by Maria Amor
As he waited to hear from Ben, Alex thought about what Daphne would be doing. She would have made it to the spa by now and the aesthetician would have led her back, started the first of the treatments that she was scheduled to receive: a soak in a fragrant bath of flowers and essential oils. Alex smiled to himself. Daphne, his nymph, his ‘little honeybee’ would enjoy every moment of the day at the spa, he knew. If only he could be there with her to watch, to see her slowly, steadily sinking into deeper and deeper relaxation. He had worked with the spa in the past and they knew him well. It was owned by a friend of the family, another werebear by the name of Regina. Alex had given her the capital to open the business. If he had wanted to accompany Daphne, if he had wanted to have a few private moments with her, Regina would have been happy to arrange it for him.
Alex’s phone rang, the screen lit up flashing Ben’s contact details. Alex picked it up and tapped the accept icon. “Tell me you’ve sorted it out and you can give me an exact picture of Eric’s next moves.” He heard Ben inhale on the other end of the line, exhale slowly.
“He was definitely behind Daphne getting fired. I got into her boss’ email and found the message from one of his dummy emails, with a picture of you and her kissing in a park somewhere.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, please.” Alex gritted his teeth. Ben was on the scent, he knew, if he’d managed to get into Amelia’s email, he was on a trail; a trail that led straight back to Eric.
“He’s submitted pictures, all kinds of info to about a dozen of the scandal rags. It’s going to be impossible for Daphne to get a job for a while, at least in the nonprofit sector for sure. Her name is going to be everywhere. Heard from a contact at the Herald that most of the big local papers are sending paparazzi out to find her, figure things out about her.”
“So he’s coming at me through her.”
“There’s plenty of mud to go around. You’re going down with her. Scandal like this could drive the stock down, you know?”
“It’s unlikely,” Alex said, shrugging it off. “I mean after all, I’m a bachelor hanging out with a single woman. Hardly a mystery.” Still, he felt the tension come over him, felt the tingling deep down. Daphne was going to be hounded by the press.
“They’re going to try and dig up information on you, too.” Alex sighed. That was a fair point. Eric could feed the press all kinds of details about his life. “From what I’ve been able to get a lock on so far, he’s started up a blog, innocuous posts to begin with but he’s building up. He’s got a plan. He’s going to destroy you in the press, drive down Oberon stock, and maybe take his chances then.”
“He can only go so far with that, though.” Alex thought of the deepest secrets he had to keep, most of them were secrets that Eric was implicated in every bit as much. “If he exposes me the way he wants to, he’ll end up shooting himself in the foot.”
“I’m not sure he cares about that right now, to tell you the truth.” Ben sounded weary, resigned. “He can get away with a lot of shit as long as he doesn’t go into specifics.”
“And in the meantime, he drives a wedge between me and the woman I love.” Alex could imagine Ben nodding on the other end of the line.
“She’s going to have a rough time of it. You said she already knows?” Even over the phone, the shifter community didn’t like to discuss in particular their secrets; it was too easy for calls to be intercepted. There were shifters at every level of government, in all walks of life. It was possible that an intercepted call or email could be used as blackmail.
“She saw herself. No use denying it then.”
“How’s she taking it?”
Alex shrugged. “She’s still working on it. She loves me. Hates me spending money on her. She’s met Mom, so she knows I’m serious.”
“But she hasn’t…”
“No, I haven’t told her.”
“Dude, you have to tell her soon. She’s got to know.”
“I know, I know. I’ll see if I can get a warning to her about the press. Thanks for the heads up. You find anything else out, let me know any time, Ben, day, night, morning, noon… any hints you get, let me know. We have to stay ahead of him.”
“That’s why you’re paying me, right?” Before Alex could answer, Ben hung up.
For a long moment, Alex sat at his desk, staring at his phone, trying to decide the best way to deal with what was about to happen to him and Daphne. He’d weathered scandals in the press before. Growing up the son of a billionaire gave him ample opportunity to learn how to ignore the buzzing hum of paparazzi around him when they swarmed.
But Daphne had never been exposed to it. She had never developed coping mechanisms or had to perfect her poker face while moving through groups of people shouting impudent questions about her life. He picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts list. He’d have to get Regina to talk to Daphne. The press could figure out where she was fairly easily, they were experts at it. Before she left the spa, she had to be prepared. And Alex had no way to go to her, to cushion her. There was too much to do at work, things that couldn’t be avoided; meetings, decisions, all of the tasks of being the CEO of the company that fell on his shoulders.
“Regina,” Alex said the moment the werebear picked up. “I need you to meet with my girlfriend, Daphne.”
“She’s having a very good day,” Regina told him. “By the tone of your voice you’re about to ruin it with bad news.”
“Eric’s gone to the press,” Alex said simply. “He’s dragging her name and mine both through the mud. You know what comes next.”
Regina groaned. “That asshole. I’m surprised the elders haven’t already called him out. Even before he started his campaign to ruin your life, he was a horrible example of our kind.”
“Well, he’ll dance too close to the fire one of these days, probably soon.” Alex pressed his lips together firmly. “In the meantime, there’s probably going to be press at your door. Give Daphne some warning.”
