About Face. Amy Lee Burgess

      “You don’t look happy.” Lauren’s first words after she and Jason dropped the bombshell, possibly added up to the understatement of the frigging century.

      “You’re damned right I’m not happy,” I snapped—and cursed when Lauren cringed in her seat and her hyacinth-blue eyes filled with tears. If she let them fall, this would be the sixth—no, seventh—time today she’d cried.

      I beat a fist against my thigh when the first tears dribbled down her cheeks.

      “You’re going to ruin your makeup,” I said.

      With a choked gasp, Lauren leaped from her chair and raced out of the dining room. I held my breath and waited for her to fall and break her ankle. She wasn’t used to platform pumps with four-inch heels. My father had preferred more sensible, lower-heeled shoes.

      Jason Allerton watched her, too, his fingers tight around his soup spoon. I knew if she fell, I’d be in deep shit with him. I stole at look at his handsome face. Deeper.

      Half the diners in the private room of the small seafood restaurant also watched Lauren’s floundering progress.

      They were all Pack, shape-shifters, like me, so no doubt they’d overheard everything, but with true Pack discretion, they all paid scrupulous attention to their appetizers. To most of them, the news would not have been a bombshell, but, rather, good news. This was a Regional Gathering and people expected announcements like the one Lauren had just made.

      The table next to ours, full of members from Nightclaw, the premier pack in Connecticut, made no pretense they hadn’t overheard. Perhaps they considered themselves exalted and therefore exempt from the conventions of lesser packs. They eyed me askance as if I’d done something ridiculous by objecting to what they would have considered an honor.

      Let them think what they wanted. Lauren wasn’t their mother.

      I sat at the table in my new silver-pleated chiffon cocktail dress and fancy new silver sandals, my hair curled into waves that brushed my shoulders. Up until forty-five seconds ago, I thought we were having yet another of our friendly dinners.

      Lauren was radiant in a grape sequined V-neck dress. I’d picked out her shoes—Jimmy Choo sparkling anthracite platform pumps. If I hadn’t, we’d still be in our motel room while she agonized over every pair of shoes we had between us, still unable to make up her mind.

      The problem with Lauren was that she could not make a decision. At least she couldn’t unless I gave her an hour and patiently listened to her fears and doubts and dealt with tears and pleas for me to do it for her.

      This was not entirely her fault. Thirty years under my father’s pack bond and his refusal to let her think for herself was to blame. But sometimes I suspected she’d always been weak. Other times I just thought she needed time.

      What she didn’t need was another man in her life to tell her what to do, especially a man like Councilor Jason Allerton.

      “What exactly are your objections?” Jason set down his spoon and regarded me with his cool blue gaze.

      I put down my own spoon and lamented the fact the clam chowder was ruined for me now. It had been damned good, too. Why wouldn’t it be? We were in Providence, Rhode Island, within spitting distance of the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, if I glanced to my right I could see the waves—pewter gray in the twilight—as they curled to the rocky shore right outside the back windows of the seafood restaurant.

      It was the first Friday in August and this was the kick-off dinner to this year’s New England Regional Gathering for the packs that held territories here.

      Jason and I were attending because of Lauren and my past association with two of the New England packs. He was from Silverlake, the premier pack in Montana, and, for the moment anyway, I belonged to Mac Tire of Dublin.

      Since his bond mate died of a stroke, he’d had three months to find a new one, by Pack law, in order to retain his pack and Great Council status. He’d obviously arranged to extend it so he could take advantage of the New England Regional and my mother as well.

      At the bonding ceremony tomorrow night he and Lauren were going to become bond mates, and she would leave Mayflower in favor of Silverlake.

      That was the bombshell. Jason Allerton, my boss, member of the Great Council, was going to bond with my fragile, damaged mother. Just when she’d taken her first tentative steps to reclaim herself, he was going to bond with her and I knew she’d defer to him the same way she’d always deferred to my father.

      She still had a month before she lost her Mayflower status, but it hardly mattered if she did. Unlike Jason Allerton, she had nothing to lose.

      “One of them is that you’re rushing her so you won’t lose your seat on the Great Council or your pack status and land in Silverlake.” I glowered at him across the table and he glared back. Jason Allerton rarely glared. A shiver ran down my spine, but I refused to back down.

      “Another is that she’s finally starting to find herself and now she’s going to lose it all so she can cater to you. Everything she’s accomplished in the past eight weeks is going to fall to pieces. Congratulations, Councilor, you’ve got yourself a doormat you can wipe your feet on and order around instead of an equal and someone with her own mind. Good job.”

      “Do you really think I’d undo all her progress simply because I became her bond mate?” His question was sincere, but his blue eyes were glacial. “You think I’m doing this for expedience’s sake and not because I genuinely care about Lauren?”

      “That’s exactly what I think. You’ve known her two months. How can you possibly care about her? You’re in a rush to get a bond mate. You didn’t expect Kathy Manning to turn you down. Now you’re scrambling and my mother is the convenient pawn in your game.”

      Jason became very still. The anger radiating from him was white-hot but I was past caring. This was my mother we were talking about, not some stranger. He’d blown it with his mistress, Kathy Manning, and now my mother would be sacrificed on the altar of his power. This was so not fucking right.

      “She said yes when I asked her to bond with me.” It was a warning to back down, but I ignored it.

      “Of course she did. What else could she say?”

      “Are you saying I coerced her?” His eyebrows drew together in a dark slash.

      “You’re like the godfather making her an offer