Page 51 of Shifted Desire

19

“Good work on the Grathe project.”

The praise hits me like a slap in the face, sobering me out of my daydream about Samantha telling my father off for calling me into yet another last-minute meeting. She’d been in my office to drop off some papers, bending over my desk to let her shirt neckline dip low and giving me a smile that made my dick thicken, but dear old Dad interrupted us before I could do anything about it.

“What?” I can’t keep the shock out of my voice, sure I misheard him.

“They’re happy with you. It was nice to hear that you weren’t too scattered to do your job properly.”

There it is. The less than subtle warning, the bite to his uncharacteristic compliment.

“Things have been smoother now that I have a proper assistant,” I reply as blandly as possible, knowing if I show any hint of emotion, Dad will use that as a weapon against me.

It’s always been that way—Dad jabbing at me with criticisms and disappointed with me when I react. My younger brother, their “miracle baby” they had a few years after adopting me, can be the biggest whiny brat in the world, and that’s acceptable. But if I so much as give someone a sideways look, I’m being too volatile. Too out of control and wild.

He’s a hypocrite, but there’s no point in telling him that.

As a Black man, I’m always held to a higher standard than my white brother, but it’s not only the racist double-standard at play. My shifter family wanted me to be like them, coerced me into taking on my curse so I could be more like them, then turned around and hated all my new werewolf traits. For people who are purportedly very well-educated and intelligent, my parents were fools. Werewolves aren’t the same as wolf shifters, and they only made me less like them when they pushed me into becoming a monster.

“I’d certainly hope so, considering how much we’re paying them,” my father scoffs. Because of course someone complained to him about Samantha’s salary. The man is supposed to be retired and doesn’t even hold an official role in the company anymore, yet people still report back to him like spies so he can have these check-ins with me to make sure I’m not sullying the Dubois name.

I’ve worked at this company for almost forty godsdamn years, and I’m over sixty years old, yet the man is still checking my work like I’m back in school.

And I let him. Not because I don’t loathe it, but because I’ve learned it’s simpler to go along with his nonsense than to fight it. Because I’m too much of a coward and too pathetically attached to his opinion of me and aware of what I owe my parents to tell him to fuck off.

“Yes, well, the investment is paying off. You don’t have to worry about me now that I’m not wasting half my day with admin tasks. I’m sure Mom will appreciate you spending less time checking on me. She called me the other day saying something about how you missed an important dinner?”

My father sighs at my blatant redirection of our conversation. “She has an important dinner every other night. I’m responsible for making sure this company doesn’t crumble in my absence. I need to know I can count on you to do your job properly.”

I bite my tongue so I don’t mention that actually the whole point of retirement is that he’s not responsible for the company anymore, and that I’ve been doing my job properly for decades. That if anyone should get calls from him, it’s my brother Cade, who is off on a yacht somewhere with a gaggle of models instead of in the boardroom doing his job.

“You can,” I say firmly.

He says nothing in response besides a skeptical huff.

“I need to get back to work.”

“The full moon is next week.”

I can’t hold back my sigh. Gods, he acts like I don’t know that. Like that night doesn’t loom on the horizon, the curse in my blood thrumming more insistently with each day that passes.

“Yes. I know. I have it taken care of. Like I have for the last fifty years.”

“Don’t snap at me. You’ve been off lately, making mistakes you shouldn’t. Moving across the country instead of staying at the head office for gods know what reason. I need to know you won’t do something unpredictable. Your mother met a specialist who can⁠—”

A growl rises in my throat. “No. You wanted me this way. I’m not letting some quack try to take the curse away. We both know that’s not possible. I’m handling it. I’ve never lost control during the full moon.”

“What about when you and your brother⁠—”

“I was a child,” I snap, interrupting him. I let out a heavy exhale and calm my voice, even as I want to reach through the phone and throttle him. “I’m in control.”

“You don’t sound in control, losing your temper at me when all I’m trying to do is help.”

Fucking hells, it’s always the same.

“I have to go. Tell Mom I said hello.”

I hang up before he says anything else, pulse hammering with a level of agitation that only my family can evoke in me.