Griffon slowly, deliberately set down the glass he was holding.
His claws were starting to come out now, and his fingers were clutching the glass so tightly, Preston was afraid it would just disintegrate into a thousand pieces under the pressure.
Griffon looked at Preston. “What do you think?”
Preston decided to push forward. “I think you like her a little, don’t you? Otherwise, why would you be so angry when you heard she had slept with Roman?”
Griffon snarled, “It’s in poor taste to flaunt one’s promiscuity. With a Beta, no less. So I decided to put her in her place. Is that love?”Ah, so there it was.
Taya had moved from a man as rich and powerful as THE Alpha Knight, to the “lowly” Beta Starke. That made sense to Preston. Griffon didn’t want people thinking that he and Roman ran in the same circles, close enough to have access to the same women. He would rather not be a*foliated with someone like Roman. Moreover, as soon as Tara returned to the country, Griffon broke things off with Taya, which was enough to show that Taya was not relevant and didn’t take up any room in Griffon’s heart. Preston didn’t say anything more. He raised his head and drank up the rest of the bourbon in his glass. Then he got up and said goodbye to his cousin.
Griffon didn’t reply. He just nodded indifferently.
Preston was used to his cousin’s indifference. It had been Griffon’s primary emotion and attitude since he was a child, so Preston didn’t take it to heart. He simply picked up his coat and turned to leave.
It was raining heavily outside. His driver was waiting for him, and when he saw Preston, he rushed over with an umbrella. Once in the car, Preston directed him toward downtown.
While stopped at a traffic light, he saw Taya, who was only wearing a dress, hailing a taxi in the heavy rain.
Her petite body was thin. The dress, soaked by the rain, tightly clung to her body, making her seem even more fragile.
Her curly hair was plastered to her head and stuck to her face.
Somehow, despite how broken she looked standing there forlornly in the rain, it didn’t affect her beauty one bit.
Preston saw taxi after taxi zooming past Taya, but none of them stopped.
After hesitating for a moment, he ordered his driver over to her.
I covered my eyes with a hand and vaguely saw a man walking toward me with an umbrella.
When the umbrella covered my head, I was stunned for a moment, slowly raising my eyes to look at him…
It was like looking at Griffon from five years ago…
It was raining that day, too. I’d knelt at the nightclub door and begged passengers-by to buy me for a night.
Many men came in and out, touching, teasing, and laughing at me, but not a single one was willing to pay for me.
And then a mountain of a man, who I could immediately tell was a wolf shifter by the gleam in his eyes, slowly approached. When he covered the top of my head with the umbrella in his hand to shield me from the storm, it was like I was looking at a god.
In the dim glow of the streetlights, I’d crawled to his feet, grabbed the hem of his pants, and begged him to buy me for a night.
The man looked down at me with no contempt or ridicule in his eyes. He just asked coldly, “Are you clean?”
I’d blushed and nodded, and then the man stretched out his large, strong hand to me.
When I placed my hand in his broad palm, I’d sealed my fate. I would be tied to him for the rest of my life, and I hadn’t a clue.
“Get in the car. I’ll take you home.”
Preston opened the car’s back door, and his warm voice washed over me, mixed with the rain.
Only then did I come to my senses.
It wasn’t that night five years ago, and it wasn’t Alpha Knight standing in front of me. It was Preston, Griffon’s cousin.
But Griffon and I were over. And even when we had been… whatever…I’d never been around his family. He would probably be enraged if I were associated with his family in any way, spent any time with Preston.
The catch? My phone was dead, so I couldn’t request an Uber. And taxis in this town were the worst. They never stopped, or they already had a passenger. Any of the nearby stores or businesses were well past being closed, so I was left with walking home in the pouring rain, continue failing to get a taxi…or let Preston drive me.
Goddess, I wished I had a wolf so I would have a fourth option to shift and run home.
I hesitated for a moment and got in his car.
Water dripped everywhere off me, and the seat was soaked in Seconds, water pooling on the floor mat beneath my feet.
All I had in my purse were a couple of tissues, and I grabbed them and tried to wipe up the seat. It was no use, though. They only made more of a mess, leaving white bits behind as they disintegrated under my vigorous wiping.
Embarrassment flooded me, and my face burned. “I’m so sorry. I got everything all wet and dirty.”
Preston quickly turned to face the back seat and stopped me, his voice low and gentle. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just water. It’ll dry.”
For a moment, I almost forgot that the person sitting in the pa*singer seat in front of me, who had rescued me from the rain was related to Griffon, was part of the powerful Knight family and pack. A pack known more for its ruthlessness and power than its kindness.
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 drove 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 passed?
“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 anyway.
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 truly sorry to trouble you, but I’m thankful you stopped.”
Preston looked at the embarrased 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 ea.