Filed to story: The Billionaire Alpha’s Contract Lover by Caesar Erickson
I shoved the remainder of the tissues in my bag, then looked at Preston uneasily and whispered, “Thank you.”
Preston waved his hand casually. “Where do you live?”
I gave him the address, and the car quickly started and dro ve in the direction of my home.
Glancing at Preston, I felt a little less embarra*sed when I saw him looking out of the window, his attention elsewhere. All I had to do was get through this short car ride. And thankfully, he wasn’t sitting in the back seat with me. I wasn’t sure why he was sitting in the front seat, but I hoped it was because he was trying to be polite and give me space…not because he would have been disgusted to sit next to me.
I’d had plenty of shifters in my life who’d wanted nothing to do with the human girl raised by wolves.
Preston looked at the thin figure in the back seat through the rearview mirror.
It was a cold day for a human, and she had no coat. Yet she was still out in the rain trying to hail a taxi, which made Preston curious. Why hadn’t she called someone or tried to find shelter until the rain pa*sed?
“Ms. Palmer, why didn’t Beta Starke take you home?”
A look of confusion crossed her face for a second before she erased it.
My wolf knew she was coming up with a lie…he could smell it in the pheromones coming off of her.
She clenched the purse in her hand and said casually, “We had an argument, and he threw me out of the car.”
Preston nodded slightly. “I see.”
He noticed she was shivering, so he turned up the heat and didn’t ask any more questions. She clearly wasn’t going to tell him the truth anyways.
The temperature in the car rose, and Taya gradually stopped shivering-while Preston was burning up. Wolves ran hotter, and he couldn’t wait to turn the A/C on once she was out of the car.
She gave a grateful look to Preston and explained in a cautious tone, “I was originally planning to call an Uber, but my phone died. Everything was closed, so I was trying to get a taxi. I’m really sorry to trouble you, but I’m thankful you stopped.”
Preston looked at the embarra*sed Taya again in the rearview mirror before saying gently, “It’s okay.”
Only then did Taya seem to relax. She leaned her head against the car window and closed her eyes wearily.
She soon fell asleep.
Not long after, the car stopped at the gate leading to Taya’s neighborhood.
Preston said without looking back, “Ms. Palmer, we’re here.”
After a few seconds without a response or hearing any movement from the back seat, Preston turned to look at Taya.
His eyes widened slightly when he saw her leaning against the car window and sleeping soundly.
How utterly careless. How dare this little unprotected slip of a human sleep in a strange wolf’s car so easily?
Did she think just a*sume that he was a good person?
Frowning, Preston gave his driver a meaningful look.
I was jolted awake by someone pushing me, and I struggled to open my eyes. All I could see were dark shadows, making it difficult to determine where I was.
I knew my illness had worsened due to being drenched in the rain, but thankfully my thoughts were still clear, and I remembered that I was in Preston’s car.
Quickly, I sat up straight, thanked Preston again, then pushed open the door and exited the car.
“Ms. Palmer…”
Preston stopped me, took an umbrella from the back seat, and handed it to me. “It’s still raining. Take it.”
The logo on the umbrella was designer, and there was no way I was taking something so expensive from him. Especially since I didn’t know if I would have the chance to return it. I softly declined, “Thank you, but it’s only a few steps away. I’ll run.”
Preston seemed stunned for a second. He seemed to have read my mind, and he threw the umbrella at me. “You don’t have to return it.”
I hated being in this position. I hated taking things from people, and I really hated that it was Griffon’s cousin who was being so nice to me. But as a human of lower standing, the last thing I could afford to do was offend a man from such a powerful pack.
“May I please have your contact information? I’ll return this to you tomorrow.”
Preston looked at me with a raised brow and a bit of a frown on his handsome face. “I don’t like it when people show up uninvited.”
But…all I wanted to do was return his umbrella. I didn’t want to visit him, and I wasn’t look for anything more. He ll, I didn’t even have to see him in order to return the da mn thing. “I didn’t mean-”
“Ms. Palmer.”
Preston interrupted me abruptly, his eyes full of warning and glowing a bit with his wolf. “It does not matter what you mean. I brought you home out of kindness. If you have any other ideas, put them out of your head immediately.”
His words made me uncomfortable. I didn’t say anything more. Just put down the umbrella and turned to leave.
After two steps in the rain, I felt dissatisfied and turned back to look at Preston.
“Mr. Knight, thank you for bringing me home, but I require nothing more from you. The last thing I want to do is take something that belongs to you without returning it, and I don’t want to be indebted to you.”
Looking at the petite figure as she ran into her neighborhood, Preston was a bit stunned.
In his experience, women like Taya would do everything they could to seduce rich powerful wolves from dominant packs such as the Knight pack. And if Taya wasn’t like that, she wouldn’t have started dating Roman immediately after things ended with Griffon.
Taking the umbrella would have been a perfect opportunity for her to work out a way to see him under the pretense of returning it.
Perhaps Preston had misunderstood the little human girl…
After I ran home in the rain, I removed my dress and the diamond necklace and threw them into the box they’d come in.
Tomorrow, I would send them back to Roman. His “gifts” disgusted me, and I would never accept them.
After closing the box, I went to the bathroom and turned on the faucet in the bathtub. I desperately needed a hot soak to warm me up. The chill from the rain had set deep in my bones, and my illness didn’t make it better.
Once the tub was full, I sank into the water with a sigh.
I held the bath ball and scrubbed my face and body, rubbing my skin red before looking at myself in the mirror, sans of my armor of makeup. My face was left with a sickly pallor, devoid of any vitality or energy, and my eyes were dimmed to the point of lifelessness.
I couldn’t see the light, couldn’t feel the warmth.
Tonight I’d been treated as if I were no better than the dirt under someone’s shoe. But I was a person, dam mit. And I deserved to be treated with dignity.
“Dignity.”
I snorted and gave myself a self-deprecating smile in the mirror.
From the moment I’d sold myself to Griffon, I had lost whatever little bit of dignity I’d possessed.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?