The BBW and the Beast: A Shifter Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (A BBW Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling Book 1) (2 page)

T
he carving knife
slipped from Samson’s hand as the doorbell echoed through the empty hallways. He bent to pick it and the half-finished wooden deer figurine up from the floor when the noise came again.

His inner wolf’s pelt bristled with irritation, and his mate mark pulsed.

Who was it this time?

After he’d placed his tools on the table, he reluctantly headed to the doorway. However tempted he was to ignore the noise, Samson didn’t have strong enough control to deal with someone sneaking around his property today, and he bet if he barked at them loudly enough, they’d scatter. Even if he was barking in human form.

So by the time he turned the handle and opened the door, he had his lecture prepared.

Then he smelled her.

Warm and dusty, like a cross between a bakery and a library, her scent teased his nostrils and made his wolf howl. Her face aroused him, too. Except for her red cheeks, it was pale and deliciously round. While her puffy pink winter coat obscured most of her hair, a few walnut-colored curls poked out. He wanted badly to touch them.

Samson tried to focus on something less sexual, but ended up gaping at her lips. They were plumper than he remembered. All of her was. It was a welcome change. He liked the idea of having more of her to hold, to caress. To own.

Mine.

His inner wolf growled.

He said, “Isabella.”

Her brown eyes widened adorably. There was something familiar about how comically large they seemed under her glasses, but then again, everything about her felt familiar.

“If you know my name, you must know what I’m here for,” she said quickly.

I have to get her inside
, Samson realized. She was probably freezing, and he liked the idea of her in his home, taking off all of those layers. He leaned against the door, opening it farther. “I’ll make you some hot chocolate, and we’ll talk.”

“Oh, okay. Sure,” Isabella said, relieved. “And I’m sorry for whatever miscommunication seems to have happened here. I hope we can get it straightened out quickly.”

Samson gave a gruff chuckle. “I can’t promise to be quick with you.”

The reality of all this finally sank in. She had returned. To him. His mate mark sang with warmth on his back.

All that was left was to seal their bond, a prospect Samson was already imagining in vivid detail. He got so caught up in his fantasies that it was only after he had reached the kitchen and put a pot of milk on the stove that he noticed he had lost his mate on the journey.

Samson retraced his steps and found Isabella peering up at a framed family portrait his mother had commissioned before his father was diagnosed with cancer.

Rex must have hung it up, the sentimental mutt. One of the conditions Samson had set for returning was that they wouldn’t try to turn the house into a memorial. Their purpose for returning to Crystal Creek was simple: find and subdue Luther. Not relive old memories.

“This way,” he said.

She jumped, nodded, and followed him. How high she managed to get in spite of her size reminded him of someone else, but he couldn’t think who.

A minute later they were both in the kitchen, Isabella sitting at the wooden table, which had been carved out of a tree trunk, and Samuel bent over the antique gas stove, measuring out dollops of cocoa powder into warm milk.

“This table is amazing. Did you make it yourself?” Isabella rambled. Although there was genuine admiration in her voice, he could sense she was talking out of nervousness. He didn’t blame her. She had probably been brought here by the force of the mark, oblivious to why or how, only knowing that she wanted to see man she had run away from over seven years ago. He’d go slow.

He plopped two fat marshmallows into the mugs of hot chocolate and carried them over to the table. Samson noticed she still hadn’t undone her coat, although she had taken off her boots at the front door. Her gaze remained fixed on the tabletop, even when he slid a mug in her direction.

“Thanks,” she said, but didn’t meet his eyes.

His fingers itched to tip her chin upward so he could kiss her tense, pursed lips. “I think it’s better for both of us if we stop avoiding the inevitable, and talk about why you’re here. You’re probably not even sure yourself. ”

That made Isabella look up and push her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her pulse was audible and fast, even as she nodded in agreement. ”I know it has to do with this.”

Then she did something so surprising his wolf almost rolled over in shock. She began to unzip her coat.

It was possible she was just trying to get more comfortable, but with Samson already half-hard from just the scent of her, there was no way he could interpret her gesture as anything other than a seduction. Maybe she knew more about the matemark than he thought and was ready to accept her destiny as his mate. Could it be so easy? It wasn’t until she had reached into an inner pocket and pulled out the flower that he realized the truth.

There on his table was his stolen rose: drooping stem, crumpled petals and all, imprisoned in a dollar-store mason jar.

