Hunger's Mate (10 page)

She sighed then, her shoulders relaxing a bit. “We've worked out most of the kinks, I think. She may be aiming to become Perryville's first bridezilla, but I'm killing her with kindness.”

Jacques smiled at that, he couldn't help it. Jewel was an extremely kind, quiet, soft-spoken person. That had been part of the reason her appearance here had gone over so well with him and Bas. Before last night, before Ezra had brought it to his attention, Jacques had never noticed the scent of fear lingering around her. He'd never wondered if she'd left something in her past, something that could hurt her and, in turn, because she was living here, affect them. Now, however, he did. Ezra's insistence that something was going on and now Jewel's own actions, gave him more than cause to worry.

“You sound like you have it under control,” he told her, confident that she absolutely knew how to handle the Ortiz bride-to-be. As for whatever was going on with her, he was still unsure.

“I do. And as soon as I finish a few other tasks, I'll be on my way,” she told him, moving closer to the desk again, her fingers poised over the keyboard.

“I guess that's my cue to leave,” he said, not really wanting to go but sensing her discomfort with his presence.

He was close enough to her now physically that fear was the greater scent, masking another emotion he couldn't quite name, but that concerned him just the same. Jacques wanted to touch her shoulder, her hand, something to ease her anxiety, but he wasn't sure he should, wasn't sure he knew how. Comfort, consolation, hand-holding, none of that was his forte. He dealt in the definitive—good, bad, right, wrong. He managed this resort with a level head and sound judgment. The staff he employed were the compassionate and customer service–oriented ones.

Jacques led his shifters in the same manner. Good, bad, strong, weak, get the job done or get the hell out. That's why Bas kept him in both positions, because he did them both well. He didn't mess up.

Then why did he feel like that's exactly what he'd done by allowing Jewel Jenner to stay here this long without really knowing her?

*   *   *

She was stalling. That was the explanation she could have simply given Jacques. But he was her supervisor and she was almost positive that telling him she didn't want to go to dinner with Ezra Preston wasn't a good idea.

In all the time she'd been at Perryville, Jewel had been extremely careful not to share too much. The fewer lies she had to tell, the fewer she had to keep up with. As things stood now, she could probably write a manual for the life she'd had to create, the story she'd had to tell herself to believe for their safety. For a while, she'd almost accepted this as her true reality, that she was actually Jewel Jenner, administrative assistant in this glamorous resort, making a high five-figure salary and living a stable and contented life.

Almost.

With her laptop secure in her bag, she switched off the light and finally prepared to leave the office. There was a slight pang as she stood there, staring into the darkness, a sudden blanket of sadness that threatened the last shreds of her sanity.

This was never meant to be permanent. It was intended to be a pit stop until her father was better, until he was stable enough to travel. Now he was and she didn't want to go. It was her fault for getting comfortable, for thinking that maybe, just maybe …

At her hip her cell phone vibrated, jolting her from her troubling thoughts.

“Hello?” she answered, clearing her throat and praying the lump of emotion that seemed to be stuck there hadn't been vocalized.

“You're fifteen minutes late.”

His voice was deep, authoritative, sexy, and irritating as hell. Jewel frowned instantly.

“Unlike you, I am not on vacation. I actually have a job to perform.”

“And you were officially off the clock a half hour ago. You weren't thinking about standing me up, were you?”

Hell yeah! She almost yelled into the phone but she didn't want to give him that satisfaction of knowing she was afraid of him or of being near him for too long. She had a sinking suspicion that Ezra Preston was more than used to women either falling at his feet with eagerness, or swooning with helplessness. Jewel had no intention of being that type of woman ever again. Yet, the distant role she'd been taking hadn't seemed to be working all that well either, since he was now on her phone.

“How did you get my number?” she asked as an afterthought.

He chuckled. “Come on, your wine is getting warm.”

Then he hung up. Yes, the insanely arrogant and undeniably sexy man hung up on her. She sighed, exasperation clouding her better judgment, her feet taking her to La Selva even though she knew in her heart she did not want to go there. She did not want to have dinner with this man. Because it might not end there.