“She’s met your mom, right? I’ll call Jessica and have her on hand to get her through the cordon.”
“You’re all heart, Regina. I’ve got meetings and all kinds of bullshit to attend to, or I’d be there myself.”
“If you came here yourself there’d just be a feeding frenzy. Better to let Jessica get her back to your place, you can do the work of comforting her.” Alex hung up after another thank you, and sat back in his chair.
He closed his eyes. Eric was determined to destroy him. Eric was using Daphne to get to him. Alex’s hands clenched into fists, and he let out a low growl. Eric represented not only a threat to him but a threat to Daphne. He had put so much effort into making himself unassailable in public that Eric had changed tactics with incredible speed. Daphne was not prepared to have her life ruined. Eric couldn’t do very much without revealing himself but he doubted that it would be a comfort to Daphne as she dealt with the rollercoaster of being splattered through the scandal rags, her entire life on public display. And Alex knew that in spite of her continued attraction to him, in spite of the fact that she had met his mother, Daphne still wasn’t sure. He could read the uncertainty rolling off of her in waves when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. He could smell her doubts but he knew that there was very little he could do. Daphne would have to decide on her own whether she wanted to stay with him or not, whether she could accept who and what he was.
As Alex contemplated the coming struggle, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his desk phone ringing. He exhaled sharply in irritation but he knew that there was no reason to not take the call. “Yes?” He hadn’t bothered to even look on the screen to see who was buzzing through to his office.
“Mr. Oberon, I have several calls coming in for you, several newspapers and magazines, asking for an opportunity to speak with you, to get a comment on your new relationship.” Alex suppressed the growl that rose up in his chest.
“Inform all of them that I am not interested in discussing my curre
nt relationship or any details of my personal life. I will not be taking any calls from the press at this time.”
“Understood, Mr. Oberon.” Alex put the handset back in the cradle and closed his eyes, growling a low warning deep in his throat. If he found Eric, he was going to make sure that the bastard paid. He was going to put Eric in his place and make sure that the other shifter was done for good with his attempts at revenge.
He would have to make a few calls but first, Alex thought wearily, he had to get through the day. He had meetings, he had emails to answer, he had decisions to make for the good of his company. Not all of the love in the world that he had for Daphne would make a difference. He had to take care of the business he had inherited. His father’s memory depended on it, his own livelihood depended on it, and the thousands of employees working for him depended on him to keep Oberon Industrial running and under his control. He picked up his phone and opened up his calendar. An alert warned him of a meeting with several of his managers in the next fifteen minutes.
Alex took a deep breath. It would do no good for him to keep his anger unchecked while he met with the people helping him run his company. The urge to transform simmered along his veins, crackling along his bones, tingling along every nerve of his body. He couldn’t focus if he was constantly on the verge of shifting into his bear form. He had to get himself back under control. Alex took deep breaths, focusing on slowing down his heartbeat. Fifteen minutes, and he had to be completely focused on his work. He would figure out how to get to Eric, he would find a way to remove his sneaky rival’s influence from his life.
CHAPTER 9
Daphne buried her face in her hands, closing her eyes and exhaling slowly. She was sitting on the couch in Alex’s house, one of few refuges she had in the world ever since her relationship with Alex had come to light in the press. She shuddered, shaking her head slowly back and forth. It had been almost a week and there was no immediate end in sight.
Billionaire’s New Honey is NonProfit Gold Digger, one of the headlines had read. Alex Oberon Takes up with Animal Rights Lunatic, another had shouted. NonProfit Employee Discovered New Way to Increase Spokespeople for Cause.
They had somehow managed to track down her exes and her former friends. Every day it seemed there was a new story about her, a news item that painted her as an extremist, or an opportunist, or both. Pictures of her and Alex kissing in the park, holding hands at an exclusive event, of her sunbathing years before she had even met him, flashed and leered at her from newsstands. People she had forgotten she even knew called her in droves, people she had fallen out of touch with or completely removed from her life, wanting a favor or taunting her with the image the press had put forth of her, suddenly keenly interested in her life now that she was dating a billionaire.
When Regina had come into the massage room at the spa, Daphne had been almost to the point of total relaxation. The bath, the steam room, the facial, all had worked its magic on her through the morning and she had started to feel as though her bones were not quite real in her body under the expert hands of the masseuse. She had been beginning to think that she could overcome the very real downfall of losing her job, stalling out her career. Plenty of people lost good jobs in their twenties, she had told herself firmly. They went on to other things, some of them even greater than they had been doing before. She would take Alex’s advice and spend a few weeks relaxing and getting the stress of her awkward situation and abrupt dismissal out of her system and then look for a new opportunity.
Regina had closed the door quietly behind her and asked the masseuse to give them a few moments of privacy. “Daphne,” Regina had said, sitting down in a side chair. She was beautiful, with hazel-green eyes and dark, curling hair, slim and lanky without being skinny somehow. “I’m a friend of Alex’s. He actually helped me open this place, which is why he knew to send you here. My name’s Regina Petrov.” Daphne had thought it strange that Regina had interrupted her massage, some part of her had known that something had to be wrong.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Regina,” Daphne had said. Some impulse had led her to ask, “How…how well do you know Alex?” Regina had hesitated a moment, glancing at the door.