He stared at it in shock for a moment, overwhelmed by the many truths it represented. Isabella hadn’t come back for him. She was the daughter of that fucking idiot trespasser who had wanted to murder wolves. One marauding wolf in particular. His brother. In fact, all of this—her compliments and her strange interest in the photo of his parents—was probably nothing but a ploy to get him to drop the lawsuit.

Worst of all, her apology, which he had thought was for running away years earlier, wasn’t an apology for that at all. Of course it wasn’t. She had said she wanted to “get it taken care of quickly”. That wasn’t something you said about true love. Did she even recognize him at all?

Samson’s human side understood the logic of the situation and tried to formulate a response, but it was too late. His wolf was too enraged by the sudden shift in reality. It snarled and spat and demanded to burst free of his skin.

Samson slammed his hand down on the table. The mason jar jumped, splattering droplets of water. Samson watched as it hung in the air, almost in slow motion. At the apex of its flight, he swiped it with one hand, sending it careening toward the floor. It shattered into too many pieces to ever be put back together again.

U
ntil the man
had swatted away the rose like it was a malaria-carrying mosquito, Bel had been certain she knew what was going on. But as she stared at the flower lying askew on the hardwood floor, framed by a mosaic of shards and a shallow moat of rose water, she realized that while she might have found the right clues, she had come to the wrong conclusion.

Despite the family portrait in the hallway, this man was not the son of the retired zucchini plant growers. And he would not be happy with a simple apology. She wasn’t sure why she had ever thought he would.

Maybe it had been the way he looked when he opened the door. Like he had been waiting for her. Or maybe it was the way he was dressed.

Bel had never been into the whole sexy-hipster-lumberjack thing that had taken hold of most of the men in Tribeca, but this man made a compelling case. He wore his flannel shirt, ripped jeans, and half-beard unironically, and the muscles in his arms promised he could actually chop wood. His beautiful mess of black hair and piercing green eyes helped, too.

All in all, he had seemed like the kind of guy to let bygones be bygones. Or at least not the kind of guy who would own a million-dollar rose. It had all seemed like some kind of misunderstanding.

Seemed
being the key word.

Bel stared, too shocked to be angry at his bipolar reaction. “So I guess this won’t be solved just by returning the rose, will it?”

No, I don’t think it will, Isabella,” he said coldly.

There was no denying it. Beneath the man’s sexiness was a wild animal. And the animal, while calm now, was still loose. The fear numbing her mouth felt familiar to Bel, and she was taken back to her last time near this house, when another man, with just as compelling a voice, had made her feel so…confused.

But he couldn’t be the same guy. Why sell a house only to buy it back? No, he probably just knew her name as part of his lawyer’s research.

Bel gripped her mug tightly, vowing to stop being afraid. “Tell me what
will
make this go away.”

The man’s eyes narrowed to emerald slits. “Go away?”

“My father,” Bel said, ”can be foolish sometimes, but to be honest, he probably took this rose for me. He knows they’re my favorite flower, and I was coming home. If he had known how much they were worth, I’m sure he never would’ve touched it. I completely understand that you should be compensated for your loss, Mr.…”

“West,” he said in a gravelly tone that was suspiciously close to a growl.

“Mr. West,” Bel continued. “But we really don’t have that kind of money lying around. So I hope that there’s some kind of compromise we can reach without driving us into bankruptcy.”

The man looked unconvinced. In fact, his green eyes were analyzing her with such intensity that Bel was sure he could flip through her entire life history like a two-dollar paperback.

“Please?” Bel asked, trying to ignore the sour taste begging left in her mouth.

But Mr. West wasn’t done. Now his gaze burned through her armor of winter layers in a single glance. Bel's core clenched as she imagined his calloused hands against her smooth skin. He had hands that had worked hard, that knew how to take wood or stone and mold it into something else. How to control with a single touch.

Her fear gone, another hot sensation took up residence in her belly. Bel wished for the terror’s return.

Finished with his analysis, the man folded his hands together on the table with a disturbing sense of finality. “How about a bargain, Ms.…”

“Booksmore.”

Mr. West’s eyes sparked with something Bel hoped to God was only anger. “I need a maid.”

That, Bel admitted, was certainly true. While it was charming, the interior of the farmhouse was in serious need of repair. In the kitchen alone, Bel counted three rusty appliances. The floors were dusty and scratched, and underneath the smell of fresh wood lingered the damp odor of mildew. But that didn’t mean that she could be that maid.

