The Lion’s Forbidden Mate

“Well, if you’ll have me inside, I’d love to talk to you about it,” he said with a grin that was too charming for her. She hadn’t been on the internet in almost a week since she’d sold her last painting. It wasn’t like she needed the money, so she was extremely lax about it. What had she missed? Was there a gang war happening in New York City right now that she didn’t know about? Was a shadow war underway?

“Come on in,” she said, opening the door and backing into the cabin, leading the way.

“Nice shotgun, by the way,” he said mischievously. “Know how to use it?”

“You don’t want to find out,” she assured him.

It was strange having James in the cabin and as he took off his coat and his snow boots, layer by layer, he turned into the man she recognized and that she had fallen in love with. He was as handsome as ever and honestly, it looked like he hadn’t aged a day. It was like looking at a picture of him that could move and walk around the cabin. As she walked into the kitchen and started working on dinner, it didn’t take long for him to show up and start helping her out.

For a while, they didn’t talk, just basked in the presence of each other, looking over and shaking their heads as they grinned like fools. There was a story here and she was certain she was going to get to the bottom of it, but right now, she just wanted to enjoy him for a little longer. She just wanted to take advantage of this moment while she could. The gravity of everything was going to come inevitably, and that was fine, but right now, she wanted her moment with the man that she loved.

By the time they were finished with the sauce and the pasta, they filled their plates and the smell of bread in the oven made their mouths water as James walked around the cabin, looking at all the art that she had piled up in the corners of her living room. She wasn’t the most organized person, but he commented on them, tell her he was jealous that she wouldn’t put more online to sell. She didn’t care about what he did or didn’t like right now. She just tried to figure out how he had figured out where she was and how she’d been found. She had thought she’d been careful about everything.

“How did you find me?” she asked finally.

“I have lots of money and I found you online,” he said with a smile. “The rest was easy.”

“Isn’t your wife going to take exception to you sneaking off?” she asked him.

“I’m not married,” he said with a gleeful smile on his face, the kind of smile she hated because she didn’t trust it.

He was being vague and she wanted to kick him in the shin for it. If he wanted to be a nice person, he would give up the entire story without making her ask for it or beg for it, but this was his way of gloating and having fun. She bet that he probably felt pretty good about himself right now.

“So what happened?” she asked him, tired of waiting for him to be an adult.

“It took about five minutes for me to figure out what had happened,” he said with a shrug. “I went to Lynn and demanded to know what she’d done. With Violet’s nose broken, an uglier side came out of her and she accused me of all sorts of terrible things. I denied it, of course, and no one could get a hold of you to find out if the allegations were true. In the end, it became this huge mess that no one could prove or disprove and it ended up with lots of people getting mad at one another and eventually, I told my parents I was no longer interested in being the head of The Pride.

“I told them I was looking to retire and that I had a little place in the middle of nowhere that I wanted to go to and think about my life and what I intended to do with myself. They gave me their blessing and they had my younger brother marry Violet. He was much happier with the prospect than I was and he was more than eager to stick his horny little co*k in a starlet. Either way, good for them and I was free to do whatever I wanted. The fans were devastated, of course, but the threats of war ended and here I am, right in front of the woman that I wanted to spend my life with all along.”

“So that’s all it took?” Lucy raised an eyebrow and didn’t understand what the possibilities were for him to get out of his engagement with Violet.

In fact, she didn’t even know that he had a younger brother. Once more, she realized that she didn’t have a clue who this man was or that there was anything credible she did know about him. But, the one thing she did know was that she definitely wanted to spend the rest of her life looking to find out every little thing about him that she could. This was the man she was obsessed with and she wasn’t going to lose another opportunity with him.

“What happened to Becca and Justin?” Lucy asked him as they sat down at the table to eat. She watched him as he tried the pasta and the look on his face was priceless as he was genuinely impressed. “When you live alone,” she shrugged, “you learn how to cook when you have nothing better to do.”

“It’s amazing,” he told her with a grin. “Justin is still working with the band and I think that he’s moved up since you last saw him. Lynn ended up retiring and he’s one of the multitude that filled in for her and tried to help find a new face for the band. I might have left, but The Pride lives on.”