Those words lingered in her mind, the “might not” blaring as if on full blast. If he touched her again, if he kissed her, if he made her feel like every part of her body was on fire and he was the only thing that could cure the incessant burn, she would be absolutely lost and totally fucked … in more ways than one!

*   *   *

She walked with her head held high, chin up, confidence like a silk draping over her curvaceous body. Upon first glance there was no doubt that this was a woman who could take care of her business, who could give as good as she got. The loose fit of her cream-colored slacks gave way to the sway of her hips while the bright orange of her blouse cast an alluring glow to her honey-toned skin. Her lips were full, inviting, and her eyes, they were once again green, her hair red.

Ezra frowned.

This was not the real her. This was the fa
ç
ade. This was Jewel Jenner.

And he shouldn't give a damn.

All day long he'd thought about Jacques basically telling him to back off, to leave Jewel Jenner alone, and yet he'd found one reason after another to ignore the shifter. It was happening again, he knew it, felt it churning inside of him like a debilitating hunger. An appetite he hadn't experienced in a long time. That should have been enough of a warning, it should have reinforced everything that Jacques had said to him earlier, but it hadn't. Because Ezra was still here, watching her walk toward him, wanting to clear this room and put her up on one of the tables to devour instead of whatever was on the menu.

“One glass of wine and then I have some other things to tend to this evening,” she stated as she approached the table and reached for the chair across from him.

Once again, pushing all doubt aside, Ezra was on his feet instantly, moving to stand right beside her, pulling the chair out for her instead. As she sat, he stayed close, pushing the chair up to the table, then leaning forward to whisper into her ear. “Another trip outside the resort?” he asked.

She stiffened only marginally, before turning to hang her bag on the back of the chair. Looking over her shoulder at him she replied with a cool smile, “Wouldn't you like to know?”

Ezra only smiled in return and took his own seat across from her. She immediately picked up her glass to take a sip, then she nodded to him with a lift of one elegantly arched eyebrow.

“So you know how to pick a good wine,” she conceded.

“Bas has assembled a great wine bar here,” he replied. “In addition, there are a lot of things I know how to do well, Jewel. Would you like to find out which ones in particular?”

He thought she might stiffen again at his words considering she'd made herself perfectly clear about this physical attraction between them. She surprised him by basically acting as if he'd mentioned something as trivial as the weather.

“Is that what this dinner is about? You presenting all your attributes and me figuring out if I want to personally experience any of them?”

Damn, he liked her. He especially liked this glimpse of spunk she was showing tonight. First, in making him wait and now in tossing his innuendo back in his face, all while remaining the most attractive woman in this room.

“This dinner is about getting to know Jewel Jenner,” he replied and then waited for her reaction. Ezra was employing all his senses, zeroing in on the minute, such as the blink of her eyes, to the more overt, like the shift of her hands from where they'd rested on the table, to now lying in her lap, out of view.

“I'm not interested in a relationship with you,” she said solemnly. Every part of her body was seemingly in sync with that announcement, all except her scent.

She couldn't mask the aroma of her true emotions and desire. Combined they were like a warm musk wafting through his nostrils, filling his body and stroking his cat with anticipation. Her eyes held his gaze, having only slightly given away the arousal he knew simmered just beneath the surface of her cool exterior.

“The wine is nice,” she continued. “So we can share in small talk while I finish my glass. But then I must go.”

She must run again. Ezra knew this was what she wasn't saying, what she would never admit, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was her plan. There was no real explanation for how he knew. Instinct, intuition, an unfathomable link to a female he hadn't known long, the remnants of a past act that he suspected he would never truly be rid of. Whatever the cause, the facts were what they were in his mind and he had no intention of letting her go, not without trying to help her first.

“I'm glad you are enjoying the wine,” he stated slowly, watching as her lips touched the glass once more, trying like hell to ignore the lengthening of his dick as he imagined those lips wrapped around his thickness.

“And if you're not inclined to let me get to know Jewel Jenner, how about I spend some time with Dawn Montgomery?”