“Alex and I have been friends since childhood. We went to the same school. Our parents… suffice it to say, we share several of the same secrets.” Daphne had realized by then that the woman was explaining, as obliquely as possible, that she was a shifter as well.
“You have the same background,” she had said, nodding slowly to show that she knew what Regina was referring to. Regina nodded as well.
“I have some bad news for you.” Regina smiled wryly. “Alex just called. He wanted to come here himself, to help you, but it’s not the sort of thing he can really be of help with.”
“What’s going on?” Daphne had frowned. Her heart started beating faster. Something was wrong. She could sense the tension in Regina somehow, the set of the other woman’s jaw, the tightening around her lips, and of course, the mention of ‘bad news.’ It wasn’t just a matter of Alex needing to cancel plans or something like that, it was something bigger.
“It seems that Alex’s enemy, Eric—you know about Eric?” Daphne had nodded. “Eric has…gone to the press with some information about your relationship. The paparazzi are going to be coming to get pictures of you leaving here.” Regina pressed her lips together, folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve called Alex’s mom, Jessica. When you’ve finished your appointment here, Jessica will walk with you, help you.”
“I’m not a baby!” Daphne had said, offended at the implication even as her heart began to pound faster at the thought of being hounded by a bunch of paparazzi.
“No, no one thinks you’re a baby,” Regina had told her. “But it can be really hard to deal with. Alex wanted to come here but him being with you when you leave would just make it worse. Jessica will leave with you. Just don’t comment, try and ignore them as much as you can.”
If it were just a question of ignoring the paparazzi who appeared everywhere she went, it would almost be easy for Daphne. She could ignore taunting, she could ignore shouting going on around her; the swarms were like bees, buzzing and humming around her. But the sight of herself splattered across tabloid pages, the constant questions from her friends and former coworkers, the rumors that were going around about her, all combined with the pressure of the press presence any time she left the house, was too much.
All of the fun, exciting plans Alex had made for her were for nothing. Daphne had only to leave the apartment, to step onto the sidewalk, to go anywhere, and she was hounded by people who wanted to know what she had to say about the rumors that she had only started dating Alex because she wanted to secure him for ARC, or asking her whether she was going to just stop working and let her billionaire lover take care of her for the next several years. A few, wanting a reaction, wanting to get her to scream or shout or throw a punch, had shouted out jeers that Alex would inevitably leave her and trade her in for a new girl.
And Daphne knew the strain wasn’t only on her. The same tabloids that were reporting on her “dubious past” and her lack of prospects, her secret relationship with Alex, were also digging up all kinds of information on the man she loved. Alex was accused of being a hypocrite for supporting animal rights while owning several large pieces of land. He was accused in the press of using charities to find his next “kept woman,” of withdrawing funds from ARC because they’d already served his purpose and he no longer had a reason, namely, a beautiful woman, to keep contributing.
Alex denied them, refused to justify any of the accusations with a response, but Daphne could tell that he was under strain. Oberon Industrial was suffering, albeit not much, financially, and within the past few days, the rumors surrounding him had gotten worse. The press kept hinting that he had a dark secret, something that would shock the entire world and that the only reason he was with Daphne was because she had stumbled upon it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who had fed
them that line of speculation.
In spite of the fact that she knew Alex loved her, Daphne couldn’t help but entertain the thought that if she hadn’t discovered the secret of his being a shifter, she might have ended up just a fling. Alex might have just had some fun with her for a few months, gotten tired of her, and then they would have gone their separate ways, hopefully without Amelia any the wiser that the relationship had even happened. Daphne might still have had her job. She’d be hurt, rejection always hurt, but she wouldn’t have to bear the strain of knowing something so damning, of not feeling as if she could quite make the decision to leave Alex any time she wanted, but not knowing whether she could actually continue being with him, being his lover, at the same time.
Daphne looked up as she heard Alex come into the room, his footfalls on the hardwood floor were easy to distinguish from anyone else’s. Somehow he was heavier than he should be, his tread was not as light as you would think it would be, looking at him in his human form. It occurred to her that there were several different ways, different signals, she could have used to discover that Alex was not just another human being.
“I hate him,” she told Alex, shaking her head as her eye stung and burned with tears. “I hate that asshole so much.”
“I don’t blame you.” Alex moved to the couch and sat down next to her, wrapping his arms around her tightly and pulling her in closer to him. Daphne breathed in the smell of his body, the soap and faint cologne, the underlying sharp musk of his skin and sweat, through his clothes. Her sense of smell was nowhere near his, but she still loved the way that he smelled.
The problem, she knew, wasn’t the question of whether or not she loved Alex, she couldn’t question that, the problem was whether or not love was enough, whether her love of him was stronger than the difficulties of their relationship. His life would be so much easier if she were a shifter like he was. They would have the same secret and Eric wouldn’t have had to reveal Alex’s other nature to her. Alex could have been up front about it.