So I Married a Werewolf (Entangled Covet) (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

Faith was nearly skipping by the time she stepped over the curb in front of Starbucks, a permanent smile etched on her face. She and Carter had stayed up all night, wrapped in each other’s arms. After making love a second time, she’d fallen into a light sleep, only to be roused by the softest of touches on her brow. Each time she dozed off, she’d wake up with the feel of Carter’s hand on the dip of her hip, her stomach, her hair.

When she awakened in the morning she felt treasured, nurtured. Like an angel.

She was madly in love with her husband.

There was no denying it now, and she probably shouldn’t have denied it before. She’d always liked Carter, always had a major next-door-neighbor crush on him. But now, that crush had veered into serious relationship territory.

They hadn’t talked about where they would go from here, now that he got the job. Would she move back home so they could date like a normal couple? Divorce and take their relationship one step at a time? Stay married, remain living together, and try to make their marriage work?

The whole scenario was beyond complicated.

She hadn’t told him about her meeting with Jack Winchester, either. For some reason, she’d kept everything involved with
Have a Little Faith
private. She hadn’t told him about how many hits she received a day, or how many hours it took her to respond to comments. She was going to have to hire a personal assistant if things kept up this way! And since she started blogging about Humperdinck’s progress, her blog had erupted.

Was it wrong that she hadn’t told Carter? She didn’t think so, yet guilt niggled at her stomach. This was hers. It’d
always
been hers.

Maybe this is what she was getting in the deal. Carter got the detective position, Dawson got Yale, and she got to stand on her own two feet. The blog’s success wasn’t directly a part of their marriage arrangement, but Carter had given her inspiration for a few of her more popular posts, so that had to count for something.

“Tall latte,” she said to the barista at the register, and looked around the restaurant. Jack Winchester said he’d be here at eleven, five minutes from now. He said he’d have a laptop, black bag, blond hair, and freckles. That could’ve been one of two guys sitting near the windows. She thanked the barista, took her drink and walked back toward the large front window. “Mr. Winchester?”

The man on the right looked up from behind a set of rectangular glasses. He was cute, like a beagle. Short legs. Large ears. Soft eyes.

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “Faith Hamilton?”

She nodded and took the seat opposite him, setting her bag down at her feet, then shook his hand. “I’m glad we were able to meet this way. With you being in California, I didn’t think it would happen.”

“I happen to have a few other business meetings in Seattle this week, so I thought I’d make the trip worthwhile.” When he smiled, his cheeks touched the bottom rim of his glasses. His skin was pale, covered in large patches of honey-colored freckles. He was the exact opposite of Carter. Where Carter was strong, exuding a dangerous aura, this guy was soft and gentle. She trusted him, and didn’t even know him.

“This is quite the storm,” he said, staring out the window. “Does it always rain this much?”

“Absolutely. You’ve got to really love the rain to live here.” She thought twice. “Or be depressed out of your mind until you pack up and move.”

“Which are you?” he asked, folding his arms over the table.

“I’ve got no plans to move anytime soon.” She took a sip of her latte, relishing the sweetness. “What do you say we get down to business?”

She told Carter she was going out for groceries so she could make him something special for dinner. She couldn’t be gone long. It wasn’t a total lie; she’d planned on hitting the store after the meeting. She still had to figure out what the something special that she was cooking up was, but whatever. She could throw something together a few hours before dinner.

Hey, she was getting pretty good at this cooking thing…

“Great.” Jack took out a few sheets of paper from his bag, then set them on the table and spun them around facing her. “I’m going to be really transparent here. I’ve printed out a sheet detailing our profits for our company for the last three fiscal quarters with graphs showing which products are selling from which categories. Then, if you’ll flip the page”—he flipped for her—“you’ll see where I’ve marked when things were referred by another customer, from an online ad placement of ours, or another source. Take a look at the training supply category.”

She studied the graph, then followed the key code on the side. The beagle was organized, that was for sure. If she was reading the graph correctly, and she hoped that she was,
Have a Little Faith
had been mentioned in over sixty percent of the sales for his training supplies.

“Am I seeing that right?” she asked.

“You are. Isn’t that amazing, reading the success in black and white that way?”

She nodded, thinking about nothing but Dawson’s bright smile when she’d tell him about the news: he’d attend Yale, and she wouldn’t go broke putting him through.

“While I’m showing you a graph for the Wagging Tails Dog Supplies in Sacramento, we have stores nationwide and—”

“Where are those graphs?” she fired.

“I didn’t bring those.”

“Only transparent to a point?” She smiled, and he smiled back.

“We think you’re on the verge of something,” he said. “A blog filled with personal experiences, training techniques from a professional, advice from someone a laptop click away, seems to be what dog owners want right now. We’d like to partner with you, offer you some financial backing, and help give
Have a Little Faith
the bump it needs to sky rocket into the dog-o-sphere.”

She laughed so hard she almost snorted latte through her nose. The guy wasn’t a beagle—he was a geek. And she loved it. Hell, if he kept spouting off notions of her success, she might fall in love with everyone in the coffee shop!

She couldn’t wait to get home and tell Carter.

“So what are we talking about here? Let’s get down and dirty with numbers.”

He smiled wide. “Oh, I think we’re going to get along fine, you and me.”

They spent the next thirty minutes going over his offer, starting with his mention of financially backing the growth of her blog into a website. He talked about different ways to make money on her blog. Pay to offer merchandise links and links to mini-malls preloaded with Wagging Tails Dog Supplies products. He also talked about expanding her existing affiliate branches.

There were so many outlets for growth, it was crazy.

Her heart lifted. This was actually going to work. She could support herself,
and
her brother. For the first time since her parents died, the world stopped spinning. Her feet were finally planted on solid ground.

As their discussion came to an end, Faith was beyond pleased with the outcome.

Wagging Tails Dog Supplies wasn’t taking over her blog, or even having a strong hand in it—she wouldn’t have let that happen. It was simply going to become a main ad on her sidebar. She agreed to test out the free products it’d send her monthly, and if she found them useful, she’d feature them. The really cool part? If she hated one of the products, she had the freedom to say so.

The blog, her opinions, and her freedom to make it whatever she wanted, remained hers.

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!”