So I Married a Werewolf (Entangled Covet) Page 18

  As they stood from the table, Jack reached out to shake her hand. Something about the notion didn’t fit right. She threw her arms around his shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said, squeezing her eyes tight. “Thank you for helping me build my tiny blog into something larger than I could’ve ever dreamed.”

  “No problem.” He pulled back, blushing. “How’s Humperdinck doing? I meant to ask you.”

  “Humperdinck?” she asked, surprised to hear the dog’s name brought up.

  “Yeah, we’ve all been rooting for him to get his issues under control. We watch the videos you post in the office and have been following along from the start. How is the little guy? Have you found him a home yet?”

  “No, not yet, but we will.”

  Suddenly, her back heated. Her hands itched. She got the feeling that someone was watching her. Her smile fell as she spun around, looking for the reason for the odd sensation crawling up the back of her neck.

  “Something wrong?” Jack asked. “You look pale.”

  “I just got a chill.” She forced a smile, though her body broke out in shivers. “It’s probably a draft from an open door in back.”

  But as she peered through the window at the building next door, she could’ve sworn she saw someone who looked like Carter storming down the sidewalk.

  …

  I don’t need this.

  “Just my fucking luck.” Carter scrubbed his hands over his face and turned the corner, putting the Starbucks and whom he saw inside behind him. “Can’t believe this garbage.”

  “Carter!”

  It was Faith; she must’ve seen him.

  I don’t need her.

  He kept walking, had to keep walking. The anger building inside him would boil over if he stopped now.

  “Carter, hey!” Faith called as she ran to meet him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I should ask you the same thing,” he snapped, his strides long and determined. “I thought you were going grocery shopping.”

  She recoiled, probably from the hatred tainting his words, but damn it, he couldn’t help it. He’d caught her red-handed, having drinks with another man. He’d caught his ex-wife the same way, although they were having drinks in bed.

  Somehow, this blow stung worse. The idea didn’t even make sense. He wasn’t bonded with Faith, so what would it matter if he caught her with another man? Shouldn’t he be able to walk away without feeling like cement filled his boots?

  “I was going to go to the store after this.” She huffed, chasing him down. “Would you slow down? I can’t keep up with you.”

  “Maybe I don’t want you to.”

  “That’s harsh.” She touched his shoulder. “Carter!”

  He came apart, spinning around to face her.

  “I saw you.” Every muscle in his body clenched. “I saw you, Faith.”

  A slow smile spread over her face. “You think I was on a date?”

  “Weren’t you?”

  The image of the two of them in the café had burned into his brain. They’d laughed. She’d embraced him. They’d looked like a couple, happy in love. He could rip the guy’s head off. He kept walking so he wasn’t tempted to charge back around the corner and make that dream a gruesome reality.

  “It was a business meeting.” She touched his arm, and he fought the urge to rip it away. “That was Jack Winchester from Wagging Tails Dog Supplies. He wants to invest in Have a Little Faith.”

  His eyes narrowed as the words sank in. “You lied about where you were going this morning. If it was innocent, why the cover-up?”

  She slapped her hands against her sides. “Maybe I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “Maybe?” Rage pulsed through his bloodstream, triggering the urge to shift into wolf form. “I can’t wrap my mind around ‘maybe.’”

  “I think I just felt like you have your job, Dawson has Yale, and I had my blog. If I was losing my identity to become Mrs. Griffin, I wanted to keep something for myself.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “To you, maybe.”

  “You’re mine, Faith.” His heart banged against his chest. “I can’t handle deception like this.”

  “I’m yours?”

  His vision blurred. “You’re not going to cheat on me again. I won’t have it!”

  “Again?” Her face dropped. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re all the same, every one of you. I thought you were different, Faith, I really did.”

  He spun and charged down the sidewalk. Faith followed, jerking on his arm to turn him back around.

  “Hey! You’re acting like a crazy possessive jerk. Chill out and listen to what I’m telling you. That guy you saw me with came all the way from California to meet with me. He thinks the blog is going to be huge, and his company is going to help.”

  “Oh, I bet he was more than eager to help you out, especially after he met you.” He couldn’t look at her, not when he doubted every word that fell out of her beautiful mouth. He’d been deceived too many times before. “When you left my bed this morning, why didn’t you tell me you had a business meeting? Why the secret?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but if you’d just calm down and—”

  “You’re not going to do this to me. I won’t let you.”

  He had to get away from her scent—from the sight of those soft brown eyes boring into his. He knew what he saw through that window. The souring in his gut warned that this time would end the same as before.

  Even if he believed her, even if the meeting was business only, she’d been spending more and more time away from home. Distance was always the first step to breaking apart. Secrets were the second. They’d only been married a month and they were already well on their way to a quick and speedy divorce.

  Pain and resentment welled inside him. His muscles constricted, tensing with the impulses to explode from this weak form. He could barely breathe. Red spots crowded his vision.

  “Easy,” Faith said. “You’re about to lose control, and that’s the last thing we need right now.”

