by Vivi Andrews
“Jealous?” he asked softly.
She lifted her chin regally and ignored the taunt. “What’s up there?”
He grinned with undisguised anticipation. “Come on.” He took her hand again and led her up the steps to the master suite.
He watched her, wanting to catch her reaction when she saw the wall of windows that gave the illusion they were truly perched in the trees, but Lila’s gaze snagged on the giant four-poster bed and refused to budge. Her scent grew stronger and, with the bed so close, he had to remind himself that this was about forever, not just short-term gratification.
She cleared her throat, her face flaming, not meeting his eyes. “Is there another level?”
So scared to want him, his cowardly little lioness. If he pushed her now, he would push her away, so Santiago drew her up past the next level—a sitting room that could easily be turned into a nursery should the need arise—and out the door to the last two stories, a spiraling deck open to the sky.
She immediately slipped her hand free of his and crossed to the railing, gasping as she looked out over the magnificent view. He didn’t mind the loss of her touch, even the most possessive aspect of his cat satisfied by just having her here, in his space, admiring his work.
He leaned a hip against the railing at her side and breathed in her scent mixing with his, fighting the urge to purr.
“When you said you designed vacation homes, I had no idea you meant a place like this.”
“I started out more traditionally,” he admitted. “I liked to make them fit their settings, but I’d never done anything on this scale until a couple years ago. One of my favorite clients asked me if I’d be willing to design a playhouse for her daughter. Something magical. I agreed, just for the hell of it, and wound up enjoying the project so much I designed several options for her. I think that seven-year-old was my most demanding client ever. She ended up picking the princess castle, complete with a tower for her to be imprisoned by imaginary witches.”
“And wait for Prince Charming.”
“No doubt. Long story short, I used a photo of the castle in some advertising and more of my clients began asking for getaways with a more fantastical twist. When I decided to build my own, this was what I came up with.”
“Look at you, city boy. Who knew you had this in you? You always seemed so serious.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not at all. I just didn’t know you had a playful side.”
He hadn’t, until he met her. “Do you remember the first time we met?”
Lila looked away, then shifted away from him, wandering across to explore the next level of the deck. “I don’t know.”
He trailed after her, but let her have her space. “It was five years ago. In the summer. You were playing football and you were a couple short so you talked Mateo and me into joining, do you remember?”
“Nope, sorry.” But still she didn’t meet his eyes.
“I think you taught me how to play that day,” Santiago went on, prowling up behind her on the deck. “Unlocked it in me.”
“Good,” she said with artificial cheer. “We all need a little more fun in our lives.”
He put his back to the railing beside her, close enough to feel the heat of her body and breathe in the scent of her, though he still didn’t touch her. “What about you, Lila? Is your life full of fun?”
“Of course.” But she didn’t look at him, casting her gaze out over the forest.
He knew he should give her space, respect her desire to be just friends, her fear of anything more, but having her here, in his home, her scent tangling with his, it made him want to wrap his arms around her and never let her go. If he didn’t touch her he would go mad. Santiago coiled a lock of her hair around his finger. “What do you say, Lila Fallon? Do I know you well enough to be allowed to kiss you again? It could be fun.”
“Please, don’t.” She twisted away, putting the width of the deck between them. “I’m marrying Roman.”
Irritation surged through him. “Why?”
“Excuse me?”
He prowled after her, the cat pushing against the inside of his skin. “Just answer me that. Tell me why you’re marrying him and I won’t bother you again.”
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep that bargain, but it didn’t matter anyway. She was shaking her head, backing away from him. “I don’t have to answer that.” She escaped to the lower deck, turning and darting toward the door.
“No, you don’t.” It was instinct more than thought that had him surging up behind her, reaching past her shoulder to slap both palms on the door, caging her between him and the wood. She went still, the hot, sweet scent of her killing him breath by breath. She didn’t love Roman. Santiago knew that with every beat of his heart. The idea of letting her go back to him made his every animal instinct revolt. “I have one last question for you before you go running back to him. Not for me, this answer is for you alone.”
She turned her head and met his gaze from a distance of inches, tipping her chin back defiantly. “Yes?”
“Are you happy? With him, with this life you say is all you want? Are. You. Happy?”
Anger flashed in her eyes, bright and hot. “It isn’t your job to fix me.”
“No,” he agreed. “But it breaks my heart to think of you broken.”
“Why? What’s so freaking special about me?”
“Everything.” He didn’t know why but Lila had unlocked something in him, supernovas of emotion. He cupped her jaw. “Don’t you see that? You’re like the only star burning in the solar system, lighting up everything around you, making everything you touch come alive. The moon, the planets—none of them would have any light or color without you.”
She sucked in a ragged gasp. Something melted in her eyes and for a second he thought she would lean into him, that she would take what he was offering, that this would be the moment when Lila Fallon was finally, irrevocably his.
But then a shadow fell across her gaze and her eyelashes flicked down.
