Caught Between Three Billionaire Tycoons - Willa Hart Page 0,47

at the beautiful world. We were as one as we contemplated our bleak existence. Never to mate. Never to have children of our own.

Only this brief taste of paradise, right before it was wrenched away.

15

In all my years in life and business, I had never seen a mess like this. I’d seen companies clash and get taken apart, I’d seen my own family members disputing this land and I’d seen employees knifing each other for the top spots of the company.

It was actually a combination of those kinds of things—and the hellfire that was my marriage falling apart—that made me certain I didn’t want to entangle myself.

I wandered through the house slowly, with no idea where I wanted to be. Actually, that wasn’t true. I knew exactly where I wanted to be. Back in my office, antiques moving downstairs and the phone ringing off the hook.

With Whitney sitting at the desk right outside the door, hearing her sweet voice and getting drunk on her perfume. I could have had that. I could have had it forever, if I had just been smart enough to leave us both in the city.

I still wasn’t sure why I had done this. My bear had been begging to run free for a while. Being in the city kept it really quiet. It hunkered down somewhere inside me and glowered darkly at the city streets and its people. The bear knew it didn’t belong in that world.

But I knew it was my bear that dragged me out here. Right to our territorial home.

If it was time to claim my mate, this is where it had to be done.

It wasn’t like I forgot about Daire and Zavier. I knew they would be here, but I didn’t think there would be any reason to interact with them. My cabin wasn’t far away from theirs, but we weren’t the kind of people to knock on each other’s door for a cup of sugar.

I also really wanted the kids to come. They needed this wilderness too. It ran in their blood with their bears, the old blood feud would call strongly to them as well.

Not now, though.

Now that blood had been shed for common cause, they would no longer feel irrational rage when they saw members of the opposing clan. They wouldn’t be as territorial, and their lives would be more peaceful.

I could hear them giggling away upstairs as I stopped to look out the window. Since fighting the wolves together, the mountains seemed to have a new quality to them. They were almost singing with joy and peace. The river added her harmony to those notes and the hawk’s cry over head was the completion of the symphony.

The land had wanted us to heal. She wanted no more blood to shed upon her. It was the duty of the bears to love and protect the land. We couldn’t do that if we were tearing each other apart.

It was almost as if I could hear a whispering, an undercurrent in the air. It was soothing me and trying to convince me there was no need to fight. I couldn’t listen. Not to that song. I may share my land, but could I share Whitney?

My bear growled within me. It would never agree. Not unless I was sharing her with a bonded blood brother.

I turned from the window angrily. I didn’t want to be thinking about any of this. I just wanted my life to go back to normal.

I was full of regret. It was an aching sense of loss. I had wanted to get closer to Whitney, it's true. I knew she wanted to make extra money, and I had it to spare. It was important to bring my little cubs out here, and when I cooked up this plan; I thought it was flawless. A few days alone in this idyllic, ancient place would surely turn Whitney’s thoughts to love.

I knew already that she loved my kids. She had met them several times at the office. How readily she agreed to come out here was a reaction I might have read too much from.

I thought she was excited to bond with me and the kids. That those heavy, sidelong glances might finally bloom into love. The tension had been there since the very beginning, but her previous attachment had kept us both at bay.

Her ex-boyfriend. What a fucking dick. Letting a woman like that get away! It was the best thing for me. I just couldn’t imagine letting