The rest of the world saw or heard her surname and turned totally butter-soft.The desire to know her for her wealth, or for the people in her network, had made it inordinately difficult to make genuine connections.And even when she had them, she didn’t always trust in them.
Case in point, Persia.She’d considered the baker a friend, but hadn’t realized how much Persia actually cared for her.Hell, Persia was the only one of the small crowd El knew who had even thought to call her to catch up…
It could be said that Leilani’s scorn was just rude, as well as unnecessary, and therefore El’s bristling was a result of that.
But it wasn’t.
El’s Panther was involved now.
And boy, was she starting to understand the repercussions of that.
Point of fact, she was starting to see how hard Ryan had it because she knew that whatever was going down, it was because her Panther was strong.
Hellishly so.
El wasn’t violent.Shawn had had to drag her butt to the classes she took in self-defense—and they’d taken place in her living room with him as the instructor!He’d usually had to drag her away from the ice cream and the kitchen and then forced her into the stances they’d repeated a thousand times.
Violence, even to protect herself, wasn’t something she’d ever particularly appreciated…
So, the sudden need to decorate the disrespectful bitch’s face with cutlery was a new wave of thinking.
A new wave that had to be influenced by the beast because she knew for a fact she’d never have had such thoughts before.
Annabel, when she looked at El with such blatant disregard, usually made her want the ground to open and swallow her up… That was the reaction she was used to having in the face of such intense dislike.
Notthis.
Letting out a breath as one of the servers at FERAL, the restaurant where she and Ryan had met on their first date—a Pride restaurant as well as one of Ryan’s personal properties—placed a plate in front of her, she focused on the rare steak on the dish.
Her mouth watered at the sight of the juicy mound, and she turned to smile with more genuine warmth at Ryan, who placed his hand on her knee and squeezed.
“It will be over soon,” he told her softly, squeezing her thigh again.
Not soon enough.
She didn’t say that though.It wasn’t his fault his mother was a cow bag bitchface.
Nor was it his fault her Panther was responding pretty strongly to such blatant disrespect.
The bright white restaurant was cavernous, and beautiful with it.Lights with amber shades cast golden shadows over the proceedings, creating a warm environment that was also clean cut and elegant in its openness.Raw wooden tables were scrubbed free of varnish, the natural patina gleaming and adding a lovely earthiness to the restaurant.Sparkling silverware and glassware were the natural decorations of each table, but the jewel-bright napkins added a dash of color to each setting.
In the center of the restaurant there was a circular bar that all the tables looked onto.Row upon glass row of bottles, some well-known, others rare, some plain in their design, others exuberant, were spotlighted as though they were gems.The colors refracted, adding bejeweled spots to the ceiling like an organic disco ball.
It was a restful place.
A calm environment with that hubbub of energy in the air that made this place hipster cool.She just knew ninety percent of tonight’s dishes would end up with the hashtag FeralFood.
It had trended last week; a fact Marc and Trip were very proud of.Ryan was just glad the profit margins had shot through the roof.He seemed less concerned with financial matters though.
Not that that surprised her.
Ryan wasn’t bothered by most things.
He was the leader of one of the biggest Prides in the country, held a power that made him unique as a leader, and yet… he was usually apathetic.
To everything and everyone.
Except her.
