She batted her lashes.
“Oh, as if that’s fair. Using your physical addictiveness to entice me into a salon? You’d do that to me?”
She stroked her fingers through his hair. “I like how you look as well, Mr. Gilliland, but if we’re going to do this, let’s do it up right. I doubt we’ll be dining with royalty very often in our lifetime. Why not make it a night to remember?”
Jared grinned. “Deal.”
Keri shuffled past him. He called to confirm their bookings as he watched her pull on minuscule underwear. It wasn’t the right moment to expand on the fact this was probably going to be the first of many such dinners.
He didn’t want to freak her out too badly.
“Thirty seconds and I’ll be ready.”
Jared waved as she disappeared into the bathroom. He leaned back on the desk then remembered he’d better phone his parents before the night was over, but the call was bound to take more time than he currently had. If he forgot, and his folks heard from someone else, his ass would be in a sling. Only, what were the odds he’d be too distracted when they returned to her room?
Better safe than sorry. He slipped open the drawer looking for a piece of paper to leave himself a reminder. He’d plop it in the middle of the bed so they couldn’t miss it.
Jackpot. A notepad.
He grasped a page, tugging to remove it from the pad, and the entire drawer jerked forward. Displaying a very familiar diamond-and-ruby pendant tucked into the back corner.
“Keri—?” Panic sealed his lips in mid-question.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Jared darted a glance toward the bathroom to make sure the door was still closed, then palmed the brooch and slipped it into his pocket.
His heart pounded as if he’d been racing around the deck whilst being chased by some of the bigger and nastier cougar shifters, the type who were known to provide loans with horrible interest rates to the losers hanging out in the onboard casino.
Not that he’d had any business with those kind of riffraff, but they were a part of shifter culture as much as human society.
The brooch rested in his pocket like a lump of coal, ready to burn his life to ashes. It wasn’t fair, but then, life wasn’t fair. He was old enough to know that truth.
Keri stepped from the bathroom and joined him with a happy smile. “Ready to go.”
He put his best face forward. “We’ve got plenty of time. We’ll come back to change if that’s okay.”
She wrapped her fingers around his arm and they stepped together up the hallway.
They were quiet as they strode the hall. Jared was too busy thinking about what the hell he was going to do to solve this shit of a mess to make polite conversation.
Keri cleared her throat. “It’s weird, isn’t it? This whole mate thing?”
The question helped him focus, the innocent query deceptively complex. It was as if she were completely a part of him and yet completely hidden behind a wall. “I can sense little things I didn’t expect. And I like your sense of humour. I know a lot of people who have found their mates, and they’ve always told me that the relationship was totally right, just what they’d been looking for.”
Keri stumbled a little, and he braced her. “You okay?”
She nodded then blurted out, “Am I what you’ve been looking for?”
The brooch slowed his step, a ball and chain of worry weighing him down.
Her fingers tightened before he could respond. “Jared? You okay? I…I’m sorry if I put you on the spot. Let me say that differently. I hope I can become what you’ve always wanted in a mate.”
And with those brave words, all his fears vanished. He turned her into his arms and rested his forehead against hers. Taking slow breaths, looking into her eyes and seeing her soul.
Finding out his mate was possibly the thief everyone was talking about belowdecks had momentarily freaked him out. But she was right—people could change. He was going to support her every way he could, and they could move forward into a new life together.
“I know it’s early, and we don’t know each other completely yet, but Keri, I’m going to fall in love with you. Thoroughly and completely. So you’d better bet you’re what I’ve always wanted in a mate.”
A tiny crease marred the corners of her eyes as she fought back tears. “We can do this, can’t we? We can fall in love, as well as our wolves?”
“Oh yes.” Jared pushed his wolf as far into the corner as he could. For once the beast went with only a second’s pfft at being told to bugger off. “We’re going to fall in love so hard our wolves are going to be jealous of our human sides.”
Keri laughed out loud. “Yeah, right.”
Jared kissed her laughing lips, her mouth still open as he captured her. It was a short exchange, with more tenderness than passion. A kiss of hopeful need and yearning to belong mixed with promises of long days and years to come.
Jared would make sure they fell in love.
But first, he had to find some way to return the brooch to the Fedoras without Keri being caught. Because the distinctive arrangement was most definitely his father’s handiwork and had been a family gift to the rulers a few years back.
Chapter Eight
“Shut. Up.” Tessa wasn’t bouncing, she was staring, slack-jawed, as Keri attempted to tug her hand free from Jared’s firm grasp. “You are the special guests dining with the Fedoras? And who’d you steal the dress from?”
“It’s a long story. Really, very boring. You don’t want to know the details at all because they’d literally make you tip over and fall asleep.”
Tessa waved a dismissive hand in front of Keri’s face and stepped closer to Jared, eyeing him down, then up, then down again. Jared all cleaned up and dressed in a formal suit was enough to make any woman’s knees weak. “Well, well. When my friend goes hunting, she finds lovely prey.”
How Jared managed to keep a straight face, Keri wasn’t sure. “You have such a way of setting everyone at ease. You must work as the cruise director or something.”
“Just saying.” Tessa dipped her chin politely at Jared a second before Keri suspected she was going to jump him. “When you decide you’re tired of him, I’d be happy to take him off—”
Keri’s wolf growled. Tessa’s eyes shot wide open even as she stepped back in defense, the cat grin breaking free.
“Oh my, there’s more to this story than a shipboard fling, isn’t there?” Tessa swung a finger between the two of them before leaning forward slightly to whisper conspiratorially. “You guys got that doggies-in-love-forever thing happening, don’t you?”
Jared bowed formally. “You are the soul of discretion, I can see. Yes, we’re mates, and I’m very happy to have found Keri. You’ll have to tell me all about your college days some time.”
Keri wondered that Jared could small talk so easily. Although the charm-the-panties-off-the-women bit he’d shared about? Was an ix-nay orever-fay from this point on. “Personally, I’m all for stringing her into a corner and hanging catnip about a foot out of reach. You’re being far too nice to her.”
“Your friends are my friends, right?”
Yeah, sort of. Unless that meant he was going to introduce her to the mafia and expect her to accept them as well. A little of the glow of happiness left the moment.
She turned to Tessa, who now wore this shit-eating grin. “Stop that.”
“What?”
“You know.”
Tessa snorted. “I’m thinking about all those stories you told me during college, and how much you’ll pay me now to not reveal your secrets.”
“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?” Jared asked.