Chapter 3
three
ZOE
My heart beat rapidly as I scrubbed dirt and sweat out of my hair with shampoo that smelled deliciously masculine. While I scrubbed, I tried to come up with a way to tell Connor the truth about my plan.
I know you don’t want a mate, but I need one.
That sounded as selfish as it was. Not great.
My parents are going to destroy my life if I don’t have proof that I’m married.
That made me sound like a kid who didn’t know how to fend for myself.
I need us to look married so I’m not forced to spend my life with a jackass who’s twice my age.
Somehow, that was even worse.
I’d prefer just to keep the whole situation a secret from him, but I’d need to introduce him to my parents in the very near future.
And a large part of my plan was very… public.
Yeah. Public was the right word for it.
Soon was right up there with public.
After the way Connor had coached me through shifting—and saved my life while he was at it—without even realizing that his words were sexual, I was even more positive that I was an awful human being.
He was going to be pissed.
Hopefully, his sense of humor made it a little easier.
I sighed up at the showerhead.
I was terrible.
My friends were going to kill me.
Closing my eyes, I stood under the water a little longer.
My legs were shaky. The rest of me was too. My stomach growled loudly.
I was going to have to get out and face the music. The sooner I ripped off the bandaid, the better chance I had that Connor wouldn’t hate me too much. If we were going to be permanently connected, less hate would be preferable.
So, I finished washing my hair and got out.
Drying off took less time than I hoped. Connor’s brush and a few hair ties sat on the countertop, but I wasn’t going to use them without permission. His hair had to be a source of pride for him. It was the kind of hair women envied. Or paid a shit-ton of money to have.
Mine was never going to look that way.
I’d given up on that kind of life a long time ago. I’d be lucky if I managed just to make it through the next few weeks without losing everything I had spent my life working for.
I pulled one of Connor’s shirts out of his closet. I would’ve preferred to put on a pair of the boxer-briefs I found in the drawers too, but I wasn’t going to borrow the underwear of a man who was going to hate me in a few minutes.
Yes, he’d been hard when I woke up on his lap, but that wasn’t enough to make us friends.
So, I padded out of his bedroom with my hair hanging in wet, tangled knots to my collarbone and his shirt falling a little below the tops of my thighs.
Man, I wished he was about to call me good girl again instead of despising me.
Maybe I should proposition him first. Telling him the truth after having sex would probably make it go over easier, right?
If only I had no morals, that would’ve been great.
Connor was standing in front of the stove when I found him. Unfortunately, he had found pants to cover the shockingly large erection he’d been sporting since before I shifted back.
My eyes widened as I looked at the table. It was covered in food. I was hungry, but there was no world in which I could consume even ten percent of the food there. Hopefully Connor was starving.
He pointed at a stack of sandwiches that must’ve used an entire loaf of bread.
“Alright, we’ve got the vegetarian PB&J there.
Ethan drinks oat milk, so I went and stole some of that, as you can see there.
The bowls have pasta in them. I threw a butter sauce on that one, but the other one just has jarred spaghetti sauce.
I’m not sure if you avoid any forms of dairy. ”
My face warmed.
He had gone to the trouble of gathering and making all that stuff just for me.
And I’d mate-trapped him.
My throat swelled, and my stomach growled.
“Dig in. Eat as much as you can. It takes a lot to power a new werewolf, so don’t be self-conscious about how much you need.” He turned back to the pan.
He was cooking the PB&Js. Making grilled sandwiches. With oil to brown them instead of butter, just in case I stayed away from some kinds of dairy.
“I have to tell you something,” I said, sitting down in front of the sandwiches.
Dread had settled heavily in the empty pit that was my growling stomach.
His back was to me. It looked more tense with my words. “We can talk after you eat.”
“I’d rather tell you now.”
“It’s fine,” he said.
My forehead creased. “What’s fine?”
“You’re not interested in having a mate. You’re with someone already. I get it. Your wolf will reject me in a few days at most. It’s not a big deal.”
The crease deepened. “That’s not even close to what I was going to say.”
He looked over his shoulder. He was frowning too. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I tucked some of my wet hair behind my ear. The tangles felt extremely unpleasant. “I was going to say that I only went to your book club to find a mate, and I need you to marry me.”
He went still.