“That isn’t me,” she whispered. “You built this whole fantasy around a girl you played football with five years ago. I could have been anyone.”
“Bullshit. It’s you, Lila. Do you think I don’t know the difference? I did everything I could to try to make myself stop wanting you.”
She looked up, meeting his eyes again. “Try harder.”
The finality of the words echoed through him. Failure tasted vile, bitter and sour.
The gates he’d opened for her, the ones behind which he usually hid all that teeming emotion, snapped closed, layers of steel veiling his eyes. He stepped back, dropping his hands from her, his jaw working. “We should get you back. They’ll be missing you.”
She nodded, not meeting his eyes, and darted inside, running away. Always running away from anything she might want.
He couldn’t stay, he realized. Not if she picked Roman. He just wouldn’t be able to do it. He’d sell the house. There was no point in it without her. He’d leave, and he wouldn’t look back. It would be his only hope of staying sane, if sanity hadn’t abandoned him long ago. The second he saw Lila Fallon.
He tracked her scent through the house and out the front door, locking it behind him. She stood beside the Land Rover, her back to him, staring at the ground, everything in her posture rejecting him, rejecting this place.
He could talk until he was blue in the face, but she wouldn’t hear him. She would always pick duty. And he would have to go.
Chapter Seven
Lila was stalking her best friend.
She hadn’t seen Patch in almost a week—which made sense if she was going through her heat. She was probably hiding out as much as possible, but Lila had been patient and given her space for as long as she could manage. She needed advice. Someone to screw her head on straight because she was quietly losing her mind.
For the last week she’d played the part of good little fiancée, meeting up with Roman for regular “
dates” which still hadn’t progressed beyond the excruciatingly awkward stage.
Her mother was determined to begin wedding preparations and though Lila had managed to come up with excuses to postpone each of her mother’s many attempts to take her wedding dress shopping, she hadn’t been able to avoid the repeated lectures on responsibility and duty and the overwhelming importance of pride stability during times of crisis.
The pride depended on the solidarity of its primary couple. The pride depended on tradition in times of uncertainty. The pride depended on her.
So she’d avoided Santiago like the plague, taking long indirect routes through the main compound so she didn’t have to be anywhere near the apartment complex where he was staying.
Her just friends plan had backfired. She couldn’t see him now without thinking of a dozen questions she didn’t want to answer, about his amazing home, how it had been saturated in his scent and she’d just wanted to stay there and wallow in it for the rest of her life—and about the kiss that refused to leave the back of her mind, rising up at the most inconvenient moments to taunt her.
And then, perversely, she’d find herself annoyed that she was able to avoid him. That he hadn’t tracked her down for another attempt. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Some distance? For him to stop pushing? So why was she so disappointed when he let her stay away? Why did she constantly find herself fantasizing about him cornering her, sweeping her up and changing her mind with a kiss? She couldn’t have him. So why did she still want him to want her even as she dodged him?
She was a mess. And Patch, the one person she wanted to see, hadn’t been anywhere to be found. She wouldn’t even take Lila’s calls.
So Lila was tracking her.
She prowled through the main compound, visiting all Patch’s old haunts, but the cougar was nowhere to be seen, the buildings crowded with the pride’s bulging population. It wasn’t until Lila started north on the same path she and Patch had taken after the All Pride meeting that she caught the first hint of a scent trail. She followed it, her steps moving faster as it grew stronger until she was jogging as it veered into the forest.
She found Patch up in a tree, her sleek cougar form draped over a sturdy branch. Her tail twitched, but she made no move to come down, not even opening her eyes at Lila’s approach.
Lila had never been much of a climber, and even if she had been, she needed to talk, which they couldn’t do if she shifted and climbed up there after Patch. So she stood below and tipped her head up.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she accused lightly. “I realize you probably want to get away from all the activity at the pride, and I know I’m a high maintenance pain in the ass, but you’re stuck with me so you might as well come down and talk to me. I’m not going anywhere.”
The cougar opened her eyes at that, blinking sleepily, but still not moving.
“Patch? You okay?” Lila called up.
Patch shifted at that, reaching behind her to where she’d tucked her clothes into a crook of the tree. Lila brushed off a fallen log and perched on it as Patch dressed and dropped out of the tree to land nimbly at her side. “I thought you and Roman had a date this afternoon.”
“He cancelled,” Lila said. She shouldn’t have been relieved when she didn’t have to spend an hour with her fiancé, but she had been. “Seemed like the perfect opportunity to track you down. I’ve missed you, Patricia Marie.”
Patch sighed heavily. “Lila, we should talk.”
“My thoughts exactly. You look exhausted. Your heat wearing you out?” Lila knew from experience that the shots to prevent conception did nothing to control the cravings. The hormones could make it impossible to sleep, the restlessness clawing through her body all night.
“You could say that.” Patch sat on the ground at Lila’s feet. “Lila, about Roman… I know you said I could have at him, but would you hate me if I…if we…”
Lila blinked, startled. “Are you guys hooking up?” Roman hadn’t said a word. Though they weren’t exactly on comfortable speaking terms.