  Blurs he barely recognized as people had started to gather on the sidewalk around them. As her attention shifted to the people watching, her cheeks flushed red.

  “Don’t talk to me about losing control.” He struggled for air. “How could you do this to me?”

  “If you’d listen, you’d hear I didn’t do anything to you.” As her gaze shifted to the onlookers, Faith put her hands up in front of her. “Go home, Carter. I’ll meet you there and explain everything.”

  He couldn’t quiet the wrath flashing through his veins. A few more seconds and the streets of Seattle would be a whole lot hairier.

  “I asked you one thing,” he seethed. “Before we got married, I asked you not to lie to me. That was all you had to do!” Yelling somehow held back the wolf from pushing to the forefront. A few seconds was all he had left before Furville. “I didn’t ask for you to disappear three days a week to take cooking classes, for the dog kennels to be moved into my backyard, for a furball to run around humping my damn leg all day. I didn’t ask for you to hop on some crazy exercise program or entertain the council. Yet you happily do all of those things and forget the one damn thing that was most important!”

  She stepped up to him, standing toe-to-toe. “And I asked you not to make me look like a fool. Congratulations.” She spread her arms to the crowd that had gathered around them. “You just did it, yet I’m not going to let you walk away that easily.”

  He deflated, the wrath draining from his bloodstream as he took in the scene. Twenty or so people stood in a small circle, watching their fight. Her face was pink, etched with tight white lines, the color of embarrassment.

  He’d seen this scene play out before. It’d been with a different woman in a different place, but his anger and his mate’s humiliation had been the same. He’d loved his ex-wife more than life itself, yet she’d cheated more times than he could count. How many times had his ot
her girlfriends called him a controlling pig before ditching him and moving on?

  Faith said she wasn’t going to walk away, didn’t she? She was fighting harder to keep him calm than anyone else ever had…

  Didn’t matter. It all boiled down to the fact that he was never going to change. If he didn’t sever ties now, he was going to lose Faith forever. He was going to destroy their marriage, obliterate what fragments remained of their friendship, and he simply couldn’t take it.

  “If you weren’t so naive, you’d see what I see,” he said, the urge to shift waning from his bones.

  She pushed out a laugh. “What’s that, Carter?”

  “A girl who should’ve known better than to get with someone like me. I’m not the commitment type, and I never will be.”

  It was safer to be with girls who meant little to him. If he didn’t let them in, didn’t get attached, he wouldn’t become this person. From the faces on the people around them and from the way he’d just yelled at Faith, he bet he was more a monster than a man.

  “You sounded like the commitment type last night,” she said. “What’s changed now?”

  “I got the job.” Carter lowered his gaze to the gutter, searching for the right words in the grime. “That was the point of all this, right? Why drag out something that’s never going to be?”

  She backed away as if he’d struck her. “So that’s it? Get what you want and ditch out?”

  “Is that really a surprise?” Don’t say it, don’t say it. “You knew I was this way when you fell in love with me. Your shock falls under the category of ‘should’ve known better.’”

  “You said this was different.” She bit her bottom lip. “It felt different.”

  “I’m an old dog.” He shrugged, his stomach rattling with regret. “You know what they say about teaching them new tricks? No trainer in the world, not even you, could fix me.”

  “I only wanted to be with you.” Her lower lip wobbled.

  The only way this wasn’t going to hurt was to make a clean, crisp break.

  “I’m going to get a drink,” he said. “I think it’s best if you got your things out of my house by the time I get home.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It’d been one month since Faith moved out.

  Four long, cold weeks.

  The guest room was empty, the fridge was bare, and a certain excitable furball was missing from the toe of his boot. Since Faith had moved in, Carter had gotten used to those things. He missed the warmth she brought to his home, the laughter and light. And if he allowed himself to admit it, he missed seeing the big brown eyes of that humping pooch, too. The place even smelled like her, sweet and familiar, stirring something deep in his chest.

  Letting his Cream of Wheat get cold, Carter stared over his back lawn.

  He’d pinned her against a tree not far from there…

  Groaning, he leaned back in his chair. “Does everything have to revolve around her?”

  Getting Faith out of his mind was going to be harder than he thought. He’d buried himself in work the last month, but it didn’t seem to help. He’d cleared out his desk and moved into his new office, but she was everywhere, in everything. He’d thought about Faith and the way she’d brought him Chinese when he worked late. And when he came home to an empty house, he half expected a plate to be waiting for him in the fridge.

  He tapped the invitation for the promotion ceremony against the table and pinched his lip with his forefinger and thumb. The ceremony was tonight—he’d be promoted to detective, the rank he’d dreamed about for more years than he cared to think about.

  Somehow, along the way, his goal had gotten muddled. Before he married Faith, he wouldn’t have minded if she had plans and couldn’t make it to see him be promoted to detective. But now, she was the only person he truly wanted watching.

  The doorbell rang, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was her.

  Heart in his throat, Carter shuffled to the door and swung it open wide. Jameson Clark, the werewolf’s version of a polygamist, stood in front of him, holding two cups of coffee

  “You look like shit,” he said. “Can I come in?”

