Matched with the Bear: A Shifter Dating Agency Romance

by Ruby Forrest

  He was the sweetest, most intelligent, delectable man she had ever met in her life, but there was something her gut was telling her that just didn’t fit in with his whole persona. Perhaps it was the way he acted whenever one of his brothers called. Brett would take that call into another room and close the door. He didn’t do that with any other call. He made hundreds of work calls a day and each one of them he allowed her to listen in on as though there was nothing at work to hide. But whenever she saw one of his brother’s names flash up on the screen, he would skulk off and click his study door closed. She had asked him a couple of times what the matter was with them, but he had brushed her off with a simple answer like, ‘Oh, Stetson just had a few questions about this or that’ and ‘Darian wanted to know where he can get such and such’. There was something about the offhandedness of his answers that made Bronte feel uneasy. He was definitely hiding something and she could not figure out what it was.

  She had considered that he had changed the names in his contacts so that he could secretly talk to other women, but he never went out of his way to hide his phone from her. He had even given her his passcode in case she ever needed to use it for an emergency or her own died while she was over at his place. She had been tempted several times to look through his messages, but she knew that was not a good idea and she didn’t feel right doing it to him. He will tell me whatever it is when he is ready, she told herself sternly. She didn’t want to find it out through detective work. She wanted him to want to be open and honest with her organically. She didn’t want to force his hand by attempting to find it out without his knowledge or approval.

  It wasn’t until one Friday evening when she had thought he was away on a business trip that the doorbell to her apartment dinged and she realized that something really was going on behind her back. She answered the door curiously. She hadn’t been expecting anyone but for all she knew it could have been one of her neighbors wanting to borrow a cup of sugar or something stupid.

  To her surprise, she found Robert stood on her doorstep wearing his usual grin

  “Miss Welch,” he greeted her before she had the chance to speak, her mouth gaping open at the sight of him. “Mr. Hardy asked me to collect you. He requests that you wear this.”

  With that he held up the dry-cleaning bag that held a long silk, burgundy dress inside. It was the most gorgeous garment Bronte had ever seen in her life. She reached out to touch the beautiful fabric. “Oh, I couldn’t. It’s beautiful.”

  Robert smiled, knowingly. “A beautiful dress for a beautiful lady. Mr. Hardy has excellent taste. In all things.”

  Bronte laughed, enjoying his teasing tone. “He does, doesn’t he?”

  Robert simply nodded. She took the bag carefully from him. Before going into the bathroom, she paused. But what shoes will I wear?”

  Robert intelligently stayed silent.

  Chapter 8

  Bronte didn’t have any idea where Robert was taking her, but the truth was that she didn’t care. All she knew was that soon she would be reunited with Brett. She had only left him the night before, and yet it felt as though she hadn’t seen him in weeks. Her heart ached for him and her skin craved his touch. She sat in the back of the Cadillac feeling as though she was a million dollars as Robert drove them quickly down street after street. She looked through the tinted windows watching the buildings go by, attempting to figure out where they were going. Quickly, she realized that she just didn’t have a clue. She had never been great with directions or locations. Relaxing back into the soft leather, she simply let her mind wander on what it might be. She loved that Brett was always up for surprising her. She’d never had anyone that attempted to make her so happy, and she felt like a princess.

  When they pulled up to the front of The Grand Hotel, Bronte had to crane her neck to see the top of the building. It was a shining black diamond in the middle of the city that shone so brightly, it made her gape in amazement.

  Robert climbed out of the driver’s seat and came around to pull open the door for her.

  “Miss Welch,” he murmured gently as he offered her his hand. Star-struck for a moment, Bronte hesitated before taking hold of Robert’s hand and allowing him to help her from the backseat.

  “Thank you, Robert,” she told him warmly as he closed the door behind her. Then, he turned to her and offered her the crook of his elbow. With a burgundy smile, Bronte took hold of his arm and allowed him to lead her up the steps to the gold front door of the hotel.

  The second they stepped up to the doors, the doormen pushed open the heavy gold and glass door and greeted them with a smile and a brief nod, holding the doors open to allow them both into the lobby of the hotel. Bronte half-expected Robert to lead her around to the restaurant at the other end of the room but she was surprised when he led her over to the bank of elevators.

  “Why, Robert, where are you taking me?” She raised her eyebrows playfully at him and saw the corner of Robert’s mouth twitch upwards in the beginning of a smile.

  “Miss Welch, I wouldn’t ever presume to ruin a surprise that Mr. Hardy has worked so hard to prepare. Not if I wanted to live to tell about it,” Robert joked as he smiled at her, leading her into the elevator. “Please allow me to press the button for you. Mr. Hardy shall be waiting for you.”

  With that, Robert stepped back out of the elevator and turned to give her another smile as the door began to slide closed between them. There was something in the way the older man’s eye glinted that told her he knew something she didn’t, and it made her heart skip a beat as she wondered what would be waiting for her when the elevator stopped.

