Chapter 87

Chapter 87

As we walked down the hall, hand–in–hand. I could tell that Andrew’s mind was still on the fight. I leaned against him, hoping that the reminder of my presence would ease his worries some. Deep down, I knew that it would do nothing in the face of the rift between him and his daughter.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” he asked, not unkindly. “You’re very late.”

I shook my head.

“It’s my day off.” I paused. “What about you?”

“I decided to work from home today.”

A mischievous smile overtook my face.

“Well, since it’s my day off and you’re ‘working from home, maybe you should play a little hooky and spend the day with me.”

Andrew stopped mid–step and looked down at me.

“You mean shirk my Alpha King duties?”

“Not entirely. Just…have some fun in between taking whatever phone calls you need to.”

He arched his brow at me.

“What kind of fun?”

1 shrugged.

“Whatever you want,” I said, running my hand up his chest. I reached up, k*ssed him below. the ear, then whispered, “Whatever you want.”

Andrew smirked.

“Very well. I have a few ideas in mind.”

He turned his head to me and leaned forward, slowly, until his l*ps hovered centimeters above mine. His breath blew gently against me as he spoke.

“Go get dressed. I’m famished”

Andrew’s ideas for playing hooky were ripped right out of a Hallmark movie. We ate brunch together at The Lexington Hotel with plenty of bacon and eggs, saw the latest rom com with extra butter on the popcorn, and window–shopped down the most expensive avenues Andrew insisted that he would buy me anything that I wanted, but I did not want to take

Chapter 37

advantage of his kindness). To end the afternoon, we walked through the city’s central park, holding hands and eating hot dogs.

We were lucky not to be recognized by anyone. I kept expecting paparazzi with cameras or their phones to jump out and take our pictures, ready to run a story on me being the next Luna. Somehow, though, disguise of sunglasses and a mask over the lower half of

Andrew’s his face actually managed to fool people–or his very presence was intimidating enough to deter any looky–loos.

As we finished our hot dogs and threw away our wrappers and napkins, Andrew suggested that we find a bench and enjoy the scenery for a while. I agreed. We soon found an empty bench over by the water feature and claimed it for ourselves.

Andrew wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and I rested my head against him. Between the rushing water of the feature and the slow rhythm of his breathing, I could not have been any more relaxed. I closed my eyes and inhaled the scents of the park: hot dogs, freshly cut grass, and Andrew’s unique mixture of Labdanum and sea salt.

Andrew rubbed his hand up and down my arm. I smiled, overcome by the peacefulness of the moment. I snuggled closer to him, and he squeezed my shoulders.

“Thank you for playing hooky with me today,” I told him.

“Thank you for convincing me to play hooky,” he replied. He chuckled. “And for not being mad when I had to take those calls.”

“You have to do what you have to do. You are the Alpha King.

“It would be nice to be able to take an entire day off, though. Just once.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to, someday.”

He shook his head.

“Not with this job. There is always something to tend to, especially with the human terrorists. and the vampires…”

I stiffened, and Andrew came to a sudden halt. It was one thing to talk about the vampires haunting my dreams; it was a completely different matter to talk about what they were doing in real life. That made it all too real.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking-”

“No, it’s okay.” I said, though I wasn’t sure that it really was. “I should be able to handle talking about them. I mean, we were last night, right?”

That was different, though.

Tahrugged.

about mine.”

Andrew’s grip on me tightened.

“Yes, you can.”

He turned his head to look at me. It unnerved me that I could not see his eyes or mouth because of the sunglasses and mask, but I made myself turn to face him as well.

“I know that you don’t want to talk about this-“I mentally groaned when he started the sentence this way- “but do you know why you called out Bob’s name in a bad dream? You remembered so much about the rest of the dream that you must remember his part.”

I should have known that he would bring up this subject again. Bob was present for Andrew’s fight with Lisa, and I had just said that I could talk to him about my problems. Andrew was not an idiot; he must have been putting some of the clues together by now.

Still, I could not risk accusing Bob of anything before I had solid proof, even if…

“His interest is still 99.999%,” Susan reminded me. “He would do anything for you.”

“I know,” I said, “but I can’t take that chance.”

“Why? Because he’s Andrew Dubois, the Alpha King?”

“Because he’s my mate.”

“Like I said, it’s personal,” I told Andrew.

“You told me about a S** dream that you had about me,” Andrew replied, “how much more personal can it get?”

I couldn’t help cracking a grin at that remark. He had a point.

“When I asked if he had done anything to you since your breakup, you didn’t answer,” he continued. “Why?”

I turned my head and straight at the water feature. The curvature of the water as it arched overhead hypnotized me. For a minute, I sat there, watching the stone fish spit the water out into the pool below.

“Things did not end well between Bob and me,” I finally said, my voice sounding far away even to me. “He shattered a lot of dreams that I had had for when I got out of prison. I guess it scarred my psyche more than I had realized.”

Did he ever hurt you?

I paused. He was very insistent on asking me that one question. I just wasn’t sure that he would be able to handle the answer

He broke my

heart.”

Once again, I had settled on telling him a half–truth.

Silence fell between us. It stretched on for so long that I started to worry that he had seen through my half–truth, or at least not accepted it. Then Andrew removed his arm from shoulders and gently set his hand on my knee.

“I promise that I won’t hurt you like he did.”

my

Tears pricked at the edges of my eyes, but I refused to let myself cry again. I faced Andrew completely and pulled down his mask. My hand behind his n*eck, I reached forward and k*ssed him hard on the l*ps.

When I finally tore myself away from him, we were both panting-

“I know you won’t.”