Page 41 of Bully Wolf's Nanny
Tears were slipping down her cheeks now, and she hastily wiped them away before Thea could notice. The last thing she wanted to do was upset her daughter. Fortunately, Thea had busied herself trying to braid her hair—"Look, just like Cinderella, Mommy!”—and was making a mess of it.
With deft hands, Daisy took over, combing out her daughter’s messy dark strands before artfully weaving them together into a messy French braid reminiscent of Cinderella’s casual romantic braid in the live action film.
She didn’t turn at the slightly hesitant knock on the door.
Nicolas let himself in. Of course he did. It was his house. She would do well to remember that.
“Nicolas!” Thea cried, twisting her head as far as she could given Daisy was still braiding, “is Francesca gone, can you read meThe Hobbitnow?”
There was a pause, then a slight rustle of fabric as he shifted on his feet behind her. Daisy was aware of how stiff her shoulders were, how straight her spine was. She fixed her gaze on the back of her daughter’s head and refused to turn. To even acknowledge him. If she did, she would break.
“Later, Thea,” Nicolas said, his voice hard as chipped marble. “Why don’t you go and get ready for bed. I need to talk to your mother.”
Obeying the command, Daisy tied off her daughter’s braid and ushered her out of her bedroom, with a promise to come and see her later. Then she turned, slowly, deliberately, her hands folding neatly in front of her.
“What can I help you with?” she asked softly, her eyes fixed on the soft rug beneath her feet.
Nicolas stepped towards her, the shining leather of his shoes coming into view.
“Daisy,” he said, “look at me, please.”
She tilted her chin up, slamming a mask of professional indifference onto her face.
He was devastatingly handsome. Of course he was. His dark hair was tousled, as if he had been running his hand through it. At some point he had taken off his navy sweater, and his white shirt was open at the collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal toned forearms.
He looked strong. Sophisticated. Effortlessly sexy.
She fought not to tremble under the heavy weight of his irritated gaze.
“I’m sorry she spoke to you like that,” he said, crossing his arms, “I told her not to again. I won’t tolerate you being disrespected.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Daisy said.
His brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she replied quickly.
He looked for a moment like he might reach out to her, take her in his arms perhaps, or just touch her.
She desperately wanted him to.
But instead, he turned on his heel and began pacing, his movements jerky and agitated. She was reminded then of his wolf stalking through the forest, pent up with rage and frustration. It sent a shiver down her spine.
“Francesca is…” he started, his fists clenching and clenching. He searched for the words, and it struck Daisy that she had never seen him rendered speechless before. He had always had something to say. Some witty retort, some clever comeback, some bitingly devastating comment. No matter the circumstances.
She remembered one pack bonfire, perhaps seven or eight years ago. It was soon after he had first kissed her. What she had thought was some weird one-time fluke never to be repeated had actually been repeated multiple times. He would ignore her in the corridors and then stalk her down after school and back her into a tree before kissing her senseless, his movements desperate and aggressive. And she had continued to let him.
It hadn’t been love. Though the bullying had stopped, though cracks were forming in his hard shell, she knew it wasn’t love. Not yet, at least. And then the bonfire had happened. Her father had forced her along, dragging her along with her mother to ‘show face.’ The alpha wasn’t pleased with him. That much she knew. She also knew without a shadow of a doubt that a pack event was the last place she wanted to be. Things had been getting angrier. Heated. A boiling pot ready to spill over. She didn’t want to be anywhere near it when it did.
Even knowing Nicolas would be there did nothing to calm her nerves. He was predictably right at the heart of his little group, along with Felix and Dane. Except, it wasn’t so little anymore. There were perhaps twenty of them, all alphas, all young, sprawling across a park bench on the other side of the bonfire. Her eyes had met Nicolas’s as he leaned back, leather jacket straining over new muscle, and he had jerked his head once toward the woods.
She understood. She managed to escape her parents and met Nicolas in a hidden corner against some boulder or other, where he had pressed his long, hard body into hers and claimed her lips for his own. They hadn’t really talked. Nicolas had said something about how beautiful she was, how pure, but she had just chalked that up to lust.
And then his father had found them. His father, tall and imposing and terrifying. They had leapt apart as if burnt, and Daisy had seen every conceivable emotion pass across Nicolas’s face. She had made to leave, to run back to her parents, but he had caught her by the wrist and faced down his father. She had thought he might falter, might struggle to find the words. Lord knows she was rendered speechless in shock and fright.
But he hadn’t. His father said something or other, some poison about her, about her family, about Nicolas himself. Nicolas had sneered at his father, his hand warm and tight around her wrist, and spat out the words that had remained etched onto her brain ever sense.
“She’s a more worthy shifter than you will ever be, you son of a bitch.”
