Josilyn smoothed her hands down the sides of her leggings and long top. She had paired the outfit with nice sandals and simple makeup so she wouldn’t look too outdated. The reality was she’d gone from a huge closet full of things to a handful of items she could work with. This was one of the only outfits she’d refused to part with. The top had been a honeymoon gift from Lucy.
She stared at the usually busy main street, which happened to be deserted at that moment, and stopped when she reached Ricardo’s. This was a top-of-the-line restaurant. She’d loved coming here in the past. The food was delicious and their caramel bomb lava cake did things to her no man ever had.
The restaurant was never empty. She glanced in the window to see tables filled with couples on dates. Nerves made her belly quake and she rethought the plan. What was she doing there? She was going to work as some guy’s fake girlfriend. No, not some guy. Some shifter. Even worse.
She paced outside the restaurant, her mind trying to come up with a plausible excuse to call off the meeting, but all she could think of was the money she’d be giving up. Money she needed more than another sleepless night.
Someone grabbed her arm, and she whipped her head to look into a pair of angry, glowing gold eyes. “You’re mine.”
“Excuse me? What the hell do you think you’re doing, asshole. Let me go.” She tugged on his hold but to no avail.
He started pulling her away from the restaurant toward a dark alley around the corner. “I said, you’re mine.”
“And I said to let me go, asshole,” she yelled.
He backhanded her with his other hand and scratched her shoulder with his long dirty claws. “I’m taking what’s mine.”
What the fuck? Fear and anger sprouted wings in her chest. Her blood boiled with rage that a stranger put his hands on her. She dropped her bag and started hitting the guy with the cell phone she had in her hand. The sound of the phone hitting the guy’s face made her wince. Still, he wouldn’t stop. A man coming down the road stopped and frowned at them. “Help me! I don’t know this guy!”
She tugged the other way while the man continued to pull her to the alley. The stranger pulled out his phone and started recording a video instead. She wished she could toss something at him. Meanwhile the man was almost dragging her as she strained in the other direction. Pain shot up her arm, but she ignored it and continued fighting. Her heart raced.
Finally, the phone she’d been hitting the guy with cracked. The glass screen broke on the side of his face. He wasn’t fazed. She really started to worry at that point and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Help! Somebody help me!”
It had been too good to be true for her to come here and get paid so much money for a job. Something had to go wrong. Her luck lately had been that bad. It seemed something was always happening. Her crappy car had two flat tires in one month. Her one credit card was over its limit and denied at the grocery store. And someone stole her few remaining clothes from the Laundromat when she stepped into the bathroom. The world was out to get her.
She glanced around, but there wasn’t a body in sight. Even the guy with the camera had run off when the man tugging her let out a loud growl.
She screamed again and then remembered that during these types of situations people might assume it was a domestic dispute and not get involved. “Somebody help me! I don’t know this man!” She slammed her fist on the guy’s shoulder, but it didn’t stop him. He growled again and kept fighting her. He was winning. “Let me go, you piece of shit!”
“Fire!” she yelled, hoping to grab someone’s attention. Nothing. Then she heard a couple talking behind her on the sidewalk and knew someone had left the restaurant. “Help me!”
Her plea came at the right moment. The man hauling her yanked harder and was about to pull her into the mouth of the darkened alley when a mountain of a man showed up out of nowhere and punched the guy on the side of his face.
The hit was hard enough for the guy to let her go. She fell on her ass, pain thumping on her backside and legs. The man who had been hauling her turned to her rescuer, bared his fangs, and started to shift. Oh, shit! The guy was a shifter. She glanced wildly around. There was a beautiful woman watching the whole thing. She must have come out with the guy who’d hit the freak. The woman didn’t appear concerned over the insanity. She watched her boyfriend toss the lunatic to the ground.
Josie glanced up and met the gaze of the man who came to her rescue. His eyes appeared to glow a deep gold and a furious frown that would scare anyone was etched on his forehead. He was big and didn’t seem bothered by the other man’s body ripping through his clothes.
“Wait, stop, please,” a voice hollered out as another man rounded the corner at a dead run and wedged in between her rescuer and the shifting man on the ground. “He’s my brother. Let me calm him and we can fix this,” the frazzled man said as he turned to face the shifting angry freak.
“Trey, stop. Don’t shift, return to your body now.” The seconds ticked by as Josilyn stared at the men and the insanity before her. “Trey, now. I’m not going to tell you again,” the man barked out in sharp command. Slowly, the shifting man’s features returned to the look of the psychotic man who had dragged her into the alley.
The stranger turned and faced her rescuer again. “I’m sorry. It was a misunderstanding. He wasn’t supposed to be away from us; he slipped by.”
Josie had heard enough. This was the kind of shit she tried to stay away from. She had somewhere to be, and as much as she wanted to thank her knight in shining Armani suit, she needed to meet her new boss.
No matter the circumstances, being late was not a good idea. Especially if she wanted to ensure this job and the money she so desperately needed. She climbed to her feet and quickly walked to the woman at the entrance to the alley while the men’s attention was turned from her.
“Can you tell your husband I said thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t intervened.” The woman opened her mouth to respond, but Josie didn’t have time to talk. “I have to go. I’m late. Thank you again,” Josilyn said as she hurried to the entrance of Ricardo’s. With one final glance at the man who had saved her, she entered the restaurant and left thoughts of his intense golden eyes behind.
Ricardo’s hadn’t changed much since the last time she had been there. The hostess looked up with a smile as Josie approached. “I’m meeting someone, but I’m not sure if he’s here yet.”
“Of course, no problem.” The hostess frowned while staring at Josie’s face. “I don’t mean to be rude, but are you okay? You have a nasty red mark on your face that looks like it’s starting to bruise.”
Josie tenderly touched her swollen cheek and winced. “It’s nothing, but thank you.”
The hostess gave her an unconvinced nod. “May I ask the gentleman’s name?”
“Xander Ursi.” It was easy to recall such a manly name. Different. For some reason, saying it gave her goose bumps.
“Oh, yes, he said he was expecting someone. He stepped out to handle something a little while ago, but said he’d be back. I can show you to his table.”
Josie sighed in relief that she hadn’t left him waiting. She needed this job too much to screw things up thanks to some deranged shifter lunatic. She thanked the hostess, sat, and waited for her fake mate to show up. With any luck, he would be as mouthwateringly gorgeous as the man who had come to her aid in the alley.
A tiny sigh escaped her throat. Damn, good time to think of that man’s good looks. She could sit and stare at him for hours and never get tired of it. What a shame a man like that wasn’t the one needing to hire her. His girlfriend was proof of that.
She had been sophisticated and beautiful, and curvy. That at least gave Josie hope she would find a man to look at her the way her rescuer had for that brief moment.