Very still.
I let out a harsh breath. “It’s kind of a long story, but my family is wealthy, and cruel.
My parents manipulated me into signing a contract when they loaned me money for the elite, expensive college they convinced me to attend.
The terms of the contract are messy and not super airtight, but they do have the means to either enforce it or ruin my life. ”
“What does that have to do with marriage?”
I winced. “I was young and stupid… and may have agreed to marry a much older man in exchange for the money.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “Who is he?”
“One of my dad’s friends. He’s sixty, if that helps with the possessiveness.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Well I obviously don’t want to marry him, so I don’t think you should feel threatened.”
“You want us to get married instead, because…”
“Because it’s the only part of the contract that I can’t deal with on my own.
There’s a plan.” I held up one finger. “I don’t own my apartment, so they can’t have the bank take that away from me.
They’ll just get me kicked out. Emmy’s never going to sell her yellow house near the university, so I can stay there until my parents have given up on trying to make me homeless. ”
My second finger went up too. “They’ll get me fired from the university, but they can’t touch my bank account. They can’t take my degree either, which means I’ll be able to get a new job whenever they stop actively trying to ruin my life.”
I lifted a third finger. “The marriage thing is what they’ll use to try to force me to comply. They’ll send out invitations to make me play along, and they will physically force me into it. That’s where you come in.”
“Okay.” His expression was unreadable. At least to me.
“If I invite everyone my family would before they have the chance, my parents will have no choice but to come to the wedding and act like they support the marriage. After we sign the papers and make the vows, it’s a done deal.
” I eyed him. “You’re looking at me like I’m insane.
I’m not insane. My family is, but I’m just… prepared.”
“I don’t think you’re insane. I’m just trying to wrap my mind around this.” He gestured between us with a finger. “So you came to the book club meeting expecting to end up mated.”
“Yeah. The probability was extremely high that a mate bond would occur. When you consider how many billions of potential partners there are for every werewolf in the world, and the likelihood of four of your six single pack members mating with four women from a six-person friend group, the numbers get pretty insane. It’s definitely not a perfect science, but it did seem pretty likely. ”
“And you were right.”
“Thankfully, yes. I didn’t factor in my potential death, though. I’m lucky you were there.”
He folded his arms and leaned back against the countertop casually.
“Your sandwich is burning,” I said, matter-of-factly.
Connor smoothly removed the sandwich and stacked it on top of the rest of the pile, then turned the stove off. It was definitely darker than the others, but he didn’t seem to care.
Then he resumed his position. Arms folded, lower back leaned up against the cabinets.
“You wanted a mate,” he said.
I grimaced but nodded. “For the record, I do feel bad for trapping you. If there was a better way to go about it, I would’ve gone with that route, but this seemed like the most-likely way to both ensure future happiness and protect myself.
I hoped I could make a potential mate happy too, but I did take the selfish route. ”
“A mate bond isn’t a trap.”
“I mean, technically it is.”
“No. It’s a connection.”
“One you can’t get free of,” I pointed out.
“One that satisfies the animalistic part of a werewolf in a way nothing else can.”
I blinked.
“You understand what it means to have a mate, and you’re choosing it,” Connor said. I wasn’t sure if it was a question or not. It was phrased like one, but he said it like a statement.
“Yes.” I eyed him.
Why was he asking me the same question in so many ways?
He lifted a hand to his face and ran it slowly over his mouth.
Then took a step toward me—and strode to his bedroom.
Shit.
“Wait,” I called after him.
“Sit down and eat before you pass out, Gorgeous,” he growled over his shoulder.
I sat down.
And, after a minute, I ate.
Everything.
Apparently he was right about how much food new werewolves needed.
When I was done, I loaded the dishwasher, and cleaned the dishes that didn’t fit in it by hand.
Then I started a load of laundry. Connor seemed to put his dirty clothes right into the washing machine and just leave them until he was ready to start a load, so that was easy.
When I was done, I went to his room to see how pissed he was. The bedroom door was cracked open, which seemed like an invitation to come in.
I slipped inside, parting my lips to call his name—but a low, quiet groan had me snapping my mouth shut.
My feet carried me to the arch that led into the bathroom, even though that was the opposite direction I should’ve headed in.
I was invading his privacy.