  She stood in the middle of the elevator, her entire body shaking with anticipation as she wondered what it was going to be like to find herself face to face with Brett again. The minutes had turned to hours when she’d left him and every second she was away from him caused her heart to ache all the more. She had never felt such heartache before, never felt the need to be with someone twenty four seven, until now.

  She had expected the doors to open into a hallway or even a room, maybe even the penthouse, and she found herself shocked again as the doors opened to the sensation of a gentle breeze. The bright lights of the city opened out before her as she stepped out onto the rooftop of the hotel.

  She was about to press the button for the ground floor, wondering whether Robert had pressed the wrong button, when Brett appeared in front of her. He looked even more magnificent than the last time she had seen him. He was wearing a charcoal grey suit and a burgundy tie that matched her own dress. In his hand, he held a single burgundy rose which he offered to her as he spoke gently, “Bronte. You look beautiful.”

  Bronte couldn’t help but smile and giggle like a little school girl as she stepped out onto the roof of the building to stand before him. She took the rose from him, careful not to crush it. It looked so delicate, it’s stem completely free of any thorns.

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she said, thanking him as she pressed her nose against the silky petals and sniffed the scent of the sweetest rose she had ever smelled in her life. “It is lovely. This is all so beautiful.”

  “Almost as beautiful as the woman it is for,” Brett told her as he gestured for her to follow him over to the sitting area behind him. It wasn’t at all as she expected. Instead of a table, it was a large square deck covered in a large gray matt, decorated with red and silver cushions. The long, low table beside it was covered in bowls of fruit, platters of cheese and cold meats, and a bottle of port that probably cost more than Bronte’s car. At the center of the table was an empty crystal vase which Bronte assumed was for the rose he had just handed her. She leaned forward and placed the flower in the glass before she turned back to Brett.

  “I thought you were out of town for the weekend?” she asked him curiously. She couldn’t help but wonder why he would have lied to her about something like that. Was he lying about other things?

  “I was supposed to be,” Brett shru
gged his shoulders. “The client I was supposed to be meeting has taken ill and asked to rearrange so I thought I would take the time to surprise you.”

  “Well, you certainly have surprised me,” Bronte admitted and smiled as Brett offered her his hand. He helped her down onto the cushions, her fingers wrapping around his own greedily. He slid onto the cushions beside her and picked up the bottle of port to pop open the cork.

  “This was the last place I expected to end up,” she said, still amazed by his planned surprise. She looked up at the fairy lights that hung over their heads, their white-cream light offering the perfect amount of ambient lighting. “How did you pull this off?”

  “It’s not all that difficult when you own the hotel,” Brett said, speaking as though it was nothing out of the ordinary to own an entire hotel and, not for the first time, Bronte was taken aback by just how rich he was. She often forgot that he was a billionaire until he did something that made her realize she could never afford it. No one she even knew could do something like this, and that made her feel special but also a little taken aback by things that she wasn’t even sure she could understand. She couldn’t imagine owning a hotel. The responsibility, the risk it would take to invest in something like it.

  “You never cease to amaze me,” Bronte admitted as he handed her a glass of port.

  “I thought you would prefer this to the scotch,” Brett chuckled, clinking his own glass against hers and took a drink. She’d made it no secret that she didn’t appreciate the dark flavor of the scotch that he drank, and they’d laughed about it on occasion.

  “You thought right,” Bronte replied as she pressed the glass to her lips and took a sip. The liquid was like nothing she had ever tasted before. It was rich and full and strong, and she loved it as it slipped down her throat.

  “Bronte,” Brett he said softly, saying her name in such a tone that it caused her entire body to tingle. She turned her gaze to look at him, curious.

  “Yes, Brett?” she replied seductively, and she was almost sure she saw a quiver run through his own body. He seemed to shake it off, trying to focus on whatever he was prepared to tell her. She was suddenly nervous.

  “I have something I need to tell you,” Brett began, and Bronte’s breath caught in her throat. She was about to open her mouth to ask him what it was when suddenly a loud buzzing began to chime from his breast pocket.

  “Damn it,” he snapped as he pushed his hand into his pocket and produced his phone. Bronte watched as his face dropped and when he turned to look at her there was a guarded expression on his face. He sighed. “Please excuse me a moment. I need to take this.”

  Frustration overwhelmed Bronte as he pushed himself to his feet and headed over to the flat side of the roof. She tried to listen as he began to whisper angrily into the phone but she couldn’t hear anything. She wondered who might be on the phone that he wouldn’t allow her to hear him talking to.

  It was a few minutes before he finally ended the call with an aggravated click to the screen and made his way back over to her.

  “I am so sorry about that,” he told her as he dropped his big frame back down onto the cushions beside her and pushed his phone back into his pocket. “I forgot to put it on silent.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Bronte replied as she tried her best to quash the feeling of uneasiness that was burying itself in her gut.

  “Bronte, I have something I need to tell you,” Brett repeated and for a moment Bronte believed she was going to find out finally what he had been hiding from her. Part of her wanted to raise her hand and silence him, to tell him that she didn’t need to know what it was and that the fact he wanted to tell her the truth was enough for her. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to do so. She had to know the truth. She needed to know what he had been hiding from her all these months.

