by Ramona Gray
A smile lit up Eleanor’s pretty face. “Awesome, give me your number.”
* * *
Daisy glanced up from her computer when the office door opened. Mr. Landon stepped into reception and she smiled at him. “Hello, Mr. Landon.”
“Good afternoon, Daisy. How are you?”
“Good, thank you. Do you have a meeting with Cooper?”
Normally, when Cooper booked a meeting, he asked Daisy to add it to the calendar for him because he had a history of accidentally deleting the calendar program. But he’d done a stellar job of avoiding her all day, so it wasn’t surprising to her that he’d booked a meeting without letting her know.
“No, I was in the area and thought I would drop in and see if you’d come to a decision regarding our phone call about tutoring Anna. I know three nights a week is a lot, but Anna is really struggling, and you were so great with her that day here in the office.”
Daisy smiled at him. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Landon. I meant to call you this morning, but it’s been a little busy in the office.”
“That’s all right. If you still haven’t made your decision, I can -”
“No, I have,” she said quickly. “I’m happy to tutor Anna, as long as you understand that I have no formal training in teaching or tutoring or anything like that. I’ve just always loved math and been good at it.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “You made that clear on the phone on Monday. What’s important is that Anna is comfortable with you and she can learn from you. Do you think you could start tonight?”
“Start what tonight?”
Cooper’s deep voice filled the reception. He stopped at Daisy’s desk, reached to cup the back of her neck before seeming to think better of it and holding his hand out to Mr. Landon instead. “David, it’s good to see you again. Is there a problem with the security system?”
“No, no,” David said as he shook Cooper’s hand. “It was installed yesterday and Lusa was very thorough in explaining how to operate it. I’m here to talk to Daisy.”
“About what?” Cooper said.
She frowned up at him and he had the good grace to look a bit sheepish.
Before she could ask David if she could call him later to continue the conversation, David said, “Daisy has agreed to tutor my Anna in math. She’ll start tonight if that’s agreeable to her.”
“No,” Cooper said.
David blinked at him. “I’m sorry?”
“She’s not tutoring Anna.”
Daisy stood and put a hand on Cooper’s arm before smiling at David. “I can start tonight. What time would you like me there?”
Cooper’s low growl died out when Daisy squeezed his arm and gave him a look that would wither plant life.
David studied them before saying, “Around seven? I can text you my address.”
“Perfect. Tell Anna I’ll see her then.”
She squeezed Cooper’s arm again when it looked like he was about to say something else. David gave Cooper an amused look and headed toward the door. “Thank you, Daisy. See you tonight.”
“Bye, David.”
When the door closed behind him, she dropped Cooper’s arm and glared at him. “Don’t you dare say it, Cooper.”
“Daisy,” Cooper’s look suggested he thought she’d gone completely mad, “what are you doing? You can’t tutor Anna. She is being stalked by a shifter. If you’re at her house, you’re in danger. Do you get that?”
“There’s a state of the art security system just installed by your company,” she said. “No one can get into that house without David and Anna’s knowledge. Isn’t that right? That’s what you told David, wasn’t it?”
He growled, his face turning red, and she tapped him on the chest. “Don’t you growl at me. Was that not what you said?”
“Yes,” he snapped.
“Then I’ll be perfectly safe,” she said.
“I don’t want you doing this,” he said. “You can’t expect me to be okay with my mate putting herself in danger like this.”
A little thrill went through her but she quickly stomped it out. Just because Cooper called her his mate didn’t mean that their problems were solved. They needed to talk about what happened last night. Still, it didn’t stop her from referring to herself as his mate as well. “I expect you to trust that your mate will be smart and not put herself in dangerous situations.”
“This is a dangerous situation.” He wasn’t yelling but he was clearly agitated, and his eyes were starting to transition from blue to yellow. His pupils turned to slits and she waited as he spoke with his lion for nearly thirty seconds before returning to her.
“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “No, it isn’t safe, and we won’t let you do this. No arguing, my mate. It’s for your own protection.”
She laughed in disbelief. “Cooper, are you freaking serious right now? I’m doing this and you can’t stop me.”
“Do you like him? Do you want him as your mate instead of me? I am your mate, little human. Not him. Me.” His voice had deepened and thickened into the rasp of his lion, his eyes had completely changed to dark yellow, and his pupils were slits.
She stroked his chest and his thick arms, petting and soothing him like he was, well… a cat. “I know.”
“Say it,” he demanded, his voice growing thicker and harder to understand. “Say that I am your mate.”
“You’re my mate,” she said, rubbing his chest again. “I’m not interested in David and he isn’t interested in me. You know that. You would smell if we were into each other, right?”
“Maybe.” Cooper looked away and when he returned his gaze to her, it was human Cooper fully in charge again. A very pissed off human Cooper. “Why the hell do you want to tutor some teenage brat anyway?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I need the money.” She dropped her hands from his chest. “Is spending my free time tutoring something I want to do? Maybe not, but I don’t have much of a choice, okay? I have some consumer debt that -”
He snorted angrily. “Maybe if you were better with your money, you wouldn’t need a second job. You didn’t seem to own anything worth shit at your apartment, how the hell did you get consumer debt?”
