I snorted. He probably had a liable excuse.
“I wasn’t asking about Malachi, Steele,” she snapped. Her voice grew louder and shriller as she asked, “For the love of all that’s good, did you mate with her?”
I shook my head. “Don’t fret, my alpha. Your coffers are safe.”
“Then why are you acting like this?” she asked gesturing above the desk toward me. Her eyes narrowed on mine.
I shrugged. “Not sure what you are talking about.”
“So, help me, Steele,” she said, holding a fist above the center of the table. “I will take every last penny of yours for the next month if you so much as lay another finger on a client. You belong to me. No one else. So long as you continue to find ways around my rules, that is how it will be.”
I smiled and placated her in the way her ego required. If it got her to allow me to leave and end the conversation, so be it. I had grown bored of this and desperately needed to put my mind on other things.
She glared at me again, huffed, and then stomped her way toward the door. She opened it and said, “Get the fuck out of my face.”
I stood up and head out without another word. I ignored her threats and the tone of her voice and went about my way. I was finally alone and could be left to my thoughts which quickly returned to Cassidy.
3
CASSIDY
I had stared after her for several minutes, waiting for her to come back and fill in the blanks for me. It didn’t take long for me to realize she wasn’t going to come back. So, I let it go. Whatever had set her off and made her leave the ay she did, it likely had nothing to do with me and so I wasn’t going to worry about it. Instead, I took the liberty to eat my fill of the scones and croissants.
When in Manitou, after all…
Not much longer after Charlotte had left so hastily, I headed out myself. And with the weather being too perfect to go back to the hotel, and nothing else planned for my day, I decided to walk along the streets of Manitou Springs. Besides I had eaten way too many of those scones and croissants. I figured I could use a little exercise and walk off some of the calories. Besides I almost always enjoyed myself with window shopping.
And I passed by all the various shops that lined both sides of the main street, I wasn’t left disappointed.
Taking in the sights and absorbing the fresh mountain air made my soul feel better than I had felt in a very long time. The air in Manitou was so different compared to the air in Denver. The energy was different, too.
There was something special about this little town, and I simply couldn’t put my finger on what that was exactly. And a part of me didn’t mind all that much about not being able to figure out what that special thing was. The obvious reasons were because there was less smog and cleaner air. But there was so much more to it. Something resting beneath the surface of what I could taste, see, smell or touch… something that waited just out of reach.
Invisible but palpable.
I stepped toward the curb and cast my gaze above me to stare at an old building from what I loved to call the Wild West Days. I was amazed at how well the building stood the test of time. I wanted to take a picture of the place and share it with my students when I got back. I pulled out my phone and clicked on the camera app. I turned around and took a couple of steps back, trying to get me and the building in the right angle and bumped into something hard. A crash of items hit the cement, and I sucked in a breath of shock.
“Oh, no!” a woman cried.
I gasped, caught myself from tripping and falling, and turned around to find a tall, curvy woman, crouched on the sidewalk, picking up various papers and items that had scattered along the cement and tossing them into a nearly empty box. She must have been carrying it when I bumped into her. But I didn’t see anyone else on the sidewalk. She essentially appeared out of thin air.
She had long, curly black hair and soft, brown skin. A long sweater jacket hung from her frame in a rustic orange color. She was curvy and beautiful, and I had just mindlessly bumped into her trying to take the perfect selfie, and forced her to drop her things.
Because I had bumped into her, the right thing to do was to help pick things up. And it really was my fault the accident happened. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to where I was going. Helping was sort of my penance.
“I’m so sorry,” I said and knelt on the ground, collecting pieces of paper laying scattered along the concrete. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Are you okay?”
I glanced at the door we were bent down in front of and noticed we were kneeling in front of some sort of storage unit. She must have come out of the building when I crashed into her.
“I’m fine, thank you for the apology,” she says. Under her breath, she adds, “I’m used to it, though.”
“What a horrible thing to say,” I said.
“As much as that may be so, it is the truth,” she said as she grabbed bits of broken plastic from some sort of case and tossed it into the box. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Let me show you differently,” I said. “I can help you carry this back to wherever it is you are going. We can take turns carrying it or I can carry it the whole way.”
“I’ve got this,” she said. Meeting my gaze. She had startlingly beautiful green eyes. Not what I would have expected from a mixed woman. “But thank you.”