  “What is it?” Bronte asked, trying to ignore the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

  “Bronte, I have never felt about anybody the way I feel about you. I can’t stand to be away from you. My heart aches when you aren’t around. You are all I can think about every hour of every day.” He was telling her everything she had ever wanted to hear from him, but it wasn’t at all what she had been expecting. She had been expecting answers to why he had been being so secretive. It seemed that wasn’t what she was going to get, and she was trying to decide if this secret that he’d been hiding was enough of a reason to negate all the beautiful things he was saying, and she was feeling. She did care about him, so much. But she knew that she needed complete honesty. Anything less, and this would never work between them.

  “I…I’m sorry,” she stammered as she raised herself to her feet. She looked down at his familiar handsome face. She’d brushed away the urge to sweep his hair back, a habit she’d gotten into lately. “I can’t do this.”

  Before Brett could stop her, she was stumbling on wobbling legs to the elevator.

  “Bronte, wait!” he yelled after her but she did not stop until she was in the elevator and the doors were sliding shut behind her.

  The last thing Brett had expected was for Bronte to run out on him. With the way she had been acting, he had believed that she felt the same way as he did. It seemed he had believed wrong, but he could not bring himself to allow her to run right out of his life and so he found himself racing down the fire exit steps, praying his inhuman speed would help him reach the ground floor before her.

  It seemed that was not meant to be. Bronte hit the front doors just as he slammed his way out of the fire exit and he was just in time to see her take the steps two at a time. He skidded to a halt and watched her go, knowing that it was too late. He had let her slip through his fingers. Nausea rose inside him as he thought of what he had lost. It wasn’t until the white van pulled up to the sidewalk that he felt true despair.

  The moment the two men burst out of the back of the van he started to run. He scrambled past shocked hotel guests as he tried desperately to reach her in time. Deep down, he knew that he was not fast enough in his human form but what else could he do? He couldn’t transform in the middle of the street. He found himself wishing for the freedom of his bear form to reach her in time.

  Bronte’s scream ripped into his ear drums as she was jostled into the back of the van. His heart dropped, his breathing getting tight with his fear for her.

  “No!” Brett shouted but his words went unheard as the doors were slammed shut and the van screeched away from the curb.

  All he could do was stand and watch helplessly as the van sped away around the corner. Dread overwhelmed him for a moment. The love of his life had been taken from him. She was in mortal danger and he could think of nothing else. And he could have saved her, but his hands had been tied because of the secret he’d been unable to share with her. His fists clenched, wishing not for the first time that he could just be completely honest with her. He wanted to scream the truth, to confess everything to her. But it still wouldn’t get her back.

  His mind raced, trying to think of why she had been taken. He had enemies in the business world, but no one that he thought would go to these extremes, and certainly not against someone that wasn’t himself. A flicker of doubt niggled in his head, wondering if she’d been taken for ransom. His celebrity status garnered him a certain about of attention in the press and tabloids, and he couldn’t keep them from reporting on the things he’d bought and the trips he’d taken. He didn’t think it was a surprise that he was wealthy, but neither had he considered it would endanger Bronte’s life.

  He thought about contacting the police but knew that they were going to act much slower than he would be able to alone. The last thing he needed was to have the police involved where he couldn’t shift if he needed to. He didn’t want a repeat of the situation that had just happened – knowing he could have prevented Bronte from being taken but forced to stay in his human form. A helpless form.

  In the next moment, he did the only thing he could do. He grab
bed his phone from his pocket and called his brothers.

  ***

  Bronte was terrified. Never in her wildest dreams could she have ever imagined that she would be grabbed off the streets and thrown into the back of a van with a blindfold placed violently over her eyes. And yet, there she was with her hands bound behind her back, the restraints digging into the delicate flesh of her wrists. She wiggled them, testing the strength of the bonds, but winced as she felt the firm strands dig into her soft skin.

  Before she knew it, she was being jostled around again and she cried out in terror as she was thrown over somebody’s shoulder.

  “Stop your fucking wriggling,” snapped the man who was carrying her. His tone grew even deeper. “Or I will make you regret it.”

  Her body quivered with fear, not wanting to know what exactly the man was threatening. Bound and blindfolded, there really wasn’t much she could do, and her body was starting to tremble with the realization that she was helpless.

  Another man’s voice hit her ears as she was thrown down onto what felt like a mattress. “You sure she is the right one?”

  Bronte felt sick to her stomach. They weren’t going to rape her, were they? She thought back onto all those news shows that she’d seen, hearing about the single women that had been brutally treated and abused while no one knew where they were. She hoped that Brett at least had seen her being taken. He was her only prayer right now, the only one that even had a chance of saving her.

  “We saw her on the roof with him from the next building over,” the first man explained to the other. “She is definitely the one from the photo. Pretty little thing too.”

  That’s when somebody crouched down in front of her and she felt them grip hold of her chin. “You are a pretty one. He will pay handsomely if he wants to see you again.”