Hurt washed over like her a tidal wave. She took a step back from Cooper as Grayson’s voice said, “Cooper, enough.”
Cooper was still glaring at her and she turned away, sitting down in her chair and staring at her computer. Grayson stepped up to the reception desk and took Cooper’s arm. “Let’s go, Coop.”
“I’m having a discussion with Daisy,” Cooper said.
“I’m done talking to you,” Daisy said without looking away from her screen.
“Coop, time to leave,” Grayson said.
With another loud growl, Cooper turned and stomped away. She glanced up to see Grayson standing there. “What can I do for you, Grayson?”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Cooper didn’t mean what he said. Sometimes -”
“I have a lot of work to do,” she said.
Grayson looked like he was going to say something else before nodding and leaving reception. Her stomach in knots, her hands shaking, Daisy slumped in her chair and tried to stem the hot tears that wanted free.
* * *
“Buddy, you fucked up.”
“Boone,” Grayson said.
“What? He did. No point in sugar coating it.” Boone took a drink of beer.
“Keep being an asshole, and you won’t be invited to the Wednesday beer nights anymore,” Grayson said.
“One of us needs to be the voice of reason,” Boone said. “He’s a big boy, he can handle the truth that he acted like an idiot with Daisy today.”
“I know. I fucking know, all right?” Cooper crossed the living room, handing a fresh beer to Grayson before he collapsed on the couch and stared moodily at the beer in his hand. “It’s my fucking lion’s fault. He lost his shit when he saw Landon talking to Daisy.�
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“You gotta rein in that possessive jealousy shit,” Boone said. “The ladies hate it.”
“You think I like being this way?” Cooper growled at him. “You think I like being driven crazy by the idea that my mate is in danger or is spending time with another male? Because I fucking don’t. It’s fucking hell and it is taking everything in me not to drive to Landon’s house and carry Daisy the fuck out of there.”
Boone laughed. “Oh my God, if you actually do that, call me. I wanna be there to watch when Daisy kicks you so hard in the nuts, I gotta fish ‘em out of your throat for you.”
“Daisy’s too afraid to do something like that,” Wes said. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and sipped at his whiskey.
“Good point.” Boone tipped his beer to him.
“She’s not afraid anymore,” Grayson said.
“Bullshit,” Boone replied. “Just this afternoon, I could smell her fear when I walked into the kitchen while she was getting a coffee.”
“Correction, she’s not afraid of Cooper anymore,” Gray said.
When Boone and Wes gave him skeptical looks, he shrugged. “It’s true. When I came into reception this afternoon, I heard Cooper’s lion talking to Daisy. He wasn’t exactly being sweet, but there wasn’t a hint of fear coming from her. She was weirdly calm about it.”
Boone sat up straight on the couch and stared at Cooper. “Your lion fucking talked to her?”
“He’s done it twice now,” Coop said.
“Holy shit.” Boone stared at Grayson. “Your cat ever talk to a human before?”
Grayson shook his head and Boone turned to Wes. “You?” He paused. “Shit, what am I saying… your cat probably barely talks to you.”
Wes didn’t reply and Boone sat back, staring again at Cooper. “My tiger never shuts the fuck up and he’s never had the urge to talk to a human.”
“What do you want me to say?” Cooper said. “I don’t know why the fuck he’s doing it, other than he thinks I keep screwing shit up.”
“You kind of are,” Boone said.
“Yeah, thanks,” Coop said.
Boone clinked his bottle against Cooper’s. “Cheer up, buddy. Daisy’s a sweet girl. Say you’re sorry for trying to control her and she’ll forgive you. Then don’t ever fucking do it again.”
“At this point, I don’t even know if she’s coming back home,” Cooper said.
“Eleanor is bringing her back here after she’s finished her tutoring,” Wes said.
“Daisy could ask her to take her to a hotel,” Cooper said.
“True,” Wes acknowledged.
Cooper’s lion whined in misery. He tried to soothe it as Gray leaned forward from his spot in the armchair. “Coop, she’ll come back here. Her stuff is here, and one fight doesn’t mean she’s not going to help you anymore. She doesn’t want you going mad anymore than we do. Forgetting that she needs her job, she likes you. She wants to help you.”
“She did,” Cooper said. “But maybe not now and honestly, I can’t fucking blame her for it.”
“When she comes back, say you’re sorry like Boone suggested, and promise Daisy you won’t interfere in her life again,” Gray said. “It’s the only thing you can do.”
“I’m not sure I can stop my lion – myself – from trying to keep her safe. I don’t want to control her, Gray, I really don’t, but I want to keep her safe,” Coop said.
“She still smells like you, buddy. That’ll keep her safe,” Grayson said.
“It won’t last forever. What if she won’t let me mark her again?” Cooper said.
Grayson took another drink of his beer. “She will, Coop.”
His stomach churning, the hops bitter on his tongue, Cooper stared at the beer bottle. He wished he had the same kind of faith that Gray did, but he was certain he’d lost Daisy forever. Maybe she hadn’t been afraid of him this afternoon, but anytime they were intimate, she certainly was. He wanted to believe that he could just be friends with Daisy and that would be enough, but the part of him that refused to lie, knew better. If he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t have her in his bed, he would go mad.
