
“What shit?”
Ronan listened as Asaph
explained about Leticia, her father and the emails. In the meantime, he’d gotten Asaph’s buttons undone and was tracing lines and symbols on the man’s chest. Asaph had beautiful soft skin and hard muscles underneath it. Ronan leaned forward and licked down the ridge between Asaph’s pectoral muscles, just to see what type of a reaction he’d get. A tightening hand on his hip was all the encouragement he needed to continue.
“Leticia’s definitely not pregnant,” Bronson said. “She was…well you know, women’s stuff…when I saw her at the gallery opening two nights ago.”
“I never thought she was,” Asaph growled, “but I wouldn’t have put it past her to get pregnant and then try to fob it off as mine.”
“Can’t really help you, but I’ll keep an ear out for any pertinent gossip. Changing the subject, are you two coming down to the club tomorrow; that friend of Ronan’s is driving the guys nuts with his color charts and schematics.”
“Yeah, we’ll be there, but probably not until after lunch. I have a rather naughty little omega that needs tending to. I have a feeling it’ll be an all-night job.” Ronan looked up, a furrow between his eyes. Naughty? Okay, so he may have a hard nipple between his teeth and Asaph was on the phone. But it wasn’t as though it was a strictly business call; for some reason Leticia’s threats, even via email, unsettled Ronan’s wolf. He wanted to stake his claim, wanted for Asaph to be pounding into him, not chatting about some woman who was scheming to take him away. He matched the gleam in Asaph’s eyes with his own. Asaph’s goodbye to his friend was short and almost rude.
“Now my little omega, got something you want to tell me?” Fudgsicles, Ronan could burn in the heat in Asaph’s eyes.
Sure have. Where do you want me to begin?