She went completely still, her eyes widening. But she remained silent.

Ezra, on the other hand, had fully planned to go deeper into the name he'd found on a flash drive that one of the three men that had been talking in the computer department at Comastaz earlier in the day had dropped. He'd been eavesdropping on their conversation, having been alerted by the fact that two military men and one laboratory worker were having private meetings in another department completely. The mention of prototypes had also piqued his interest. So after they'd left, leaving behind a heavy stench of deceit, it had been only natural that he turn around in his chair. And that's when he saw it, as if it had been left there for his personal use. Imagine his surprise when he'd opened the file marked DAWN MONTGOMERY and it had contained several pictures of the woman he knew was sitting directly across from him. The woman he'd been introduced to as Jewel Jenner.

Unfortunately, there was another plan in play, one that Ezra was going to find even harder to believe than all of today's events combined.

Before he could speak their table was flanked by four uniformed officers. A quick gaze at the badges said they were Sedona Police and by the sudden paleness of Jewel's face, he figured out pretty quickly that something was about to go down, something he wasn't going to like one bit.

“Can I help you, officers?” he asked in his most cordial tone, his cat already awake and ready to react.

“Dawn Montgomery?” one of them asked Jewel.

She looked up at him, her green eyes wide, fear seeping in heavy rivulets from her every pore.

When she didn't respond, another officer continued by taking cuffs from his belt and pulling out the chair where she sat back. “Dawn Montgomery, you are under arrest.”

Ezra's cat growled, a low rumble in his chest. “What the hell is going on here?” he questioned, figuring the officers wouldn't answer him, but hoping at least one of them had an ounce of sense.

He was wrong.

They totally ignored him. The one reading Jewel her rights stopped after he had her cuffed and pushed her in front of him. Ezra took a step toward them only to have one happy-go-lucky officer put a hand on his chest, yelling, “Pipe down, Romeo, and finish your wine. You'll be dining alone tonight.”

Ezra's fists clenched, his muscles bunching as the cat threatened to break free, to push past this pissant of a law enforcement officer and knock the others out of his fucking way so he could get to Jewel, or Dawn, or who-the-hell-ever. All he knew was that he had to stop what was happening from happening or his cat was going to go buck wild in this desert town.

A hand to his shoulder stopped the madness from breaking out in the middle of the restaurant—or stopped more madness from breaking out, he should note.

“Stop,” Bas said from behind. “Don't antagonize them. We'll take care of it.”

“What the fuck do you mean we'll take care of it? They're arresting her, goddammit!” he roared at the FL.

“I can see that. The question is why?” Bas replied calmly, more calmly than Ezra thought he could feel in the next couple of years after scenting her fear and watching her face crumple as they read her her rights.

*   *   *

“So she's a thief?” Jacques asked, surprise clear on his face.

Ezra's growl was loud, the step he took toward Jacques stopped by Bas's arm extending outward to land in the center of his chest.

“There has to be more to the story,” Bas added, his calm and collected demeanor doing absolutely nothing to soothe Ezra's anger.

His cat paced restlessly, his entire body tense with the need to shift, to fight, to defend. His temples throbbed with the facts that had been presented. The ones he'd uncovered earlier today using that flash drive he'd found, combined with the ones Bas's mate, Priya, had just divulged.

She sat behind Bas's desk, her arms planted on the rich mahogany, iPad open in front of her. Priya Drake had been a reporter before joining forces with the shifters just a few short months ago. She was an attractive African-American female, professional and polite with an edge of street knowledge. She'd been blackmailed into trying to reveal the shifters and their true identities. Under Bas's command Eli and Nivea Cannon, a shifter guard, had been sent to rescue Priya's brother, thus ending the threat of blackmail. Bas's smooth playboy skills, or most likely the intensity of the Shadow Shifter mating, had sealed the deal on Priya's silence, so that now she worked to preserve the public image of Rome, his law firm, and anyone else connected to him, and covertly, the shifters. For that, Ezra figured he should be grateful. The fact that she was a human still made him edgy around her, his trust not a foregone conclusion like Bas's and apparently Rome's.