Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
I could give her this. Safety. Consistency. If my mate wanted that apartment, then it would be me who gave it to her. I had saved all my money from when I was enlisted, and Boone had invested it. I had plenty. Enough to buy her that fancy downtown loft outright, without a mortgage.
If she wasn’t going to move to Montana with me, I’d make sure she felt safe and provided for here.
Yes. Fuck, yes.
She might want me out of her life, but she didn’t know much about marked mates. It was my job to care for her. Protect her. Make her happy.
If that meant an apartment in the midst of all this fucking concrete, then that was what my mate was getting.
34
BROOKE
* * *
It had been ten days since I sent Roy away. Ten miserable days.
When I returned to work the Monday after the money laundering fiasco and the fling, the human resources manager pulled me into her office. I expected to be fired because I’d broken into the building after hours to steal digital documents of a client that wasn’t mine. Instead, Eileen had patted my hand in a motherly way and wanted to make sure I was all right. An agent with the DEA had contacted her and said that the government appreciated the participation of two of the company’s employees–me and Eugene–in bringing down a notorious drug dealer.
Instead of being fired, I’d been offered a raise, which I assumed was a peace offering from the owners in the hopes that I wouldn’t sue the company for an unsafe work environment or something. Especially since our client, Mr. Burke, was found dead after the meeting we’d attended together.
Two days after that, I got the results from the accountant exam.
I passed.
Which put me back in Eileen’s office and ensured even more that my job was secure. They even got me a cake that was shared in the break room.
I should have been thrilled and eager to celebrate. I’d worked for years to pass. Four years of business and accounting classes in college. Then two years of work and studying.
This was what I’d wanted. The secure career with a solid paycheck and good benefits.
But I wasn’t thrilled. I… didn’t even care. There was a blip of relief when I saw the result, but then I thought about what it meant. Forty hours a week in my tiny beige office. Doing the same thing every day. With each day that passed, the walls started to close in on me. I felt claustrophobic.
Which made me think of Roy.
Which made me miserable.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him. The weekend we had together. The connection. I saw him in my sleep. Or lack of. I would swear I saw him outside my gym. At the coffee shop. In my rearview mirror. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get past this. Past him.
I pictured him in Montana–running in wolf form up a mountain. Howling at the top.
Maybe it was almost being killed twice. Maybe it was Roy. The orgasms. The fact that I knew there were shifters out there. Any or all of those reasons had me questioning my life. What I wanted.
Did I want to work on people’s taxes for the rest of my career? Finding deductions and tax loopholes for the next thirty years? Did I want to be like Eugene where the most exciting thing that ever happened to me was getting hit by a delivery truck?
Why had I thought stable and consistent was a good idea? My life was white bread. Plain and unexciting. It went stale so fucking fast.
Roy had shown me what it was like to be spontaneous. To jump and ask questions later. I’d changed my mind so many times about whether breaking up with him was the right thing. I’d even looked up Cooper Valley, Montana online and gotten directions on how to get there. How long it would take by car. How much a plane ticket would be to the nearest airport.
Because like the dummy I was, I never got his phone number. It hadn’t been necessary because we’d been with each other the entire time we’d been together. We hadn’t needed it. Or thought of it.
I had no idea how to get in touch with Roy Banner other than making Casey get it from her spy friend. I’d been so close to doing that, having typed a text and deleting it multiple times.
I was doing the right thing. I was safe. Secure. Stable. I knew where I was going and where my life would be for the long haul. Why had I been so eager to hear about my test results two weeks ago, and now, it only made me want to cry?
I looked at the bookkeeping software on my monitor and approved a few entries when my desk phone rang.