Harold was gone again by the time she awoke. He left her a note – not a love note, nothing so fanciful. It merely stated:
I expect to be home by nine. Yours sincerely, Harold.
Seriously, he wrote ‘yours sincerely’ to his wife. She didn’t really expect hugs and kisses, but he was as proper as if she were a business associate.
Bored and frustrated, Christine revisited the club to go swimming. She was actually starting to like it there. Well, not really, but she was certainly starting to like the swimming pool, and they cooked her a steak to perfection.
The other members of the club were a little standoffish, but that was fine, she was in no mood for company. Though the manager of the club had been weirdly attentive, hovering around her, keen to make sure she had everything she wanted. Oddly, the tennis instructor ran in the other direction when he saw her.
But she couldn’t spend all day the club, so she decided to go back to the house and consider what she wanted to do next.
As she approached their bedroom, she scented Esther. That didn’t surprise her. While Esther didn’t clean the whole house herself, she understood that she went over each room and checked that it had been done properly personally.
Esther wasn’t in the bedroom. Christine dumped her bag on the bed and moved to the bathroom. She was about to call out hello when Esther came scurrying out. The older woman yelped on seeing Christine and dropped the pill bottles she had been holding.
“Mrs. Buchanan!” she gasped. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to startle you, and please, call me Christy. Here, let me…”
Christine frowned as she picked up the bottles. She had assumed that Esther was restocking some vitamins or something for Harold – though, she hadn’t seen him ever take anything. But they had separate drawers in the bathroom for their things, and Christine hadn’t ventured to look in his.
However, one of the bottles had no label, and the other was Christine’s birth control pills.
“What are you doing with this?” asked Christine. She held it up to Esther.
Sweat beaded on the older she-wolf’s upper lip and her eyes darted around nervously.
“I, ah… I’m so sorry! It was Mrs. Buchanan senior… senior.”
“Marie?”
Esther nodded her head, a miserable expression on her face. “She told me that I had to swap your birth control pills or she’d fire me – and I need this job. My daughter chose to mate outside the pack, so she doesn’t get any of the pack profits, and she has eight children – she needs the money I give her.”
Rage bubbled inside Christine. “You should leave. Right now.”
“But… but… my job…”
“Just go.”
Esther burst into tears and fled the room.
Christine stared at the pill bottle. Her wolf snarled, and her claws flexed, crushing it in her hand. Really? She had her choice of mate taken away from her, and now her choice to have a pup was being taken, too?
She needed to run as her beast, because otherwise, she may just tear apart the next person she saw.
*
Harold was true to his word – he made it through the door at two minutes to nine. He smiled as he found Christine in the kitchen. She scowled in return and started furiously scrubbing a pan. She banged the thing around so much it was a wonder it wasn’t dented beyond recognition.
“Is everything okay?” he asked cautiously.
Christine forced an irritated smile on her face. “Don’t I seem okay, Harry?”
His eyebrow ticked at the name Harry, and he had a bad feeling where she picked it up. Jonathan was a possibility, but he doubted she would use it with such vehemence if she had merely heard his brother use it.
She watched him as he slowly placed his briefcase on the kitchen counter.
“I prefer Harold,” he said.
Christine dropped the pan and folded her arms. She was trembling slightly, though whether that was because she was upset or angry, he wasn’t sure. Maybe a little of both.
“From me?”
“From everyone.”
“So the woman who keeps calling, asking for Harry and then hanging up – do you prefer Harold from her as well?”
Harold growled. Sabrina. It had to be.
“How many times has she called?”
Christine rubbed her arms and gave him a hurt look. “Twice, but I keep getting calls from someone who keep breathing down the phone and hanging up. I take it you know who it is.”
Harold clenched his fists, trying to hold onto his temper. “I believe it is a woman I know…”
“Ex-girlfriend.”
“Technically, yes.” He would not have described her as his girlfriend, but the ‘ex’ part was certainly true. “Her name is Sabrina. Whatever relationship I had with her was over before I even met you.”
Her eyes flared.
“She will be dealt with,” he added.
“No doubt. I know you wouldn’t let personal feelings get in the way of anything.”
“You are angry with me,” he stated, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. Did she think he had encouraged Sabrina to do this? Did she think he was still seeing her?
“Yes, no. No.”
Harold let out a frustrated sigh. “This is my fault. I knew Sabrina was being difficult and I should have shielded you.”
Christine shook her head, her vibrant curls bounced to and fro. “Harold, I’m sorry, it’s not your fault.”
He took a step towards her and placed his hands on her hips. “No, it is my fault, I… I don’t want my wife hurt. I don’t want you hurt.”
Her eyes flickered, and for a moment, he thought she might cry. He almost started panicking when she looked away and murmured, “I’m just a little uncertain of everything right now.”
“What can I do?”
Christine shook her head again before snorting. “Maybe tell your grandmother to give it a rest.”
She related the incident with Esther trying to steal her birth control, and Harold snarled.
“I told Esther to get out… not sure whether I fired her or not.”
“She is fired!” he howled. “She can count on that.”
His hands left their comfortable perch on Christine’s hips, and he moved to find his phone. He would yell at Esther over the phone and in person tomorrow, too. How dare she try to interfere with his marriage! Though in truth, it was not really Esther he was angry with.
Christine caught his hands and pulled them back to her hips. He stilled as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Let’s just forget about it tonight.”
“I thought you were angry,” he said, settling into the embrace, relaxing a little on feeling the soft body of his lovely wife pressed against him.
She gave him the first genuine smile of the evening. “I was, but seeing you get angry calmed me down a bit. I just want to forget about everybody else.”
“I will deal with this; I will…”
His temper started blazing, and Christine pressed a finger to his lips.
“Let’s just go to bed,” she suggested with a certain twinkle in her eye.
He told himself that would not distract him – he was not the kind of man who could be sidetracked by sex. But as she led him up to their room, he found the reason for his anger becoming fuzzier and fuzzier.