  Carter didn’t budge. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought about what you said when you ambushed me at my house. Thought about it a lot. After you left, I did some research of my own. I think you might be interested in hearing what I found.”

  “How’d you find me?” Carter fought through the numbness tingling his brain. “How’d you know where I live?”

  “You’re not the only one who can dig around on the internet.” Jameson bumped into his shoulder as he pushed his way into the foyer. “Jesus, it’s freezing in here. Why don’t you turn on the damn heater?”

  He hadn’t thought about it, though it had been unusually cold lately.

  “Here, take this.” Jameson handed him one of the cups. “It’s black and should warm you up.”

  “Thanks. Make yourself at home.”

  “I will.” He slouched into one of the couches and rested his ankle on his opposite knee. “Where’s your lady?”

  “We, ah…reached our natural and expected end.”

  That was all he could muster.

  “That’s unfortunate.” Jameson sipped on his drink. “Cause of death?”

  Carter sat on the couch opposite Jameson and stared into his eerie green eyes. The werewolf was ancient, yet his eyes were full of youth and boyish enthusiasm. Absentmindedly, Carter wondered if that had something to do with the number of Luminaries he’d found in his life.

  “I can’t be with someone I can’t trust,” Carter answered flatly. “But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not dredge up our issues. What’s this research you wanted to tell me about?”

  “You have the promotion ceremony tonight, correct?”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “The Seattle Wolf Pack online newsletter. You made front page. I should congratulate you on your new position.”

  A cold chill seeped into his bones, freezing him from the inside out. He didn’t want to sit here and chitchat with a stranger about Faith, their marriage, their fallout, or his promotion. He didn’t want to think about it at all, actually.

  “Thanks, but if you don’t mind, I have some things to get to today before the ceremony.” Carter waved his hand over his drink, trying to prompt some kind of answer. “The research? The reason for your visit?”

  “I’m not the only man to have found multiple Luminaries.” Jameson took another drink, and then licked foam off his lip. “If you go back far enough into Seattle Wolf Pack records, you’ll find a handful of cases like ours. Cases where the mates died and the ones left roaming alone eventually found another.”

  Carter cleared his throat. “I’m not challenging your past anymore. I believe that you found three mates because I found a second. But what does that matter to you? Why come all this way to prove a point?”

  “Because I told you that the bond with my first Luminary was the strongest, that the others faded after that. There are others who reported falling deeper in love with each subsequent mate.”

  “Wait…” Carter slowed down the words so he could grasp them. “It’s possible for the Luminary bond to strengthen?”

  Jameson nodded, and moved to the cushion to Carter. “I didn’t want you to go on thinking you’d never love as fiercely as you did with your first Luminary. I didn’t want my experiences to taint your decisions with your new wife. Although from the looks of your empty house, the bond with this wife can’t be as strong as the first.”

  “Actually, you’re wrong,” Carter said. “What I experienced with Faith was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. The love for my first wife was incredible, but it paled to what I feel for Faith.”

  Jameson’s gray brows pulled together. “Then why’d you split?”

  “We were never going to work.” Carter cleared his throat. “It wasn’t in the stars.”

  “How do you figure
?”

  His chest constricted. “We didn’t marry out of love. We were friends who decided to marry to get something out of it. I needed to have a mate to get the promotion and she needed money to put her brother through school. I didn’t know she was my Luminary until after we were intimate.”

  He expected Jameson to be shocked, to ask a ton of questions, to chastise him for going to such extreme lengths to advance his career.

  “The fact that you didn’t recognize her is irrelevant,” Jameson said, putting a reassuring hand on Carter’s shoulder. “The pull to fated mates varies depending on age, the strength of your spirit, your position in the pack, and circumstance. Whether it took you one touch or twenty to feel the spark, it doesn’t change the facts. You’re fated to be together, and you can’t fight fate.”

  Carter shook his head. “I drove my first wife away and into the arms of another man…many other men, actually. I’ll do the same to Faith. All it took was one incident, one miscommunication, and I acted like the same fool I was back then. I care for her, and I want her in my life. If we stay married, that won’t happen. I’ll ruin our friendship because of my issues. I can’t trust her, and if I can’t trust her, I can’t be close to her…at least not the way I want to be.”

  “I see.” Jameson stared at his clasped hands for a long while before answering. “You trust her, but you don’t trust yourself.”

  “That’s not what I said at all. Are you even listening?”

  “It sounds like you didn’t like the person you were with your ex-wife.”

  He stared at Jameson. How could the man possibly know that? He was right. So right. He’d been controlling. Overly possessive. He’d been a real jerk, someone he never wanted to be again.

  Jameson nodded as if he could hear the thoughts whirling through Carter’s head. “You’re more worried about falling into the same routine with your new wife than you are about mistrusting her.”

  God, could he be right? He did trust Faith. It was the root of the reason he’d asked her to marry him in the first place.

  “All you have to ask yourself,” Jameson said, “is whether she’s done anything to make you mistrust her.”

  “She hasn’t,” Carter fired. “And deep down, I don’t think she ever would.”