Chapter Two
Isaias tapped the screen of his treadmill, increasing the slope to as high as it would go. His legs burned with the effort and sweat dripped from his face, but he kept breathing deep breaths and persisted. Concentrating on keeping going, there was no room in his mind for anything else. Hard exercise always helped to focus his mind.
As soon as he slowed and dropped the angle to cool down, though, the thoughts from before rushed back. The Harvest Moon was coming up. Traditionally it was a time for all unmated bear shifters like him to get drunk, party and have sex with multiple partners. Many of the female bears who lived in the area were asking him to go with them. A guaranteed chance of claiming him.
The problem was that he didn’t feel that way for any of them. No matter how pretty, how sweet or how spicy, he just didn't want them. It had been this way with him ever since he was a teenager. While his friends were talking about the girls they liked, which morphed into their sexual exploits, he preferred to be engrossed in other things.
At the time, he thought he was just a late bloomer. It wasn't like he’d never been attracted to anyone. He had had a few significant crushes on women, but he never could say he fell in love or lust the way other bears did. Now this late in life, he couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong with him.
He didn't want a mate to just have a mate. He didn't want to have sex with a bunch of strangers, hoping to find his forever One in a haze of hormones. He wanted something else. Something deeper. He wanted to get to know his mate on an emotional, even spiritual, level first. Maybe it was unrealistic. Maybe he was just a dreamer. But he wanted a bond with his mate that had nothing to do with sex. Sexual desire, he thought, would grow naturally out of becoming emotionally close. And if it didn’t? Lust faded. People didn't stay fresh and beautiful. True friendship was harder to lose.
The problem was he didn't really have the time for a slow burn romance. Among the bears, in his clan at least, it was the females who decided hierarchy. His constant refusal of them without good reason–he was attracted to women, he didn't have a mate, and he wasn't a widower–was hurting his position. While they couldn't take his money from him, every year saw his chances of a mate diminish further and further, and his involvement in the clan was thinning.
All too soon, it should no longer be an option. And then what would he do? He didn't want to spend the rest of his life alone. He had Adela, but she was like a sister to him. Sooner or later she would find someone and then what? This huge house was already too empty.
He slowed the treadmill further, setting it to a leisurely pace for the final cooldown phase. Harvest Moon or not, he had more important things to think about.
After the cops had arrived the previous night, he had gone over to Becky’s house with her. Nothing had been touched. Nothing taken, nothing thrown around to indicate a burglary. The cops had suggested that Becky had simply forgotten to shut her door tight. She had doubtfully agreed it was a possibility, although not a likely one.
But Isaias had smelled a strong smell of another bear in the house. And then combined with the bear attack on her… could the attack on her be someone framing him? There were a few bears he knew who would want to discredit him or worse.
An attack on a non-shifter would definitely do that. While non-shifters did know about the existence of shifters, most of them had to keep their identities a secret. They kept from shifting in public and did their best to stop their non-shifter neighbors from finding out about them. Most avoided being in urban situations at all.
Any crime that shifters committed, no matter the circumstances, was bad for all of them. The popular image of shifters was that they were nothing more than the animals whose forms they could inhabit and were violent beings that operated on the basest of instincts.
Panting, he stopped the treadmill and did a few stretches before heading for the showers. Maybe it wasn’t them trying to discredit him. Maybe they wanted to push him into revealing his identity to the world. He was rich and popular. Just last week he was named one of the top ten eligible billionaire bachelors, despite all his efforts to stay out of the public eye. A person in his position could do a lot to change perceptions…
Which he was already doing. People didn't listen when you told them things, but if you wrote books and produced TV shows that showed shifters in a realistic, positive light, rather than only the publicity of them doing terrible things, then views would change. He owned five network channels that aired shows with shifters as main characters. Plus he had a few publishing houses. Becky didn't know it, but he owned her publishing house. He enjoyed her writing. Even if her portrayals of shifters were problematic at times, she made the effort to make them real characters and he admired that.
He stripped off his clothes in the bathroom then reached to turn on the hot water.
The door opened. Becky stepped in, wrapped in only a towel. They both froze, staring at each other. Her towel gaped at the bottom, revealing her hip and the hint of a triangle of brown hair. Isaias' gaze dropped to that triangle despite himself and Becky screamed. She jumped back and slammed the door, cutting them off from one another.
