Chapter 37

“Come in,” she told him as she held the door open.

Claire was incredibly jittery and trying to hide her somewhat shaky hands from him so that he wouldn’t see how his presence affected her. She wasn’t about to give him the upper hand. He filed in and turned expectantly, as if waiting for further instruction.

“Have a seat.”

“I’d rather stand.”

“Suit yourself,” she replied, shutting the door and walking over to the sofa to have a seat. She felt weak as she waited to see what it was he had to say to her.

“Look. I know she fucked up. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“You should have just said it, Harper.”

“I know. I know I should have. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

“I don’t understand. How could you get involved with me, tell me you love me and let me fall in love with you without mentioning something as important as a wife?”

“I never intended for you to find out about her.”

“Oh, well that is just fantastic, Harper. At least it’s honest. It might be the most honest statement you’ve ever made to me.”

“She is blackmailing me, Claire.”

“Blackmailing you? Oh, that is rich. How is your wife blackmailing you?”

“We have a prenup that says if she is unfaithful she gets nothing, but if he is unfaithful, she gets more than half of everything.”

“Well, looks like you are about to be a lot less wealthy.”

“I could do without the sarcasm.”

“I could do without an adulteress lover.”

“Look. She cheated on me repeatedly, but I have no proof of that. After years of it, I got tired of it and moved out into my own apartment. I never once strayed, even when we were separated. Not until we seemed to have just been going our separate ways and I didn’t think it mattered.”

“So, I’m a rebound?”

“No. You aren’t. Not at all, but the one before you was. She worked in the temp pool for the office. They assigned her to my office and I was lonely. We were there for long hours. One thing led to another.”

“Great. I’m not even your first office affair.”

“It’s not like that, Claire.”

“No? It sure feels like that.”

“Well, it isn’t. Let me finish.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Anyway, what I didn’t know is that my wife was in cahoots with this woman that I was seeing at the office. There is a tape of us together.”

“Your wife set you up with a sex tape?”

“I don’t think she set her up from the beginning. She just seized the opportunity. The employee and I had an argument. She wanted to get more serious and I didn’t, couldn’t. I was married and was working with lawyers to try to protect my estate and get a divorce without losing my ass. Things soured and she quit working for me.”

“I don’t follow.”

“A few days later, she came by my apartment and we made up. She said that she understood and was sorry that she had tried to push me into something I couldn’t handle. I believed her. We ended up in bed. A week later, she called me and asked if I wanted to come over. What I didn’t know was that she had set up cameras to capture us on film.”

“At what point in this story am she supposed to start feeling any sympathy for you?”

“I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me, damn it! I am just trying to explain to you what happened.”

“Okay. Your money is too important to you to get a divorce. You rather just lie about it and pretend you don’t have a wife. How can we ever have a future?”

“It’s not about the money. I mean, it was in the beginning, but things changed after that film. Something happened afterwards that is more important.”

“I can’t imagine what.”

“Listen, I don’t want you to be afraid. I’m going to show you something that I should have already told you about, something I was going to tell you about once I was sure we were entirely solid.”

“Great. Another secret,” Claire said, rolling her eyes.

“Claire, please…”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

She watched as he began to take off his clothes, then stood before her ,completely naked. At first, she didn’t understand, but then he began to change somehow. It made no sense as his skin contorted and his bones cracked, spreading out in different directions to reform him, recreate him. Her heart almost stopped as she found herself looking at an impossibly large black wolf.

“What the fuck?” Claire managed, almost to herself.

Then, he was changing again, this time into a tiger that stood looking at her, but not moving. It was followed by a change into a hawk, then a panther and finally, a cobra before back into himself.

Claire’s heart was racing as she watched in disbelief. This didn’t even make any sense and she wondered if she was dreaming or perhaps hallucinating. She looked around, bewildered. She seemed to be awake and in her own living room. Perhaps it was a tumor.

“Claire?”

“Uh,” was all she managed in response.

“Are you okay?”

“I think I’m having some sort of psychotic break.”

“No. No, you aren’t. I am a shifter.”

“A what?”

“A shifter. I can shape shift into different animals.”

“That’s crazy. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know. It’s a lot to swallow.”

“Why did you show me that?”

“So, you would believe me and so that I could make you understand the situation with my wife.”

“I don’t,” Claire replied, still in a partial state of shock.

“The sex tape is not what my wife holds over me. It’s the tape that she captured afterward.”

“Which was of what?”

“When I left the woman’s house, I was in a hurry. I had taken a cab there so my car wouldn’t be seen and I had a meeting to get to, a meeting I was late for. Instead of calling a car or a cab to get back, I stripped down in the back yard and tied my clothes in a knot around my neck before shifting into a hawk and flying back to the roof of my office.”

“And the woman saw you?”

“Worse. That would have just made her sound crazy. My wife had also hired a private investigator to follow me. He got the whole thing on camera.”

“So, she will expose you if you divorce her?”

“Exactly.”

“So? Why would it really matter?”

“People are, by nature, skeptical. It would label me a freak, a hoaxer. The press and attention would ruin me. The people who would stalk me to try to catch me would prevent me from ever shifting.”

“Why do you need to shift?”

“Same as any other animal, Claire. It’s my nature. I only showed the small animals. I can shift into much bigger things, even a dragon.”

“Dragons don’t exist.”

“Until a few moments ago, you would have said that about shifters. I am half human and half dragon shifter and the mutation of those two gives me the ability to shift into all sorts of things.”

“So, we have no future. You will always be married and you’ll always be this … this thing.”

“Before I met you, I wasn’t worried about a future. I admit that. If I divorce her, she takes money that I need to support my business, to take care of the people that work for me. I have people to think of other than myself. On top of that, she exposes me and ends my career altogether, unless I want to become a circus freak.”

“Then you should make sure you take care of your people. I think we are done here, Harper.”

“No. We aren’t done.”

“Yes. I think we are. You can’t get a divorce from the wife that you failed to tell her about because she has tapes of you fucking one of your employees and shifting into a bird.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair. Get out of my house, Harper.”

“Claire. Please. I’m begging you.”

“Don’t bother. Just leave.”

“Claire…”

“Leave!”

He looked as if she had hit him rather than just barked at him, but she didn’t care. Everything he had to say only made matters worse. She couldn’t believe he had shown up here with such a crazy attempt at explaining himself.

He opened his mouth to say something and then just closed it again. She watched as he walked toward the door, opened it and left. Dropping down onto the sofa, she put her head in her hands and began to cry.