JAYDEN (MC Bear Mates Book 9)
Page 18
Her eyes went too wide. They were very dark, he could see, darker even than he remembered his mother’s had been.
“When you see the bear up close, touch him, let him sniff you, you will see he’s no threat to you, and then you will be able to trust me.”
“Did you shift for your last assistant too?”
“Yes.” He didn’t want to think about Marsha and the trouble around her family, so he said, “Enough of that. These guys have everything under control. Why don’t we go grab a coffee and I’ll try to explain a little more of the job to you?”
“That would be appreciated.” She moved to follow him and stumbled, catching her weight on the desk. “Shit.”
The muttered curse amused him. It was something Marsha would do. “What’s wrong?”
She bent over and slipped her shoe from her foot. Her toe nails were gold. The shoe she held up seemed okay at first, and then he noticed that the heel had come away from the base of the shoe.
“Shit,” he agreed with a smile.
She started to smile, and then it wobbled—and then she broke down crying. Around them, workers glanced up, nervous or curious. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her to the back where the office was. He closed the door on the onlookers and let her cry.
“They were really nice shoes,” he offered. “I bet you could get it repaired.” He’d had a few pairs of his favorite dress shoes resoled, so he was sure the heel of her shoe could be glued back on.
“It’s not just the shoes,” she said as the sobs receded to sniffles. “I was running late this morning and traffic hated me, and I was so nervous about this job. No matter what my father says about this not being an opportunity to prove myself, I just know he’ll lock me behind that damned desk in front of his office until he dies if I mess this up. And then I make a complete fool of myself in the first minutes of my new job and …”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said. “You are not a fool.” He sighed and ran his hands through his dark hair. Their hair was almost the same color, he realized. Standing so close to her, he’d also gotten a deep breath of her scent, mostly floral from the products she used in her hair with an undercurrent of laundry soap. Being a werebear allowed him to notice these things and made it almost impossible for him to ignore. “How did you get here?”
“Car,” she said. “I parked in the lot across the street.”
“Okay, look, how about I bring the car around for you and give you a lift home? We’ll postpone coffee until tomorrow morning. Work starts at six. Can you be there at five if I send you home early?”
She nodded. “How will you get home?”
“I’ll take a taxi from your place to City Hall and drive myself home from there.”
“Oh, I don’t want you to have to pay for a taxi.”
“I’m a billionaire,” he said. “I can afford to take the taxi on occasion.” He held out his hand, palm up, and waited.
She dug through the mess inside her purse and came up with a set of car keys which she dropped into his hand.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The mayor can’t exactly go around stealing cars.”
She managed a smile through the tears.
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Also by Becca Fanning
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I try to release at least one new shifter romance novel each month, but here are some fan favorites:
MC Bear Mates (think Sons of Anarchy but Bear Shifters) :
MARS (Free!)
MUNDO
KIKO
Justiss And Graver
MAJOR
CHRIS
SPYDER
JARVIS
JAYDEN (coming soon)
Big Easy Bears (politics and Fated Mates all tangled together in New Orleans) :
Brock
Jules
Jane (coming soon)
Shifter Royal Dynasty (House of Cards meets Game of Thrones in this modern Roma Royalty saga):
Legacy
Prophecy
Destiny
Shifter Football League (bear shifters fighting on the field and falling in love off it!):
Gabriel
Kenny
Dustin
Standalone Novels
Made Bear
Bear Fallout
Battle Scarred
My Secret To Bear