“Crap!” Isaias grabbed a robe and pulled it on. Since she moved in next to him, he’d seen how shy Becky was. This would be humiliating for her.
Why hadn't he used his own personal bathroom instead of this one? He knew it was connected to the guest room Becky was staying in. He’d just forgotten she was there. He wrapped a towel around his waist. Swallowing, he knocked on her door. When there was no answer, he opened it a crack.
"Don't come in here!"
Isaias hesitated a moment, then inched the door open a little bit more. "Becky?"
"I said don't come in."
"I'm not coming in. I just wanted to apologize…" He trailed off as a sweet scent wafted into his nostrils. His eyes widened as he recognized the scent of female arousal. His loins tightened, surprising him further. His grip tightened on the doorknob as he breathed in the heady scent. His jaw fell open slightly to pick up more of the scent.
Becky's face appeared around the edge of the door. It was beet-red and she clutched a robe tightly around her curvy frame. "Okay. You apologized. You can go now."
At that moment, he decided that he quite enjoyed how she looked all flustered and embarrassed. Her scent certainly wasn't hurting matters… He grinned, flashing the dimples that Adela had once nicknamed 'lady-killer one and two' and leaned against the door.
"Well, I would, except you're the one who walked in on me. You saw me completely naked…" Her face flushed an even deeper red. "So shouldn’t you apologize, too?"
"I'm sorry," she blurted. "There. We've both said sorry, now you can shower and I can shower—"
"What, together?" He couldn't help himself and laughed as she got even redder once again. "I'm sorry. You just look so cute when you're embarrassed like that."
Becky hid her face in her hands, peeking through her fingers. "Please go."
The meek plea had him sobering. "I'm sorry. Of course. You can lock the door on this side, that will stop anybody from walking in again… and I'll make sure to just use mine. Not that you're going to be staying for much longer. I mean, you can if you want, if you're nervous about going back to your home but… okay, I'm going now."
He quickly hurried away, heart beating a little too fast. Becky continued to fill his thoughts as he went to his master suite and showered. It was odd how having her as a neighbor had changed everything and nothing.
When she first moved in, he hadn't thought much about her. She built a small house on a large plot of land and started a garden that seemed too large for her needs. True enough, one day she had arrived at the gate with a bucket of peas that she said she didn't have a use for. She was friendly enough, but kept to herself. Since he liked his privacy as well, he had thought the arrangement was just fine.
But when Adela started to invite her over, things gradually started to shift. It was no longer good enough to smile and wave when he saw Becky outside working any longer. Now he had to find a reason to go out and talk to her for a little bit. He looked for special occasions to invite everybody he knew to come over for a party or dinner, just so she didn't know that he just wanted a reason to see her in his house.
From time to time he even considered asking her out. Those thoughts were quickly shot down, though. Becky had never been seen with a male companion and she didn't even come to half the parties that he invited her to.
And of course, he could turn into a bear. While she wrote about shifters with a great deal of sympathy, that didn't mean that she would be automatically accepting of one in real life. He couldn’t risk getting close to someone and developing feelings only for her to reject him. That had happened too many times already in his life.
***
Later that day, he returned to Becky to apologize. She was less mortified this time and graciously accepted his apology.
"It was embarrassing, though, wasn't it?" she laughed. "Well, at least the tabloids won't get ahold of it. Can you imagine the rumors?"
"Rumors…" Isaias' eyes lit up as an idea came to him. He wanted to be left alone until after the Harvest Moon? Well, he had the perfect way to accomplish that. "Can I ask a favor of you? I know it's going to sound strange but people are going to talk about you staying here, even one night. And I'm sure that there was someone in your house last night, it doesn't make sense that you'd forget to close the door. So what if you just stayed here and pretended to be my fiancé?"
Becky's eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
"I'm tired of women throwing themselves at me," he continued. "If everybody thought we were engaged, then not only would it stop those people who broke in from coming back but it would also stop me from having to deal with them."
She stared at him for a long time before a flush rose in her neck. Her hands clenched and her eyes narrowed. Without a word, she shook her head and walked away.