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Chapter 1 - Andres
I had to have her.
Women rarely caught my attention the way Sadie Turner did. It wasn’t just the way she swung her hips a little or the fact that she smelled of vanilla and honey as she walked past my office door. Those might have been influencing factors, but it was so much more than that.
There was something about her liveliness that gripped me. The way the sun dashed strands of gold into her creamy blonde hair and sparked her hazel-yellow eyes like twin bonfires caught my attention in ways that defied my control.
Nothingdefied my control. Worst case, it was a fleeting crush based on the fact that she barely spared me a glance. I was no stranger to desire, and I didn’t see much wrong with tapping a fine ass every now and then. Sadie had something I wanted—so I was going to get it.
“Sadie, did you get the email list?”
“Coming!”
Cue the loveliest of shoulders passing by in three, two—
“Hi, Andres,” Sadie called as she briskly walked past my door. “Nice morning, right?”
“Hi, Sadie. You’re right.”
Come on, man. You can’t be serious, I chided myself while clutching my pen.Hi, you’re right. What a way to catch her attention.
Well, it wasn’t like I had the power of enlargement and wings. That seemed to be the rage these days inside Silverdawn. Girls were falling head first over Izdor, the last remaining eligible Elderling bachelor in our pack. Raven didn’t often play favorites, but when it came to her kind, she seemed skewed.
But I’d probably do the same in her position. It wasn’t like Elderlings were commonplace. Wolves populated this area more than most other shifters, so it was a surprise to start meeting shifters outside our realm. When I traveled with my half-brothers, I met all kinds of creatures except for Elderlings. It wasn’t until I returned that I got a good up-close view of them.
Not that there was anything bad about Elderlings. Or too intimidating. I was just being rotten about readjusting to Silverdawn. Years ago when I’d left, I’d set out with Xavier to find our father. It was important to him and his mother. I could have left it either way, but when it came to my closest friend, I wanted his wishes to come true.
We failed. Not a trace of the man was left on this earth. If he existed at all, he didn’t’ want to be found. Xavier became a father instead of finding one, but he was a good father, and he did his best with my nephew. Effort aside, it had been nice to spend time with my half-brothers. They were the closest friends I had growing up, the kind of family that stuck together when life got to be uncertain.
That wasn’t something I experienced often. But it had been poking through lately as I adjusted to being the gym building’s shiny new addition. One of the volunteers had caught wind of my skills as an architect, reported it to Raven, and then Raven gathered me up like I was buried treasure.
Engineering had been my strong suit in the past. It worked well as a traveling gig, and it felt good that it could be useful here in the pack. Some job postings in town had caught my eye. But one thing led to another to produce this fine office that sat inside the gym building itself.
Lucky me—this was where Sadie currently worked.
And I wanted to keep it that way.
“Sheesh, all I needed was an email list,” came from a couple of rooms over. “You didn’t have to make a spreadsheet on when everyone was available.”
Sadie giggled. And I knew it was Sadie because I knew how it sounded when she was too tickled for words. Until she did speak, and then it felt like a grayscale exploding with color. “I thought it would be good to figure out when the best time for aerobics would be.”
“And crafts. And woodshop. And…synchronized swimming. Do we have a pool?”
“Izdor is building a pool on the other side of the building. We’re running classes here, Bella. We might as well run them effectively.”
Yes, I couldn’t have agreed more. Sadie was a top-notch worker wherever she went. I witnessed it in her when she went looking for my nephew. She didn’t stop and wander off. I heard from Xavier that she had committed to the entire process without one complaint.
What a dashing woman. I had to have her. I had to figure out a way she and I could get together.
Papers fluttered to the ground. I peeked around the side of my desk to see them nestling just beneath the coffee-stained wood, drawing from me an exasperated sigh. Highly sought skills like mine meant a lot of messages both in physical and digital form. My laptop was running low on battery, the pens in the cup were about done for, and the room smelled a bit musty from what I knew was the coffee on the side of my desk.
If I had an assistant, then this wouldn’t be a problem.
My head shot up, dragging my body out of my chair and to the door in a seamless motion.
An assistant,I thought.That’s perfect.
Sadie was well-organized, intuitive, and often went above and beyond with her tasks. As I’d just heard, she thought three steps ahead of everyone else. That wasn’t just useful—that was literally gold waiting to be mined.