“You really don’t want me cleaning your house. Talk to anyone who knows me. When I do the dishes, I somehow make them dirtier.”

Was it her imagination, or did the man’s tongue dart out and lick his lips when she said the word ‘dirty’? She decided it was. “Trust me, it would take forever.”

“That’s not a problem,” he said.

Great. Not only was Mr. West an asshole with anger management issues, he was an asshole with anger management issues who seemed to want to see her suffer.

“There must be something else I can do for you,” Bel said.

His gaze fell to the zipper of her jacket, which was only half-undone. An image flashed through her mind of him pulling the rest of it open with his teeth.

“I-I’m a
New York Times
best-selling writer, for example,” Bel said, vowing not to let their chemistry get in the way of business. ”Maybe you need someone to, I don’t know… ghostwrite your memoirs.”

Even through his slight beard, Bel could see his distaste. “I have enough people bothering me as it is. A book is the last thing I need.”

“I wouldn’t have to write about—” She waved her hand. “Never mind. So you need cleaners. I actually have a friend who’s the best of the best at professional organizing. She owns a company in New York. Her name’s — ”

“No,” he said firmly. “It’s you I want.”

There was no missing the double meaning this time, and Bel felt a flush creep up the back of her neck.

Mr. West said nothing, not moving a muscle, simply waiting for her to yield. He didn’t even look worried.

Bel took a swig of her hot chocolate, welcoming the burning liquid as it annihilated her taste buds. She wished it was spiked with vodka, a tradition her and Cynthia had picked up in New York after her book sales began to dwindle.

“Okay, so let’s say I do help you. How long do you think you’d need me for?” she asked before taking another gulp.

“A year,” he said.

She pursed her lips to keep from spitting a fountain of hot chocolate at him, swallowed, and said, “A year?”

“Did you make a million and a half dollars last year, Ms.— ”

“Jesus, just call me Bel, please.” For all his woodsy appeal, when Mr. West called her by her last name, it made her feel eighteen again. But when he called her by her full first name, it was worse. Wet panties, trembling knees kind of worse. Oh for a time when she was too naive to recognize the signs.

If his squared shoulders and spread legs were anything to go by, Mr. West could recognize them too.

“I’m going to be your boss. So I’ll call you what I like,” he said. From anyone else, his words would’ve sounded smarmy, but Mr. West spoke with an old-school, stoic masculine authority that almost transcended political correctness.

Almost.

“As long as it’s appropriate,” Bel said, resigned. Control of the situation was slipping through her fingers. But at the end of the day she wasn’t like Cynthia, her business-minded go-getter best friend, she didn’t need control all the time. Or even want it.

Mr. West tapped the table, the sound much louder than a normal person’s fidgeting because of his large, powerful hands.

“You’ll live here,” he said.

But there were limits.

“Excuse me?” Bel thrust out her open palm as if she could direct the flow of the conversation like traffic. “No. Not in a million years.”

“How about a million and a half?” A twitch of a grin hid in the corner of his mouth.

Bel stood, her hands flying to her hips as she glared at him. “Let’s get one thing clear, here. I’m not going to be taken advantage of. So whatever it is you need,
Mr. West
“-- Bel put a sarcastic emphasis on his title —“you’re going to outline it in a contract that discharges me and my father of all debt to you upon completion of required services. And the required services had better not contain anything you wouldn’t ask a guy to do.” Bel held up a finger, feeling like a righteous lawyer. “And I’m definitely not going to sleep at your house.”

He didn’t even stand up. The asshole. Instead, Mr. West looked at her with an infuriating calm. “You’re legally blind, Ms. Booksmore. You can see with glasses, but not far. So you probably can’t drive. ”

“How did you – never mind. Yes. So what?”

“You live over a mile away, and while your father could bring you here sometimes, he might not always be able to.”

“I can walk.”

“That’s not an option. I’m not going to have my cleaner freeze to death because she lost her glasses in a snowdrift. ”

Bel started to protest, but he stalled her with a knowing lowered glance. “I need you here, working, on time. And the best way for that to happen is for you to stay here.”

Bel knew there was something fishy about his logic, but she couldn’t quite pin it down. Part of her worried that if she did, it would mean she’d have to refuse his offer. She couldn’t afford that.

Mr. West pushed out the stump-shaped stool Bel had been sitting on. “Sit.”

Keeping her eyes fixed firmly on his, Bel grumpily obeyed. “Don’t we need a lawyer for any of this to be official?”

