Page 394 of His Hungry Wolf

With his slacks on, he was dressed as fancy as I had ever seen him. God, he was handsome. It took everything I had not to growl, take his cheeks in my hands and pull his lips to mine. My wolf wanted out. The way he made me feel, I almost let it.

“You ready for this?” he asked nervously.

“You can do this. And no matter what they say, don’t forget how incredible you are,” I told him meaning it.

“Thanks.”

With a hint of fear in his eyes, he looked for my hand and took it. I wasn’t sure if this was to convince his family that we were engaged or because he wanted to hold my hand. I chose to believe it was both.

Descending the two flights of spiral stairs, I felt like I was in a different time. I could imagine people dressed in eighteenth-century ball gowns drinking mint juleps. I couldn’t believe that Lou grew up in a place like this. Was this who he truly was?

When we entered the dining room, Lou’s parents and brother were already seated. The guys were wearing suits while his mother wore a fancy dress. I was severely underdressed.

“I see you invited the help,” his brother said referring to me.

“Shut up, Chris,” Lou snapped.

“I’m sorry I’m not dressed as formally. I didn’t know we would be dressing up for dinner.”

“Oh,” his mother said fitting more judgment into one word than most people could fit in a speech.

“Yeah, I figured it wouldn’t be necessary because we aren’t all pretentious assholes who need to dress up to imagine themselves better than everyone else,” he said leading me to one of the open place settings. Lou took the one next to his mother leaving me closest to his father and looking across the table at his brother.

“What you refer to as pretentious, others refer to as tradition. And the moment we let go of our traditions, they are lost forever,” the uptight blond woman said never looking at her son.

“Have you ever heard of evolution, mother? It’s what allows a species to survive as the world changes.”

“Your grandmother would disagree,” she snipped.

“What would you possibly know about what Grandma Aggie thought? Did you ever talk to her? Seriously, did any of you ever actually talk to her? No. You just showed up here and acted like the royal assholes who owned the place. Did any of you care about her at all?”

His mother turned her cold gaze onto Lou. “For God’s sake, Louis, for once can you not be…”

“You,” his brother said cutting her off.

I looked at Lou. He was about to explode. I quickly found his hand under the table and squeezed it. It calmed him. I could see all of the thoughts bouncing around in his head, but none of them came out.

“Perhaps we should eat,” a voice said from the other end of the table.

It was Lou’s father. He was a lean, grey-haired man with a forgettable face. It wasn’t that he was unattractive, because it was clear where Lou and his brother got their looks from. It was more that he tried not to be noticed.

Chris looked at Lou. “See what you’ve done. You’ve woken the dead.”

“Christopher!” his mother scolded.

“I’m kidding. Yes, perhaps we should eat,” he said reaching for the bell in front of his mother and ringing it.

As if waiting for their signal, two people exited the kitchen with plates and placed them in front of us. It was like we were at a restaurant. And the food was good.

While we ate, Lou’s mother and brother engaged in small talk about his plans after law school. Lou’s father spoke up reminding him that there was a job waiting for him at his practice.

“I think I’ll be able to do a little better than that,” was his smug reply.

While his father seemed hurt, his mother looked proud of him. Lou really did grow up in a world I knew nothing about. I loved him even more knowing what he had to overcome to be as great as he was.

After the two of us were done eating, Lou, who hadn’t said a word all dinner, stood up.

“Mother, Father, Chris,” he said with a fake smile.