by Sable Sylvan
“You’ve already done the one thing you can do,” said Aspen, holding Eleanor’s hands in his. “You’ve made me the happiest bear in the world.” He pulled her close and kissed her again as they
...and they lived happily ever after...
Sneak Peek: Beauty And The Billionaire Bear
Rose had been waiting for her father’s return for weeks: ever since her mother had passed, her father had been the rock that held her family together, even when he was far away, working at the tree farm upstate. Rose ran their small house while her father was away: she’d taken care of her two younger sisters, but even though Eliza and Dory were in high school, she was still their surrogate mom.
Rose looked at the clock: her father was supposed to have arrived home already. He worked three hours away, so he only came back down for the weekends, usually, but he had been working more weekends up at the farm to make extra money. She’d spent hours preparing the family’s favorite foods: for Eliza and Dory, there were Caesar salads, as they were watching their figures, but for Rose and her father, there was a large pot of spaghetti waiting to be drenched in olive oil and pesto sauce.
As Rose blended the pine nuts and mixed them with basil, she frowned. It wasn’t like her father to be late, and she had been looking forward to his return. So were Eliza and Dory: every time their father came back from his job up at the Asher Lumber Mill, he returned with gifts for the family. Eliza and Dory were too young to realize that asking their father for nice handbags wasn’t smart when they were all saving money for the two girls to go to college. Rose had asked for wildflowers from the tree farm instead: her father had told her about how the flowers up there were bigger and brighter than the flowers down in their small town.
“Rose?” said Eliza, walking into the kitchen.
“Hey, Eliza, what’s up?” asked Rose. She looked up: her sister’s eyes looked scared. Rose put down the mixing spoon. “Eliza, honey, what’s wrong?”
“Daddy’s home...and he says he wants to see you,” said Eliza. “He’s in a limo outside.”
Rose wanted to ask Eliza if she was joking, but she knew she wasn’t. She took off her apron and walked out towards the entrance. She was scared but couldn’t let her younger sister see it. “I’ll be right back,” promised Rose.
Rose opened the door: parked on the street was a long, black stretch limo. As she walked towards the car, the window rolled down. “Dad?” she said. She looked around: her father was sitting in the car, his head in his hands. “Dad, what’s going on?”
Rose’s father got out of the car. An older man with greying hair, he was past his prime and looked more harrowed than usual. “I...I really messed up this time, Rose,” said Rose’s father, looking up at her, his eyes red from crying.
“Dad, what did you do?” asked Rose.
“I...I took something that didn’t belong to me, and now, the family might be sued,” said her father. “I’m going to have to go to jail. The Asher Lumber Company said I could see you and the girls one last time, before I go to the station.”
“Dad, they can’t do that, what did you do?” asked Rose.
“I took...this,” said her father. He lifted up his hand: in his hand was a rose, thorns and petals and all, wilted from the car ride. “I know you don’t ask for much, so I took the rose, and I thought you’d like it, but...”
“But it wasn’t his to take,” said a man, exiting the car. Tall, burly, wearing a pair of dark sunglasses even though it was the dead of night, the man in the black suit towered over both Rose and her father. He looked like he belonged at a nightclub in Ann Arbor as a bouncer, not in this Podunk town with her father as his hostage. As much as Rose hated to admit it, he would have been exactly her type...if she’d met him under different circumstances. “Your father is guilty of theft and destruction of property.”
“Over a rose?” asked Rose, going up to the man. He was tall and intimidating, but she wasn’t scared of him. The only thing she feared was losing her father. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t go throwing people into gulags over flowers.”
“It was no ordinary flower,” said the man with a growl, taking the flower out of Rose’s father’s hands. Rose noticed for the first time the marks on the man’s hands, and they sent a shiver down her spine. She knew what the dark paw marks meant: this man was a bear shifter. “And there’s enough footage to put your father away for years, so if I were you, I’d start begging for my forgiveness instead of yelling at me over things you don’t understand, little girl.”
Little girl? Who was he, to call her ‘little girl’? “You have no idea who you are messing with,” said Rose, getting in the man’s face the best she could. “I will do whatever it takes to ensure that you don’t take my father away from me. We have nobody else: you take my father away, and my sisters and I will have nothing. Nothing.”
“You’ll really do whatever it takes?” asked the man, taking off his glasses. His eyes were dark green, the green of the forest at night. He looked over the curvy young woman in front of him: there was no way her name was actually Rose, no way that she was the one he’d looked for, all these years. His cock twitched as he took in her curves and ate her with his eyes. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“No, but I don’t care,” said Rose, frowning at the man who was giving her a once-over. “How much was that flower that my father picked? I’ll take out a loan and pay you back.”
“I doubt you have a quarter of a million dollars in your checking account, sweetheart,” said the man, raising an eyebrow. “But...I can tell you care about your father, so I’ll strike a deal with you.”
“Anything,” said Rose. “I’ll do anything to save my father.”
“Work for me, to work your father’s debt off,” said the man. “And then I’ll forgive the debt.”
“Done,” said Rose.
Rose’s father held her back. “No, Rose, you can’t do this!” he said. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into!”
“Dad, you need to take care of the girls, I won’t be around to do it,” said Rose, looking at her father. “Get a job in town, get them through school. I don’t know when I’ll see you again...but I need you to be there.”
Rose turned back to the big shifter in front of her. “Do you have a name?” she asked.
“You don’t need to know my name,” said the man. “But you can call me...Beast.”
About The Author
I’m Sable Sylvan, and the only thing I love more than reading hot paranormal romances is writing down my fantasies and sharing them with readers like you. My heroes are strong alpha male shifters who can be grizzly and gruff at times...but when it comes to their mates, they turn into absolute teddy bears. The curvy heroines in my stories are strong, sassy women, and that’s why the bear shifter men who love them will do anything for their fated mates.
My books are available exclusively on Amazon, so check out my author page at www.amazon.com/author/SableSylvan to check out my full catalog anywhere, anytime. All my books are available for FREE under the Kindle Unlimited borrowing program (it’s like Netflix, but for books). If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on its page!
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Bear-y Spicy Fairy Tales
Goldilocks And The Three Bear Shifters
Little Red Riding Bears
Three Grizzlies Gruff
The Shifter Princes
Shifterella And The Billionaire Bear
Beauty And The Billio
naire Bear
Sleeping BBW And The Billionaire Bear
Rapunzel And The Billionaire Bear
Seattle’s Billionaire Bears
Rumpled Bear Skin (coming soon)