“My brother Rex has those. But I don’t really like them much, so I thought we’d settle the terms here first and then send them off his way.”

“Well, don’t you at least need paper, then?”

He gave her a lopsided grin, the first boyish, light-hearted expression she had seen on his sturdy face. “I have a very good memory.”

“As long as you send the final version to me for approval and signature,” Bel said.

He nodded.

“I’ll stay here, but only when it snows or is below freezing.” Bel went to take another sip of her hot chocolate, but when she did, she saw all that was left was a lonely marshmallow at the bottom of the cup. She stared at it for a moment, inexplicably angry at it, at him, at all of this nonsense, before setting the cup back down. “And I can only work four hours a day. I have to have time to write.”

“That’s fine.”

Bel bit back a ‘Really?’

“But you’ll come in Monday through Saturday.”

“Not if I’m sleeping here, too. Through Wednesday.”

“Thursday.”

“Deal.”

“And you’ll take dinners with me so we can talk about your progress.”

Bel had never heard the word
dinner
sound so ominous before. Maybe it was because he was looking at her like she was going to be the main course.

“A couple of times a week,” she hedged.

He smiled at her indulgently, as if it was cute that she thought she was going to get away with that. “You’re only going to be working four hours a day. I think you can manage dinner too.”

Bel flicked at the handle of her mug, and it pinged musically. Wanting to provoke him, she asked, “What if I have a date?”

“What if you do?” the man said breezily.

Bel made the mistake of looking up and was quickly confronted by his burning stare. She pursed her lips. “Should I bring him over here?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.” He was making a point of not looking away from her. A good old-fashioned staring contest. And not one she’d ever win.

Bel returned her focus to the grain of the wood in the table and began tracing its circles with her fingertips. “Well, sometimes dates, you know, want to have dinner.”

“You can have dinners on your own when you’re not staying over.”

“And what about sleeping?” She increased the pressure of her finger on the table, and an ache shot up her index to her wrist, distracting her from the awkwardness.

“You’ll have the bedroom on the second floor.”

Bel tried her best not to wince. As Cynthia always said, she was a strong, big, beautiful woman, damn it. She was not going to be ordered around by some demeaning jackass. “What if I have a boyfriend? I doubt he’ll want only three nights per—“

The man’s patience snapped. He pushed out of his chair, slamming both of his palms on the table so hard Bel’s mug jumped. “I know exactly what boyfriends want to do.” He leaned over the table, bridging what Bel thought was a safe distance in seconds. His green eyes flashed gold. ”But your father owes me a great deal of money, and I need your help here. So I think you can put your dating life on hold. Can you do that?”

Bel frowned, hiding her hands under the table so he wouldn’t see them shake.

The truth was that of course she could put her dating life on hold. She didn’t have one and hadn’t in six years. Most men seemed actively repulsed by her. Not just because she was bigger; she had seen guys date girls twice her size before. It was more than that. Like she had warning pheromones.

But Mr. West didn’t need to know that.

He certainly didn’t need to know that he was the first man who seemed to be so affected by her, if his heavy breathing and strange fits of rage were anything to go by. But then again, maybe he was just bipolar and she was reading into things. Which reminded her…

“I’ll stay here on two conditions,” Bel said, and was proud that she didn’t stutter.

“Name them.”

“First, you have got to stop throwing things.” Bel inclined her head toward her hot chocolate, which had tilted dangerously askew after his tantrum. “I won’t put myself in a situation where I’m worried I’m going to get a mug to the head.”

“I would never —“

“And second, if I’m going to put my dating life on hold, you have to promise you won’t hit on me. I understand that you need my time and that this winter has been pretty terrible, but I’m not going to ruin my social life just because you think it might give you a chance at getting in my pants.”

That shut him up. Bel really wished it hadn’t. A harried denial would’ve been preferable. Damn, what if he really did want her?

Bel crossed her legs as if that could smother the heat growing between her thighs. If he did desire her, and not just as some kind of twisted revenge trip against her father, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to say no.

Mr. West smiled and leaned back slowly, conceding the territory of the table to her. But if it was a gesture of retreat, why did she feel like he was the one who had won?

“I’m not going” – God, how could he flirt so heavily while remaining so expressionless? – “to hit on you.”

“Good.” Bel’s hands still shook like she had downed six espressos instead of a hot chocolate. “So, when do you want me to start?”