Three big SUVs had just pulled up in front of the building.
The doors of one of the SUVs flung open, and shifters started piling out. They bore a strong resemblance to Morgan – tall, darkly attractive, expensively dressed. The woman was wearing a black mink coat. The two teenagers with her wore cashmere overcoats.
They headed straight for the front door of Morgan's office.
As the door flung open, Valerie braced herself. Eileen watched with interest.
The tall woman shouldered her way in first and headed straight for Valerie's desk. "I'm Nelda Rosemont," she said to Valerie. "I've come to meet my son's new mate."
"New mate?" Eileen glanced at Valerie, puzzled.
Valerie had gone as white as a ghost and her eyes were glittering with tears. Without a word, she turned and ran out of the room.
Chapter Two
"Excuse me," Valerie said furiously to Morgan, who was shouting at someone on the phone. Morgan's room was dark and imposing and masculine, just like him. The furniture was hand-carved mahogany and black leather, the walls adorned with oil paintings featuring nature and hunting scenes.
As she stalked over to him, he waved at her impatiently and made a shooing motion. "That was a deadline, not a suggestion!" he yelled into the receiver. His brows were drawn together in a ferocious scowl. "Every day you're late, your company is fined! And no, I don't make exceptions for Christmas! Don't give me that ‘wife is sick' bullshit – find a way to get it done!"
She stormed behind the desk, grabbed the phone out of his hand, and slammed it down in its cradle.
Arthur looked at her warily and edged toward the office's side door. He wasn't a huge fan of confrontation.
Morgan stared at her in astonishment. "What the hell?" he said. "Have you taken leave of your senses, woman?"
"Did you forget to tell me something crucial?"
"Like the fact that there are plenty of other secretaries out there who'd love the excellent salary and benefits I pay you?" Morgan said.
"Like the fact that your family wants to meet your new mate. So do I, for that matter. I'll need to pick out a nice Christmas present for her." Valerie felt tears of humiliation burning in her eyes. On some level, she'd thought she and Morgan were friends.
Well, if she had to admit it to herself, on a deeper level, she'd always harbored a secret yearning for Morgan, but he'd never even glanced at her in that way, and she accepted that. He was wealthy, stunningly handsome, and powerful. Valerie was full-figured and round-faced and cheerful and … she had a great personality. Yep. Everybody said that.
But up until this moment, she had at least believed that she was one of Morgan's few friends. His confidante.
Morgan looked at her with a guilty expression on his face.
"Oh," he said. "That. Yeah."
"Yes," she said bitterly. "That." She looked him in the eye.
"I'm out," Arthur said, trotting out the side door without a backward glance.
"Coward!" Morgan yelled after him. Arthur's only answer was a slammed door and the sound of his hurrying footsteps.
Valerie glared at Morgan. Now was as good a time to tell him as any. "And by the way, I quit. I'm leaving right after Christmas."
He shook his head, his expression a mixture of befuddlement and annoyance. "What, because of that? I can explain."
"I don't care. Mate with whoever you want. I'm not quitting because of that. I'm quitting because … well, okay, to be blunt, you're an unappreciative jerk, I've put up with it for three years, and all that time, I've had plenty of other job offers, and I finally accepted one. You've never shown the slightest bit of appreciation, but I'm actually an excellent executive assistant."
"I appreciate you. I haven't fired you yet, have I? And I send you presents on all the appropriate holidays," Morgan said, looking astonished.
"You have me pick them out and send them to myself. Not exactly the same thing. What's my favorite flower?"
"Roses?" he guessed.
"No. Daisies. What kind of coffee do I drink?"
"How the hell would I know? You're the one who gets the coffee."
"Cinnamon latte. What's my favorite color?"
He looked at her calf-length wool skirt. "Herringbone tweed?"
At her snort of disgust, he said impatiently, "Valerie, you're not quitting. I'll double what anyone else is offering. I need you here. And I don't have a mate, by the way. I just lied and told my family that I'd chosen a mate. Last week, when my mother called me and pestered me about it."
"I don't care how much you're paying me. I'm leaving. And why would you lie about having a mate? Did it not occur to you that they'd want to meet her, pronto?"
He looked at her with alarm. "You're not actually quitting, Valerie. And I lied to my mother because my pack charter states that if I haven't picked a mate by the age of thirty, then I'm permanently disqualified as Alpha. I can't even death-challenge anyone for it; the position would go to the next qualified male heir in the pack, or if there are multiple candidates, which there are, they fight it out. I haven't selected a mate yet, and my mother called me up last week freaking out about it, so I told her I'd picked a mate."
"Are you kidding me? You turn thirty in two months." Valerie stared at him in disbelief. "When's my birthday, by the way?"
"Sometime in the next three hundred and sixty-five days. Valerie, I'm bad at that kind of thing, okay? And yes, I put it off for too long. The mating thing. It was stupid of me. I'm just not good at relationships."
"You think?" Valerie said. "Still. It's not like you to put off something so important. If the fate of your pack is riding on it. I mean, if there's one good thing I could say about you, it's that you're organized."
"One good thing?" Morgan looked offended. Then he waved his hand in exasperation, as if to dismiss the problem. "Anyway, don't worry about my pack. I'll have to call my mother and stall her. It's fine."
"Call her?" Valerie said. "She's in the front office. Your whole family is there."
He leapt to his feet and rushed for the door. "Why didn't you say so? Wait, they're out there with Eileen? There's no telling what she's saying to them right now! She hates me!"
"Hate is a strong word," Valerie said, following him as he flung his door open. "I think mild dislike is much more … oh, hello."
Eileen was standing there in the hallway, shaking her head. She looked at Morgan and made a tsking sound of disapproval.
"Eavesdropping? If you still worked here, I'd fire you," Morgan snapped at her.
"I'd fire myself," Eileen said drily. "And I'd give me a terrible reference, just for the heck of it." Then she grinned at Valerie and held up her hand. "Score! High-five," she said, and Valerie slapped her palm, but with less enthusiasm than usual.
They headed down the hall to face Morgan's family. Morgan's mother looked at Eileen with interest, ignoring Valerie.
"Mother. I didn't know you were coming," Morgan said to her, and his tone made it clear that the surprise was not a happy one.
Valerie glanced nervously at his family and tried to slide casually behind Eileen, which was not very effective because Eileen was a toothpick and Valerie was a big, round apple.
She wanted to be as far away from this family feud as possible. Fortunately, she doubted they'd recognize her, since they'd only met her face to face once, when she'd first started working with Morgan in their pack's home state of California.
She recognized them all from the pictures on Morgan's desk and from the pack's company brochure.
There was Nelda. She was a widow. Morgan's father had died when he was in his teens, and he never talked about it. The subject was strictly forbidden. Valerie had tried to ask Arthur about it a couple of times, and he'd suddenly gone deaf and then remembered that he had an urgent something he had to do immediately, in another part of town.
Morgan didn't have any pictures of his father in his office, or anywhere else that Valerie had ever seen. She'd always wondered about that. Did he hate him? Had he been abusive? Was that why all talk of his father was forbidden?
Nelda was accompanied by Honoria and Homer Rosemont, Morgan's twin brother and sister. They were both seventeen. They looked like young, lean versions of Morgan. Their personalities couldn't have been more different than his, though. Homer was a computer nerd, and Honoria was planning on being a lawyer. Valerie knew because she was the one who picked out their Christmas and birthday presents.