Patch blushed.
“Is it serious?” She felt another surge of relief-guilt at the idea that she might not have to marry Roman after all.
“No. It’s just a fling. Sowing wild oats, like you said.” Patch groaned and flopped onto the ground. “This officially makes me the worst friend ever, doesn’t it? I’m getting it on with your fiancé. That is so wrong.”
“If it were a normal marriage, I’m sure I’d claw your eyes out, but you know how it is.” She studied Patch. Did her best friend have feelings for Roman? Was it more than just a fling? “Are you going to be okay with it if I go ahead with the wedding?”
Patch’s head snapped up at that. “If?”
“Santiago asked me why I was marrying Roman and I didn’t know. It’s one of those questions I’ve never really let myself think about. Because it’s what I’ve always expected I would do. But I can’t seem to figure out if it’s what I want to do anymore. For the good of the pride, I guess.” Lila drew a circle in the dirt with one toe. “Do you think it really makes a difference to the pride if I marry Roman?”
Patch was silent for a long moment. Lila wanted her to say no. To say there would be no consequences if she just ran off and did whatever the hell she wanted with no thought to the pride, for a change. Really, would the pride fall apart if she and Roman didn’t get married?
“I don’t know,” Patch finally answered, the words pulled from her slowly. “People are worried. The question of whether we might come out to the humans, the risk of being abducted by fucking scientists—it makes the traditions more important. The Alpha needs a lioness mate, and if you and Roman are already in place as the logical successors, that means no power void if anything happens to your father. Which means no dominance challenges and fighting within the pride. No factions. No bloodshed.”
“But if I walk away…”
“It throws Roman’s position as successor into question. Someone might challenge him when your father steps down. Or see it as a weakness in the power structure and challenge your father for dominance right away. He’s strong, but he’s not as young as he once was. There are a lot of new nomads coming in. Some of them are lions who might be ambitious enough to think they can take over the pride.”
“So not total Armageddon, just the chance that some strange lion might try to assassinate my father. Right.” Sometimes it sucked that Patch was always honest with her. She really would have liked a lie.
“Sorry.”
“Yeah.” Lila tipped her face up and looked at the pine boughs overlapping above her. The view reminded her of Santiago’s house. “Are you happy, Patch?”
“What?”
“Are you happy? Santiago asked me that and I just went blank. I feel like I used to be happy. We had fun, didn’t we? Before everything was about mates and alliances and the good of the pride.”
“Yeah, we always had fun.”
“My life isn’t full of fun anymore. Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect that it would be. Like when you grow up, that’s it, the fun’s over. But is that how it has to be? I feel like my life has been nothing but waiting for the last year. The perpetual holding pattern. And no one to blame but myself. I chose this. I’m the one who sits around in suspended animation, waiting for my life to begin rather than going out and getting it. Rather than looking at what I really want.”
“It’s starting now,” Patch said. “You’re getting married.”
I don’t want to get married. She couldn’t make herself say it out loud. “Yeah.”
Lila came down off the log and stretched out beside Patch on the ground, not caring if it ruined her dress. Side by side, they stared up at the canopy in silence, shoulders brushing.
“I lied to Santiago,” Lila admitted softly. “I don’t even know why I did it.” Because it felt safer, probably, hiding the truth.
“What did you lie about?” Patch asked.
“He asked me if I remembered the d
ay we met and I said no.”
Patch turned her head, frowning. “That must have been years ago.”
“It was. We were playing football and I made him and Mateo join us. Remember?”
“Not really, but it sounds like something you would do.”
Lila remembered that day with crystalline clarity. How she’d been aware of his gaze the second it had touched her. How she’d played harder and laughed louder with him watching. How she’d used the flimsy excuse of two shifters leaving their make-shift game to cajole him into joining them. The way his eyes had laughed into hers across the line of scrimmage even though his mouth had stayed serious. And that moment, that unforgettable moment when he’d lifted her off her feet and taken them both to the ground and suddenly it hadn’t been play anymore.
In that instant she’d felt the weight of something else, his intent, no longer playful, a line no one else had ever dared cross with her being breached. With him, for the first time, flirtation hadn’t been a game. It had been foreplay.
And that scared the shit out of her. Because she couldn’t let herself want him. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
“Silly thing to lie about,” she mumbled.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Patch said idly. “He’ll be gone soon anyway.”
Lila’s head snapped to the side. “What did you say?”
“Santiago. He’s relocating to Seattle. Didn’t he mention it?”
No. That couldn’t be right. He wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t stir her up and twist her in knots and then just vanish. “You must have heard him wrong.”
“Maybe.” But Patch didn’t sound like she thought that was likely.
Lila’s thoughts reeled.
He’d kissed her. He’d said he wanted to kiss her again. He wouldn’t just up and leave after that. Though what had she done? She’d rejected him. She’d told him to stop. Told him she was marrying Roman. Avoided him. Run like hell. Why should he stay?