Chapter Fifteen
“Thanks for helping me, Daisy. I’m sorry I’m so stupid.”
Daisy stopped on the staircase and turned to stare up at Anna. “Stop that. You’re not stupid. Math is a difficult subject for a lot of people. Besides, you’re much better at it than you give yourself credit.”
Anna shrugged and they finished walking down the staircase into the foyer. Daisy had never been in such a large house before. It was a beautiful home with art on the walls that probably cost more than her yearly salary, a tasteful and classic decorating style, and a seemingly endless number of rooms. She’d been sorely tempted to ask Anna just how rich her father was, even knowing how tacky that was.
He had to be a millionaire though, right? No one with a house this size could be anything less than a millionaire. Plus, he had a gardener, a personal chef, and a live-in housekeeper. Neither the gardener nor the personal chef were at the house when Daisy arrived for tutoring, but Anna had introduced her to the housekeeper, Tabitha, before they’d gone to Anna’s room to study.
“Holy crap, how many rooms does this place have anyway?”
The familiar voice had Daisy spinning around to see Eleanor coming from the direction of the kitchen with Tabitha beside her.
Tabitha laughed. “Twenty-seven. Why do you think he hired me to clean?”
“Hey, Daisy!” Eleanor grinned at her as they joined her and Anna in the foyer. “You must be Anna. I’m Eleanor, Daisy’s friend. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Anna said. Her cell phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket, a smile crossing her face as she texted, her thumbs flying across the tiny keyboard.
“Um, what are you doing in here?” Daisy said.
Eleanor laughed. “I got here a little early and Tabitha saw me waiting in the driveway and invited me in.”
“I saw her drop you off, so I knew she was safe and not, like, connected to that crazy shifter stalking Anna,” Tabitha said. The housekeeper was pretty with long blonde hair and light blue eyes, and she looked to be about Daisy’s age.
“Tabitha gave me a tour of the place while we waited and she told me all about her boyfriend,” Eleanor said.
Tabitha laughed. “I’m sorry. It’s a new relationship so I’m totally in that stage where everything he does is magical. Plus, I’ve never dated a shifter before so it’s kind of exciting to me.”
“What kind of shifter is he?” Daisy glanced at Anna.
The young girl was still staring at her phone screen, but her body had gone stiff and her thumbs had stopped moving. She relaxed, her thumbs tapping away again when Tabitha said, “A lynx shifter. He’s so handsome and funny. I can’t believe how lucky I am that I met someone like him.”
“Good for you,” Eleanor said. “We should probably get going, right, Daisy?”
“Yes,” Daisy said. “Anna, I’ll see you tomorrow night, okay?”
“Yup. Thanks again, Daisy.”
“You’re welcome.”
* * *
He was in the shower when she got home. He could hear her in the kitchen even over the sound of the running water. The tension in his shoulders eased but was immediately replaced by nausea in his stomach. What if she was only here to pick up her stuff and leave?
He hurriedly rinsed and turned off the shower, toweling dry in record time and throwing on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. He took the stairs two at a time and hurried into the kitchen. The nausea settled a touch when he saw Daisy reheating some leftovers.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hello.” She opened the microwave and pulled out the plate, stirring the potatoes and poking at the roast beef before setting the plate on the table and sitting down. “You didn’t eat dinner.”
“I wasn’t that hungry,” he said.
She glanced at the six empty beer bottles si
tting on the counter and he said, “I didn’t drink all of those. The guys and me, uh, have a beer together every Wednesday after work. We call it Wednesday beer night. Because we drink beers.”
His lion growled at how stupid he was acting.
I know, I know.
“I wasn’t judging.” She took a bite of potatoes. “Drink as many beers as you want, I don’t have the right to tell you what to do.”
He winced. Fuck, she was still pissed with him which he totally deserved.
“I’m sorry, Daisy,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did about the money thing. That was awful and I am truly sorry.”
She set her fork down and took a sip of water. “What about when you tried to tell me what to do with my life?”
He ran a hand through his wet hair. “I apologize for trying to put my foot down on something that was none of my business, but I won’t apologize for trying to keep you safe. In the future, I will be better at asking you not to do something that puts you in danger, rather than telling you not to do it.”
It was a lame ass apology, but the best he could do. Keeping his mate safe was both his and his lion’s number one priority, and as far as his lion was concerned, Daisy should never leave Cooper’s side.
“In the future,” Daisy said.
Jesus, this was not going well. He decided to skip over the future comment. “Anyway, I’m sorry and I hope you won’t move out.”
“I can’t.” She stared down at her food. “I’m too broke, remember? Poor money management skills.”
He winced. “Daisy, I -”
She pushed her plate away and rubbed at the scar on her arm. “Fuck. I’m sorry. That was a bitchy thing to say.”
“I deserved it,” he said.
“You didn’t,” she sighed. “I don’t have poor money management skills, okay? I have poor judgement when it comes to men.”
“You don’t have to explain,” he said. “It isn’t any of my business.”